Blooming lovely

This beautiful family home will make you green with envy, as Cheryl Livingstone discovered

To see finely manicured lawnsandbrightly coloured flowers, you usually have to visit botanical gardens. But for 28 years, Myra and Alistair Cruickshank have had it all on their own doorstep.

The retired couple, who once owneda grocery store in Torry, Aberdeen, have spent the past three decades transforming the large rear garden, and smaller front garden at 25 Leggart Avenue, Aberdeen, into a flora haven.

“When we first bought the house, the garden was just grass and had an old-fashioned vegetable patch,” Myra, 69, said.

A large garden was one of the reasons the couple, who have two daughters, decided to move in the first place, having spent 16 years in Kincorth.

Alistair said: “We weren’t actively looking. We just hada look at property occasionally.

“We did look at a couple of others which were quite nice but the gardens just weren’t big enough.

“When we saw this one, we knew it was right. The solicitor who was selling the property lived next door and he told us the owners weren’t in but we could have a look at the back garden.

“We just knew that it was the right one for us. We could see the potential it had.”

“The size was perfect and we could imagine all the things we could do to it,” Myra added.

Gardening is something the couple have enjoyed for many years – for Alistair, it started as a young child visiting his grandparents.

He said: “It was really them that got me into it. It was an escape for them as they lived in tenement houses. They had a lovely garden and I spent a lot of time in it.”

Myra added: “I’ve always loved anything to do with gardens, it’s just one of those things. It’s a shared interest and it’s nice that we can do it together.

“It’s exciting as well because we are always coming up with new ideas. We are always looking for new things to add to the garden.”

Their passionandenjoymentfor their garden has also won them several accolades from the city’s Aberdeen in Bloom competition.

Over the past 10 years they have come first place, twice for the best front garden in the area and twice for best back garden not seen from the road for Aberdeen.

But their entry into the competition came about after a chance encounter.

Alistair said: “The people who were the judges at the time were walking past our house and they came and knocked at our door and said we should enter our garden. And the following year we did.

“We didn’t get first that year, we came third, which we were quite surprised ab started pulling

“The judges really, it’s just t fect. It wasfant those years.”

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