Mixing it up
Nurseryman’s Perthshire garden is a beautiful blend of plant planning and experimentation where business and pleasure merge
Peter Milne admits that he frequently takes his work home with him. Luckily for him as the owner of a wholesale nursery specialising in Scottish-grown plants, it’s not too much of a chore.
He can plant his borders and beds at home, seven miles from the city of Perth, Scotland, with the pick of the crop. “As a result my garden is very mixed; I have herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees. It’s a testing ground but one where business and pleasure definitely merge,” he says. The south-facing plot is set on a slope, with a burn (small stream) running through it. When he moved in over 40 years ago, there was nothing to work with, so Peter treated it as a blank canvas.
“In those days, I created a big heather garden, but when that fell out of fashion, I moved on and it’s evolved over the years. I’m always taking things out and putting new things in, dividing plants and taking cuttings: there’s no real map of this garden.” In March, there are plenty of cheery daffodils and the glowing flowers of hamamelis on their twiggy bare stems to be seen.
Although Peter doesn’t claim to be a tree expert, he has plenty of interesting varieties here, including a favourite yew, a blue dwarf larch and some Betula jacquemontii,
which he loves for their pure white bark, which looks especially striking in winter and early spring. There are still some rhododendrons in flower, part of a small collection, “but as we specialise in those at the nursery, they’re one plant that I tend to keep away from in the garden,” he says.
There are lawns to the front and back of the house. They have a lush appearance. “We don’t get high rainfall like the west coast of Scotland, and I don’t feed or spray them. In fact, I don’t do anything to them at all apart from mowing,” says Peter.
Gardening on a slope can mean that beds dry out more quickly, so Peter adds compost to keep the
moisture in. Some years ago, he cut steps into the gradient in the back garden. These have been paved, and extra structure is added with a group of carefully clipped box bushes. “There are all sorts of varieties, I just threw them in. We don’t get box blight here, and all I need to do is clip them once a year, usually in August.”
His vegetable garden will be planted in April when the soil has warmed up, although Peter explains that the beds may have been taken over as a testing ground for herbaceous perennials by then. “I’m always looking for plants to try. When I’m holidaying in the UK, I usually manage to spot some new varieties. And we
have some inspiring gardens in Scotland: Galloway is a particularly good place to find them.”
There are three seating areas, or ‘gin seats’ as Peter prefers to describe them! “I stop work at five-ish to get the last of the sun as it sinks behind the big hill behind our garden. I do all of the work myself, and I’m out here most evenings to keep on top of things. My dog Sandy, a cocker spaniel, will always be with me.”
Peter's especially fond of the front garden, which blends seamlessly with a view over the rolling, round-topped Ochil Hills. Here, more than anywhere else in the space, there’s a planned theme, with blue and white planting, the work of Peter’s partner. “Sometimes I stand on the drive and just look at it and appreciate it,” he says.
Horticulture has been in the family for three generations, and Peter now runs the nursery with his son Andrew. “I never really switch off,” he says, and he sounds perfectly content with that.