THE SECRET GARDEN
A hidden treasure trove blooming with colour, Andrew and Alex Gray-Muir’s Gilmerton garden offers visitors the chance to stop and smell the roses, finds Antoinette Galbraith
This Gilmerton garden is brimming with hidden treasures
Arriving at 89 Ravenscroft Street in Gilmerton you could be forgiven a moment’s hesitation. The elegant but understated Georgian tardis overlooking a sloping lawn with just a few roses festooned over its facade gives no hint of the treasure trove hidden behind the high stone wall beside the house.
The sense of mystery is reinforced when Andrew Gray-Muir, who with his wife Alex has spent 55 years creating this garden, says ‘I’m going to ask you to do a couple of odd things. Just accept it and do exactly as I tell you.’ Then, indicating the arch in the wall, he continues, ‘I’d like you to walk into the corner, turn left and move very slowly forward.’
The impact is immediate. In front of you lies a glorious jewel, a semi-formal potager backed with a rich array of herbaceous plants spilling over the gravel paths. While a fountain of pure white Crambe cordifolia explodes into the vegetables, a lilac and purple potato plant Solanum crispum ‘runs riot’ past pink and white foxgloves, and the Tree Anemone Carpenteria californica. The atmosphere is reinforced by the sight of Sam, who helps here one day a week, weeding in a scarlet jersey.
Andrew and Alex Gray-Muir moved here attracted by the block of land, which they say was used as a football pitch by their two children for the first ten years. Later they were able to extend the former market garden by purchasing small parcels of neighbouring land. The result is a series of linked spaces carefully concealed from each other by hedges and original walls.
Following instructions you move forward a couple of steps and a show-stopping rose border overlooking a lawn bursts into full glory. Fragrant pink, deep pink and ruby red roses stand out against a backdrop of climbing varieties such as pink Fantin Latour. ‘I asked David Austin for a selection of fragrant roses and this is what he sent,’ Alex says, adding ‘I always plant bare rooted roses and feed them well.’
Andrew directs a right turn towards a rectangular lawn backed by a beech hedge. Here, to the rear of the house a lightly planted garden is filled with airy plants such as purple and pink
Ahead of you a show-stopping rose border overlooking a lawn bursts into full glory
aquilegia. ‘I like transparent plants you can see through such as sanguisorba,’ says Alex.
‘Continue up to the top right-hand corner of the lawn aiming for the gap in the hedge. Then walk very slowly through.’ In this informal space nature appears to have been allowed a free rein; clouds of cow parsley float above the grass. ‘There are magical bits in this garden and there are eye-catching bits,’ says Andrew. ‘And this is one of the magical bits. The magic is found in the play of the light: the way in which it filters through the trees while the shadows move with the sun.’
Andrew then directs a right turn and slow walk into a narrow passage bound on one side by an ochre-coloured wall. By this time you expect another surprise but nothing prepares you for the striking view from an Italian-style terrace towards the Moorfoot Hills in the Southern Uplands.
To your left a grey stone wall gives way to a recessed arch, which Andrew explains is ‘a B-listed 18th-century arched gazebo and viewing platform once in the grounds of nearby Gilmerton House’. The gazebo was purchased and restored in the 1980s when the grounds of the demolished Gilmerton House were developed. Its viewing platform is reached by a stone staircase and satisfies Andrew’s longing for a view: this one is a stunning vista over the Pentland
Hills, Berwick Law and the Bass Rock.
Continue slowly along the terrace and the latest addition, known as The Farm because it was bought from the farmer next door, sits below. Now enclosed by a tall ochre rendered wall lined with a row of pleached hornbeam trees, this mild and sheltered spot planted in a soft palate of pink and white roses echoes the Italian feel of the platform.
Next comes Alex’s spring garden, where bulbs including ‘the remains of the hundreds of naturalised tulips left by the squirrels’, and hellebores kick-start the season.
The series of surprises reaches a crescendo in the Pond Garden. Tucked away behind a narrow, rose festooned arch at the side of the outer wall this room delivers such a dramatic surprise that you don’t need to be reminded to stop. Abundant naturalistic plantings are reminiscent of Monet’s garden at Giverny, heightened by the backdrop of the old stone and pantiled barn.
Purple iris, tall orange and yellow Primula florindae, deep magneta Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’ astilbe, fresh lime green ferns and clumps of maroon Heuchera Palace Purple are set against curtains of roses and clematis draping over walls. Yellow flag irises from Alex’s family home in the Highlands proliferate. Here, surrounded by flowers, Andrew swims in the summer.
A short walk back to the rose border completes the circle of wonder. Just remember, when you visit, to walk slowly.
It delivers such a dramatic surprise that you don’t need to be reminded to stop