| Hi Topsiebeezelbub! I rarely log in to GardenWeb but I did so tonight and found a reference to Arduaine Garden, all the way from Alabama! Wow! I'm not sure about the loveliest man bit, but I can certainly tell you a little more about the garden and the proposed closure. The National Trust for Scotland has agreed to reconsider the situation at the end of 2012, and in the meantime to start an appeal to raise £1 million to boost our endowment fund, to provide enough investment income to keep us going. Our visitor numbers have risen to over 16,000 this year and we've begun a very small retail operation, but because of our comparatively remote situation we're never going to be visited as much as some gardens. The good news, however, is that £300,000 has already been raised and the appeal will go public at the start of 2011. We have a Support Group which is helping us to hold small events throughout the year and again, though these are never going to be huge, they will be enough to get the garden's name out there a little more. So we're all pretty positive and my wife Sheila and I are now fairly secure in our jobs. Sheila works in the garden reception during the visitor season and our two daughters, who had a happy childhood here, are grown up and gone but come home regularly! I hope you will manage to come here one day - it's a wonderful garden in a fantastic location! I thought I would never come to the USA but in 2007 I was invited by the HPS to Pennsylvania to give a couple of lectures - we stayed three weeks in peoples' houses - and I've recently been invited to come to Michigan to give a lecture in March 2012! So it can happen! All good wishes, Maurice. | 
