3 Balfour Cottages Menmuir By Brechin	New for 2010 Auricula Theatre waiting for the Auriculas to flower.
	Green tips For a barrier use garlic cloves boiled in water and the resulting solution is later diluted in water. Use when potting plants, sowing seeds and watering in the garden. When sprayed onto Hosta leaves, it helps to deter slugs and snails!    To feed your plants for free:- put handfuls of comfrey, covered in water, in old buckets where they decompose. The resulting rather smelly liquid is decanted into old plastic containers and used, diluted, in a watering can as a fertilizer.

The garden

 As you enter the garden through the first gate you pass the fern bed on your right, with clematis, Gunnera manicata and two living fossils: the Wollemi pine, a rare Australian native, and a Gingko. On your left is the working part of the garden, the polyshed, where the collection of Auricula is housed. Going through the second large gate into the main part of the garden, on your left is the new Auricula Theatre along the side of the pig shed which is now the potting / store shed. On your right is the small jungle with a large number of bamboos and more tender plants.

In front of you is the  alpine house renovated with the help of a friend Yvonne from Alexandria who helped Alison clear out all the dead wildlife and pots and pans from years of neglect. Thank you, Yvonne! Continuing down along the path you are in a small alleyway with Meconopsis, Primula species, Hosta and bonsai on both sides, and as you round the corner you come to the raised bed full of alpines.

Through the arch you come to the only part of the garden that has any grass, a lawn no more than 2 metres in  diameter! Here, the garden takes you through the year with snowdrops, then winter aconite and hellebores handing over to the daffodils, and Hostas then take over with a few choice plants pushing their heads through, e.g. the candelabra Primula and Allium later in the year. Clematis take over the whole of the garden with tiny white and blue flowers of C. alpinas to the very deep purple flowers of C. The President.

Down the step into the last room of the garden and to the back door with a large mix of pots, bamboo, conifers, Acers, Hosta and more bonsai. Also a very handy place for a hard working gardener to have a rest!!! Right next to the back door is the mint collection, and a few pots of herbs which is very handy for the chef (Mark)!