Garden of the Week
Packing a real floral punch, this Perthshire garden maximises both space and time to great effect
The charming small garden at Gardener’s Cottage delivers a fabulous floral punch with the amount of plants that Brian Dwyer has managed to accommodate in such a small space, and in a relatively small amount of time. “My garden is my therapy area – it keeps me sane,” he says. “Whether it’s working in it and maintaining it and losing track of time, or simply sitting in it to enjoy, it’s been a godsend over the past year during lockdown.”
Brian has made great use of the ‘borrowed landscape’ of the surrounding area. “This is very special and adds a lot to the garden, as do the giant specimen trees that form part of Glendoick House gardens. I especially appreciate the giant redwood sited at the south-eastern corner and the ancient copper beech to the west on the drive. The elevated position of the garden also affords a view over to the hills of Fife.”
This delightful rural location means there’s a vast mix of wildlife that Brian and his wife, Nikki, love to sit and watch. “We welcome lots of garden birds, including goldfinches, long-tailed tits, robins, the resident great-spotted woodpecker and a family of buzzards. We also have deer, hedgehogs, frogs, toads and red squirrels.”
All the local wildlife must love Brian’s naturalistic planting style and schemes. “I don’t do formal! But I do appreciate some balance. Having a design eye,
I like to experiment with layers and heights with varying success. I never properly plan, but prefer to experiment and try something. If I don’t like the look of an area as it progresses, then I’ll rearrange it. Some would describe the overall style as a cottage garden.”
When Brian first moved in, the garden was somewhat neglected. The grassed front garden was originally a vegetable allotment, which explains the areas of better soil. But with vast amounts of energy, and help from family members, he went on an epic journey of rebuilding and altering.
“My family helped transport the many plants from my previous garden, repair and build new dry stone walls and replace paved steps. The scrappy east-side garden was levelled to create a seating area with gravel, ornamental grasses and bamboo and the rear garden was dug out to construct a wildlife pond. My dad helped me build a small patio in the front garden and I dug out two new oval borders into the front lawn to create areas of interest with shrubs and herbaceous perennials.” These contain a vast range of different plants, including escallonias, weigelas, hebes, potentillas, cotinus and cistus, some of which are mirrored by different varieties in the opposite bed.
The vast stepped bank at the back, containing rhododendrons, had also been full of brambles, nettles and other rampant weeds. “I repositioned three of the rhododendrons so I could construct