Bee swarm in Dunoon? Help is a minute away.

Dunoon is the main town of the Cowal peninsula, set on the west shore of the Firth of Clyde with a regular ferry connection to Gourock. The town faces east across the Clyde to the Renfrewshire hills, and the steep hillside behind rises through mixed woodland into the heather moors and forestry of the Cowal hills. The Kilmun Arboretum on Holy Loch is one of the finest arboreta in Scotland, with specimen trees including southern beech, rare conifers and an exceptional collection of flowering shrubs. The Castle House Museum gardens and the town foreshore provide accessible urban forage through the summer.

Heather is the defining flow of Argyll — Calluna vulgaris covers the hills, glens and island moors from late July into September, offering one of the longest heather seasons in Scotland. Gorse and broom flower in two flushes — April and again in late summer — on every rocky coastal headland and glen-side. Sycamore is the principal woodland forage tree, prolific in the sheltered sea-loch valleys and estate policies from late April. Bramble is abundant on the lower ground and forest clearings from July. White clover grows on the improved coastal grassland of the Kintyre plain, the Isle of Bute and the Oban hinterland. Cross-leaved heath in the wetter blanket bogs supplements the main heather flow on the islands.