If you’re a gardener yearning to make the most of a small outdoor space, but not knowing quite where to start, garden owners who are opening up their gardens to the public this summer may provide inspiration.
There’s a feelgood factor to visiting an open garden in the National Garden Scheme (NGS) too, as your ticket entry helps to raise money for nursing and health charities. Small gardens which are opening up to the public in conjunction with the NGS feature everything from glorious windowsill pots to quirky recyclables, including brightly-painted ladders, reclaimed mirrors and bird cages, and there’s even an impressive little railway cottage front garden, that’s been transformed into an edible paradise.
If you can’t get to the gardens, many of them are open virtually through the NGS website (ngs.org.uk), to give you ideas for your own planting, colour schemes and style.
If you do want to go, you’ll need to book a pre-timed entry slot and check the NGS website and its Scottish counterpart SGS (scotlandsgardens.org) for updates on Covid-19 restrictions.
Some of the highlights include...
1 Burnton Road, Dalrymple, Ayrshire
If you’re after some exotic inspiration, this garden (main image), opening for the first time under Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, features tropical ideas in a tiny slice of jungle, nestled within a small triangular plot. Planting includes palms, bamboos and tree ferns, as well as hardy and tender bromeliads, while flower highlights are provided by lilies, cannas and gingers.
GARDENER’S COTTAGE Crombie, Dunfermline
Originally part of the Craigflower Estate, the garden was transformed by the late Scottish-German botanist Ursula McHardy to demonstrate models of natural vegetation patterns of the Southern Hemisphere.
Within the walled garden you will find an Australian eucalyptus forest and a South American forest with southern beeches and monkey-puzzles. There is also a South African area and a New Zealand section with five pools as well as traditional mixed borders.
DUNDONNELL HOUSE Little Loch Broom, Wester Ross
Camellias, magnolias and bulbs in spring, rhododendrons and laburnum walk in this ancient walled garden.
Exciting planting in new borders gives all year colour centred around one of the oldest yew trees in Scotland. It’s large at 25 acres but you can take each element as an inspiration for a smaller plot. There’s a new water sculpture, midsummer roses, and a recently restored unique Victorian glass house.
42 Falconer Road, Herts
This is such a quirky garden, replete with painted ladder, right, bird cages, mirrors and other antiquarian ephemera and objets d’art, which interior designer owner Suzette Fuller has picked up from her customers’ cast-offs over the years. Planting comprises old-fashioned favourites, including hollyhocks, foxgloves and dianthus, along with more than 25 hanging baskets, which are peppered throughout the garden.
18 Highfield Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire
It may be a small terraced garden, left, but it packs a huge punch if you love structural planting featuring agapanthus and other striking plants in pots, at the front of an impressive vista of shrubs and herbaceous plants. The owner knows her plants – she’s an RHS Certificate holder and it shows, as she combines formality with a more relaxed look, inspired by Christopher Lloyd.
19 Fir St, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
This is one of two small urban gardens, designed and owned by members of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. Anyone interested in naturalistic planting will appreciate the meadow-style design packed with plants, many of which are native to South Africa, which are usually considered too tender for a northern English city, but which will give you colour and leaf interest from February to November.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here