To have a garden is to be rich. A garden is where interest grows. And to be fortunate enough to nurture one garden for forty years qualifies as an exponential bonanza.
Some rewards are obvious:
- a constant supply of fruit and vegetables free from chemicals and air miles;
- a wood where once was a potato field, now a diverse mix of native and non-native trees up to 50ft. high, underplanted with shrubs and herbaceous perennials: a woodland garden that brings constant pleasure to both humans and wildlife;
- 101 species of birds recorded since 1983, many of which would not have occurred without the creation of the garden
– we are surrounded by 20th-century agriculture, mostly sheep;
- a degree of protection from the elements, though it has to be pointed out that we have experienced four tree-breaking storms in 40 years, all four within the past eighteen months;
- also recently, the opportunity to open the garden to visitors and share their enjoyment while raising funds for a world-leading conservation charity;
- and, I suppose, a degree of vindication that the techniques we’ve acquired over time have allowed us to demonstrate the enormous variety of plants, edible and otherwise, that can be encouraged to thrive in north-east Scotland.
But there are less obvious benefits to be derived from staying in one place for a considerable length of time – not just the ability to watch an oak grow from hand-planted seedling to majestic tree, but more subtle changes from year to year, such as the interactions between plants.
The first thing to know about this garden is the hawthorn hedge that formed two-and-a-bit sides of our original acre-and-a-half purchase. This hedge, as much as anything, influenced our decision to start a new garden here. A tall, thick hedge on the north and east boundaries of a plot which sloped to the south, protected also to some extent by topography, was almost too much to hope for.
I am not sure when it was planted but our Title Deeds from 1919 mention this hedge and state that should it be removed it would have to be replaced with a stockproof fence of specified dimensions.
In places we have removed short sections – one where a newer, adjacent hedge makes it redundant, another where we wanted to link old garden with new; and in another, where extra room was needed for parking cars. Here our friendly, local contractor grabbed a section in his JCB bucket, pulled and tipped a few metres away – unwittingly creating a new feature which we call Henry’s Wood. But in none of these places did the hedge continue to mark our boundary, so no replacement fence was required.
Most of the old hedge remains, however, shaped annually to a height of five or six feet, and valued primarily as a nesting habitat for various birds. South of the house we have allowed individual plants to attain tree status – multi-branched veterans up to 30ft high. Our most recent storm, Otto, ripped one of these apart, necessitating a complete beheading job. The three-foot stump will probably resprout, and as a result may well outlive its neighbours.
Apart from the August trim – now made quieter and easier with a lithium battery-powered machine – it has been necessary to remove tree seedlings from within the hedge. Elder (Sambucus nigra) is particularly good at insinuating itself amongst the prickly hawthorn trunks but can generally be levered out with a suitable spade. Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) is more difficult to remove and frequently gets lopped by the hedgecutter, consequently becoming bushier year on year.
We had noticed that a small sycamore was established in the hedge back in 1983 but because this was on the northern boundary and providing some shelter to a newly-planted orchard, we left it there. Over the following years we watched the tree grow, and the hedge beneath it diminish. When, in late 2014, we were surprisingly able to add two more acres to the garden, we removed this section of hedge but left the sycamore. It was of much the same size as an adjacent row of similar trees that ran at right angles to the old boundary, now within our extended plot.
On examination of the far end of this row we discovered a lone hawthorn. When we took a closer look at an aerial photograph of the property taken in the ‘60s, it became obvious that the line of sycamores had almost entirely replaced a section of hawthorn hedge contiguous with the one that bordered the old garden. The only survivor was that single loner, protected between two fences and with enough light and water to keep growing.
The process we had noticed at the back of the orchard had supplanted a hedge which, for more than fifty years, had been imperceptibly dwindling on our neighbour’s land. Now, by some strange coincidence, the new boundary fence has reunited parts of a croft that have been separated for over half a century.
The same process is visible in another section of the hedge where we are allowing it to happen. Here, selected self-sown sycamores at reasonable spacing are avoided with the hedgecutter, and have begun to tower above the hawthorn. It remains to be seen how long the hedge can tolerate this stealthy invasion.
Sycamore has a bad reputation. Once thought to have been introduced from Europe by the Romans, it now seems to have arrived here in Tudor times, with the earliest reports of naturalisation coming from the eighteenth century. And, since not native, it can’t compete with willow or oak as a supporter of biodiversity. Nevertheless, it attracts aphids, and therefore aphid eaters: ladybirds, hoverflies and birds. Its leaves are eaten by a number of different moth caterpillars and its flowers provide a good source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects. Furthermore, its seeds are eaten by both birds and small mammals.
Unlike elder, whose edible berries begin the process of hedge colonisation, via the blackbirds that feast on them, sycamore seed is wind dispersed. If this garden were allowed to grow untended for fifty years it would become a sycamore forest, outcompeting most other plants in the way it suppresses hawthorn.
And unlike other Acers, the foliage of sycamore is coarse; and towards the end of the season is often blotched with tar spot fungus. It acquires no glorious autumn colour. But it grows fast and develops a beautiful shape – and in time, an attractive flaking bark. It is also incredibly tough, withstanding the worst of weather which, in N.E. Scotland, can be bad. Most of the large, deciduous trees in this neighbourhood – of which there are still very few – are sycamores (and, like the sycamore, most of the conifers round here are also not native, but all of them were planted, unlike the sycamores).
Furthermore, the timber is useful…...and finally, it has to be admitted that the most splendid tree in this garden is a sycamore. And the sneaky, invasive behaviour of this species only increases my respect.