Introducing the garden

Stunning view to the south, but oh my goodness the wind

In 2018 we started moving from our Edinburgh home of 38 years to my late parents’ house in the north east of Scotland. For a good 8 years before my father died (my mother having died much earlier) he was unfit to manage the reasonably large garden. The plot consists of a modern house surrounded by garden, much of which is lawn at the front, with classic narrow borders-round-the-edges. The rear is given over to veg and fruit, again with a couple of lawns. There are stunning views in some directions, and views which I would like to mask in others. The prevailing wind is southerly, which is also the aspect where the garden is at its most exposed.

Everything was very lovely and tidy in a very time-consuming 1970s way for many years (more of that in a future post), but its heyday was over and it had become just a large space waiting to be colonised by nature[1]. It’s quite gentle the way a garden becomes overgrown. A bit weedy the first year, a few more pesky weeds the next, and one day you realise that a mature bramble bush is taking up much of one border, what was once soil is now solid couch grass enlivened by plentiful thistles, and every border is a good foot narrower because of lawn encroachment.

Part of a long border beside the street at the front of the house. Short grass and …much longer grass. Plus weeds

For the first couple of years we were too busy to do very much to the garden. I was working in a post-retirement job that was meant to be fun but very much wasn’t, and besides lack of fun it was very energy-sapping. My husband was working between here and Edinburgh on a 2 weeks here/2 weeks there basis. Then we started a major renovation of the house, with builders in, external walls down, scaffolding up, the full works. The first lockdown halted all of that and for the first time we were confronted by the garden with nowhere for us to run and plentiful spare time to at least make a start. We had a bit of extra help from our daughter, who had wisely chosen to work remotely here rather than in a flatshare in a large city. A decision she may have regretted on de-turfing day.

De-turfing squad desperate for a cup of tea

For some reason, despite not having cleared the borders at the front of the house, I decided that I urgently needed more growing space. It was probably lockdown survival brain kicking in. So I engaged my captive squad to de-turf a section of lawn beside the raspberry canes. This had been a large growing area in the early days of the garden, given over first of all to raspberries and strawberries.

Aspect from the side lawn towards the back of the garden, with de-turfed section beyond the raspberries

Being Scottish, lockdown survival brain meant that I chose to guarantee our food supply via the potato, with the result that any available soil had a tattie thrust into it.

Thriving tatties in former flower border, and thriving weeds plus airy self-seeded cow parsley beyond

Have space, insert tatties

After the Year of the Vast Potato Harvest, and once I had emerged from my carb-induced stupor, I started to tackle what had once been flower borders. I was determined to get the soil as clear as I could before getting to the stage of permanent planting. It took three summers of digging before I was satisfied. A lupin that had become over-comfortable had to be taken out with a pickaxe. I did consider a no-dig approach, but decided against it because the cost of compost to cover cardboard laid down would have been prohibitive. A wildflower mix took care of one border for a season. The following year the true survivors were apparent: Calendula, Eschscholzia and Corn Cockle. The year after that the Eschscholzia began to out-compete even the Calendula and to colonise the whole of the rest of the border. Further digging out was necessary. I did feel a bit of a pang about this, but my long-term plan was not a 21 metre border of Eschscholzia in front of the house. For one thing, it would be a sodden mass of collapsed stems all winter, and I wanted some winter height and seedheads in there to take the garden through the days of glittering frost and sun, as well as blizzards and rain.

First summer of wildflower mix. Beware the Eschscholzia!

“Greenhouse Border”

At the back of the house are a further veg plot and an area of lawn with fruit trees. With pretensions towards country house grandeur I’ve named them Greenhouse Border and Apple Tree Border to distinguish one from the other. The greenhouse itself dates from 1978 and has had almost every pane of glass replaced since then. It’s survived an escaped cow rampaging through the garden - one of the perils of gardening on the edge of farmland. Since the photo above was taken, the exuberant lemon balm at the left of the shot has been removed. When I began to take this area in hand it was all a dense mat of grass and weeds.

Weeds on a good day - it was worse

“Apple tree border”

The other border at the back of the house has two cooking apple trees, variety unknown, both dating from 1978, and a dwarf rootstock James Grieve eating apple from the same era which is amazingly prolific. The holly tree to the left of the shot is a bit irksome. Sometimes it’s nice to have holly for the cutting at Christmas (tho the birds have usually demolished any berries before then). It also shelters James Grieve from the strong southerly winds. However, its canopy creates a big area of dry shade in an area that I’d like to be more productive.

“New Border”

The latest border was created from part of the drive at the side of the house. Previously the gravel had just bled into a narrow (of course), scruffy, undelineated strip of earth beside the fence. When we had the drive levelled and re-gravelled a couple of years ago I insisted on a proper border that wasn’t going to be encroached on by a car. This has the worst soil in the garden. The contractor offered to put some “topsoil” in there, but I now know that contractor’s topsoil can consist of a smidgin of soil and a lot of gravel. So this will be my homage to Beth Chatto bed. There’s a bit more planting there now since this shot was taken. The Erysymum ‘Bowles’ Mauve’ that you can see in the photo has been taken out. It really wasn’t doing what I wanted it to, so no mercy was shown.

In my next post I’ll take a quick look back at the very early days of the garden. After that I’ll get on to some of the structural work we’ve done.

In the meantime, happy Easter gardening!

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[1] The slow takeover reminded me of the book The World Without Us, which charts what would happen if humanity suddenly disappeared and nature started to move in. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/401027/the-world-without-us-by-weisman-alan/9780753559710