echinosum wrote:

If you go to southern patagonia, a very windy place, you will observe
that the shrubs there tend to be cushion shaped. I'm not entirely sure
what the various "spiny cushion plants" one had to avoid sitting on
were, but they were quite various, and survived remarkably terrible
conditions, in effect a range of different gorse-like plants. One
non-spiny patagonian cushion-like shrub I do know you can get here
from specialists here is Baccharis patagonica, though if you are
inland in the grampians it probably won't be hardy enough for you.
Quite a few berberis will probably do you too, many of those are from
Chile.

The dominant tree in Patagonia is Nothofagus antarctica, which bonsais
itself rather splendidly in an exposed location, though can't grow in
the most exposed locations. I have a N antarctica in my Bucks garden,
and it is quite fast growing, after 7 yrs it has now equalled in
height the 20-yr old scots pine and picea glauca in the garden. By
having very small leaves and a sparse larch-like branch structure, it
shed wind easily. It grows slower in windier places. A lovely tree.
Nothofagus betuloides is a another wind-resistant tree from southern
Chile, an evergreen this time, but it prefers damp wind to dry, so
probably won't do in the Grampians. Actually does better in a windy
location, because otherwise it grows too fast and then gets knocked
over when it is windy. If you read spanish, you may find further
interesting ideas here. http://www.florachilena.cl/


Patagonia is windy, but it is also very dry. The soil tends to be pretty
sandy, too. There are lots of dwarf plants there, and as much as I would
love to see Junellias growing in Scotland, it won't happen. It is a lot
damper on the Chilean side of the Andes and there are a number of rare
plants down in the Torres del Paine which at first glance might seem
suitable, but, once again, it just won't happen. I've seen Embothrium
coccineum in flower adjacent to icebergs on Lago Grey, so that might be an
option if seeds of those particular plants became available. But only a
couple of k away was Anarthrophyllum desideratum, and there is no way that
will grow in Scotland. So although Patagonia and Southern Chile might seem
to offer plants suitable for the OP, the conditions are too dissimilar for
them to succeed in Scotland.

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)