Journal

Broadwoodside Garden, Gifford

Broadwoodside garden - home to Robert and Anna Dalrymple and gardened by Guy Donaldson -was open for Scotland's Garden Scheme today so I headed home to East Lothian to see family and have a good look round.

I have long admired this garden in photographs - the instagram photos @broadwoodside are a daily delight - and it didn't disappoint in reality.

The gardens are settled around the house - close, cottage garden, wild looking planting with a lot of crisp structure - topiary, espaliers, squares of close clipped grass and cobbles.

Roses, fruit trees and an amazing wisteria clothed the walls - it felt like a space for coming together, for shelter.

I learned today about editing - there are remarkably few different varieties of plant, but when they are used they are used in generous swathes - one ethereal border was little more than white valerian, alliums and alchemilla mollis, edged with flowering chives. It was stunning.

I also learned about lightness of touch - a humour pervades the spaces from the mislabelled walnut trees in the courtyard

to the ship's windows in the grass - perfect for cloud watching.

and while I can't see us building an enormous aviary for a resident parrot.

there were plenty of details to be inspired by like little pots of succulents framed by a windowsill.

As always, when I visit a garden, I came back with so much that feeds into my creativity, not just things that I shall bring to my own gardening, but ideas around editing, structuring, doing one thing well, that I shall incorporate into my business and my life too.

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