A spectacle of spring
A constantly evolving work in progress is a little piece of paradise near the banks of the river Tay
When Frances Tait and her late husband, David, moved into their new home on the outskirts of Dundee three decades ago, they inherited a garden that was, horticulturally speaking, a blank canvas. A long slope of grass and daffodils, with a veg patch at the end and a privet hedge to one side.
But to them this wasn’t a hindrance so much as an opportunity, and when it came to creating something wonderful, they had some significant advantages. They were already skilled and well-connected gardeners, having run their own nursery, and David was a keen chrysanthemum grower and shower. And now, at the point of retirement, they found themselves with time on their hands, too. “We took advantage of our free time and knowledge and went plant hunting all over the country,” says Frances. “My husband was particularly keen on rhododendrons and camellias, but we picked up all sorts of interesting things on our nursery tour.”
The couple then started on a transformation, digging up the lawn, removing the stones and creating borders. They’d brought a monkey puzzle tree with them, an earlier birthday present from Frances to David, which had arrived wedged into a van on the diagonal, while a screen of hardy rhododendrons was also planted to protect the space from prevailing easterly winds.
“The shelter belt is essential,” explains Frances. “We chose plants that would take the blast of wet, windy weather and protect other, more tender specimens. We fed them well when they were planted and mulched them with leaf mould and they now do a good job of reducing the exposure. As for the monkey puzzle, it’s now as high as a two or three-storey house!”
The garden is set between two busy roads, with the house at the top of a steep slope looking out over the River Tay to the hills of Fife beyond. On the left-hand side, a flight of steps descends through a collection of camellias and past half a dozen beautiful azaleas underplanted with double snowdrops, willow gentian and meconopsis ‘Lingholm’ (Himalayan blue poppy). It then continues downwards, via a plantation of sweet peas and more camellias and rhododendrons, to the patio and sunroom at the bottom of the garden.
Frances’ gardening style is strongly layered, with a canopy of shrubs and trees above and lashings of bulbs beneath and around them. Each year she plants up to 200 tulips and recent experiments with autumn-flowering crocuses have been very successful, providing nearly two months of colour. But she has robust views on what constitutes good use of space and, as a former professional horticulturist, she’s unimpressed by some of the gardening she sees in the media.
“Garden TV shows horrify me!” she says. “If you’re buying plants you need to look at how big they’re going to get. A small conifer in a two-litre pot measuring half a metre high could be a great deal taller than that in 10 years, and
you have to think about how wide they get, too. When I was at work, I used to tell people that if you have a 10ft-square space, you don’t need a great many plants, but you do need to choose carefully. And while you’re waiting for them to grow, fill up the space with annuals – you’ll need fewer and fewer each time!”
One of the most interesting and significant features of this garden is that it contains one of the nine wells that give the local area its name. The water springs from under a slab of sandstone, about a third of the way down the garden, and creates a small pool before running away under a little bridge and out through the bottom wall towards the Tay.
“The well used to supply water to the farm and cottages over the road, before the piped water came,” says Frances. “I remember my grandfather saying that at the turn of the last century travellers into and out of Dundee would stop as it was the first source of fresh water outside the city.”
This, too, is a bonus: because the water coming out of the ground is at a consistent temperature and it creates a microclimate, along with the river and the flow of traffic on the roads either side that keep the air moving, so frost rarely settles. In spring, Frances is fond of the bulbs and cyclamen that form a low carpet under the trees and shrubs, but she’s always ready to try something new and, as far as she’s concerned, the garden is far from complete.
“I’ve been gardening since I was six years old and I’m now 88,” she says. “I can find something in bloom every day of the year but it’s never finished and I’ve still got alterations in mind. All the pieces of paper came out when we were in lockdown: it’s still a work in progress.”