GRAND SCALE The lovingly restored grounds of a Scottish baronial mansion sparkle under a dusting of snow
Formal avenues and borders artfully planted with topiary now grace the once-derelict grounds of Portmore House in Scotland thanks to owner Chrissie Reid’s hard work and creativity
“I am keen on my stock bed. When you garden on this scale you need somewhere to propagate from plants that do Well. We bulk up a lot of things In this Way, Including our hedging”
Winters are long and hard in Peeblesshire. The cold begins to bite in October and a last frost can hit as late as June. It all came as a bit of a shock for Chrissie Reid when she moved from Hong Kong to Portmore House, just a few miles south of Edinburgh. Having grown up in the south of England, she had no real idea of what she was letting herself in for when her husband David decided he wanted to return to his Scottish roots.
Nevertheless, from the first time she drove up the wooded valley that leads to the Jacobean-style mansion over 35 years ago, Chrissie was delighted by the Scottish estate.
‘The house was a total wreck when we bought it,’ she says. ‘The roof was all but gone and there was a tree sapling growing up through one wall.’ Despite that, and the fact that she had three small children to care for, Chrissie took a deep breath and launched into renovating the house.
All in all, it wasn’t until 1987 that Chrissie was able to turn her attention to the garden. ‘The walled garden was in a terrible state – tumbled down and full of rabbits. The Victorian glasshouse was derelict and the rest of the grounds were overgrown and lacking in any real features,’ she says.
Beguiled by the Cotswold country gardening style then practised by the likes of Rosemary Verey and Penelope Hobhouse, she dreamt up elaborate border plans with masses of lavender, then rolled up her sleeves and started planting. ‘Needless to say, it all died off pretty quickly in our cold, heavy soil.
That was my first lesson in real-world gardening.’
Given the scale of the challenge facing her, even the indefatigable Chrissie gradually realised she was going to need some help. ‘So I put an ad in the local paper and I got Ken Kennedy. We have been working and learning together for 30 years now.’ Ken adds, ‘Mrs Reid is the designer and the heart and soul of the garden. I am Mr Practical!’
Chrissie decided to divide up the space and tackle one area at a time. ‘We began in the walled garden. The first job was to rebuild the walls and replace the railings so we could keep the rabbits out.’ Next, she set out a double herbaceous border, which runs the width of the garden from the entrance in the south up to the beautifully restored glasshouse. The content of these beds has been endlessly tweaked over the years, but their form has remained the same, backed by yew hedges that are now nearly 3m tall. ‘We have learned what grows happily here, and we have got better at structure,’ says Chrissie. ‘It is so important in a garden in the north to have features that hold it together through our long winters.’
The next design element to go in was a long allée of pleached red-twigged limes, which intersects the herbaceous borders and runs the full length of the garden. Having effectively quartered the garden, Chrissie then further subdivided it to create eight garden rooms, separated from each other by hedges. Half of these are filled with simple square lawns, two of them studded with yew topiary. There is also a herb garden and a rose garden, which are sleeping beauties at this time of year, although they, and the potager, are so crisply maintained that they are still a pleasure to walk through even when their beds are all but empty. The final segment contains a circle of malus, ringing a statue of the flower goddess Flora.
For the last seven years, Chrissie and Ken have also passed on the benefit of their hard-earned experience through the charity WRAGS (Work and Retrain as a Gardener Scheme). ‘It is a wonderful scheme,’ says Chrissie. ‘We employ trainees for two days a week and they learn on the job, just like I did – and still do!’
Portmore House, Eddleston, Peebles EH45 8QU, opens on selected days in July and August, and by appointment in June and September, portmoregardens.co.uk.
“The Two variegated hollies growing in lead containers by The glasshouse are special because They are The only plants remaining from The garden when we acquired it”