Bee swarm in Lochgilphead? Help is a minute away.

Lochgilphead is the administrative centre of Argyll and Bute, a compact town at the head of Loch Gilp on the Crinan Canal corridor. The Crinan Canal — dug in the early nineteenth century to allow vessels to avoid the Mull of Kintyre — runs through the countryside north of the town, its grassy towpath lined with hawthorn, elder and sycamore. Kilmory Castle country park east of the town centre provides wooded parkland, ornamental trees and grassland close to the civic offices. The mid-Argyll landscape carries improved farmland with white clover and heather moors to the north-east.

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.