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Kathleen’s Garden

This month is the turn of our Gardenbuddy from Scotland, Scotkat to share her garden with us.

Kath’s second home was her first house with a garden and when she moved there in 1978 that was the start of a very enjoyable hobby. She remembers helping her Dad to weed in his borders when she was growing up and says he was a bit of a perfectionist in the garden – a hard act to follow.

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DH gave her a greenhouse for her birthday one year, and for a few years she tried to grow tomatoes, sweet corn and courgettes. She laughs when she tells me that they quickly grew into marrows! As the years went by Kath decided she no longer wanted to grow vegetables but would prefer to sow seed and try her hand at growing bedding plants as plug plants which she could then plant out later when they’d grown into a nice healthy size. A neighbor had two greenhouses and they used to share a packet of seeds over a cup of tea.

About 20 years ago Kath was given a fuchsia plant for the garden. She became hooked on the plants and now her greenhouse is devoted to growing fuchsias. She also overwinters geraniums to use for outdoor tubs in the summer. To save on expenses Kath learned to take cuttings and overwinter her plants. She says it’s also very therapeutic.

Kath’s present garden is 16 years old. She moved there in September and the garden was put on hold until the following Spring when she started to think about the layout. “We had to decide what we wanted in the way of shrubs in garden how high they would grow or basically what we should grow as we really did not know.”

The size of the garden is approx 70ft x 30ft and is a lovely suntrap at the back of house all day until early evening.

The greenhouse was left at the house they sold and Kath wasn’t sure where to situate a new one. Now all these years later there are two greenhouses and the garden is well established. Quite an accomplishment and reward for all the hard work and effort put into the garden when it was essentially a building site to start with.

Kath & DH appreciated it when neighbours and friends offered plants that were getting too big for their own garden and could be split up. As they were starting off from a bare canvas this was most acceptable.

“Over the years we have realized that we are a few years older, we want an easy-to-maintain garden to relax and enjoy without so much heavy work in the garden. But most of all each shrub or the odd bulb tells a story or a memory of a relative or friend when they gave it to us, so you could say it’s easier remembering a plant by the name of the person who gave it to us. My hydrangea is now exactly 16 years old and it came way of a cutting from an old neighbour who has since passed away I always admired his hydrangea in his garden as I walked passed his door so he layered a stem of his hydrangea and left it till it then made root into the ground. About two months on I was the proud owner of a baby shrub hydrangea. Over the 16 years in its growing habit it has been moved twice but is now in its final part of the garden and 2004 was its best year ever to be in full bloom.”

The family are always willing to give a helping hand with all the heavy manual work, cutting grass or helping with pruning things that Kath can’t reach, being very small can sometimes cause a problem!

Fuchsias are still Kath’s favourite plant but she is now also interested in growing geraniums. She enjoys all plants and loves walking round gardens that are open to the public.

Kath’s garden is very wildlife friendly. She gets a lot of birds flying to the garden although she tends not to feed the birds because of neighboring cats. She encourages insects like bees and ladybirds.

“It’s lovely to watch the birds and this week we have heard the birds chirping in the morning, hopefully a sign that Spring is not far away.”.

Kath’s plans for the coming year include a general tidy up in the garden from February through March. Everything will need to be pruned, and Kath has to be ruthless sometimes as a lot of growth from last year needs to be cut back before the start of new growth.

“This year I would like to change a part of the garden to accommodate some nice shrubs with variegated foliage suitable for that other hobby of mine which is flower arranging. Very useful and much cheaper if you have plenty greenery in garden that you can make use of.”

Thank you Kath for sharing your garden with us.

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