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Variety is the spice of life and the assortment of planting at Monteviot House in the Scottish Borders provides interest for all
WORDS ANTOINETTE GALBRAITH IMAGES ANGUS BLACKBURN W
Left: The herb garden. Above: Winter frost gives Monteviot a festive feel.
hilst serving as Minister for North- ern Ireland in the mid-nineties, Michael Ancram – now Lord Lothian
– spent weekends visiting the great Northern Irish gardens with his wife Jane.
‘I would come
home feeling very jealous,’ he recalls. ’They could grow so much in their mild climate and I also envied the general botanical wealth of so many of their gardens.’ Soon he was inspired to try creating his own garden. Monteviot, his family home overlooking the
River Teviot north of Jedburgh, was the perfect blank canvas. Landscaped in the late 18th century by his great, great uncle Schomberg