Fay Young

Trees in full leaf, bright green under a blue sky reflected in the pond: The Pond picture by Fay Young

One thing always leads to another

I’m a journalist. I’ve always been curious about people and places.

I started writing about other people’s gardens a long time ago and somehow I’ve ended up having a wild garden that’s open to the public.

This site is a collection of my writing on gardens, culture, wildlife, the environment and even a little politics.

The garden is open through Scotland’s Garden Scheme supporting Children’s Hospices Across Scotland.

We are open now for spring walks. Please don’t hesitate to let us know when you’d like to come. Just fill in the Contact form. Give us a call. Find out more about Pond Cottage Garden

  • Waiting and winding time

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    For the first (and almost certainly the last) time I am moved to post a comment on Have Your Say this morning. To my surprise the BBC website asks me to remove my obscene and offensive language before submitting the comment for approval. I can only think it is because I have mentioned the stage…

  • On another planet

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    Is Baroness Warsi the Sarah Palin of the Tory Party? I watched last night’s Question Time torn between hilarity and horror. If I am disillusioned by Labour it is always sobering to see how very much worse that other lot could be. Thank goodness for dear old (Lord) Roy Hattersley (and he used to seem…

  • Hendrix rides again down memory lane

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    A couple of comments on the blog have got me rummaging about in my dressing up box. Where on earth is that other shoe and whatever did I do with the kaftan I made for the gig of the 60s? The clothes are falling to pieces but the memories are made of stronger stuff.

  • Collapse

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    They ate all the fish in the sea and all the birds in the sky. They cut down all the trees and when there was nothing left growing they possibly started eating each other. At any rate pretty soon they disappeared off the face of the earth. There is something eerie about reading Collapse by…

  • Time for comfort food

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    With capitalism crashing about our ears I have been busy in the kitchen. Making marmalade might not save the household from financial disaster but there is something comforting about tucking into home-made breakfast while the credit crunch devours another victim on the morning radio. So the consumer boom is over. That doesn’t mean we have…

  • Through the garden gate

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    I have been wanting to see what is on the other side of this gate for almost 20 years. It seems almost magical to find a walled garden here on the island of Canna, a long and often bumpy boat journey from mainland sources of vegetable seeds and flowering plants. For two weeks one summer,…

  • September blues

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    I don’t need Google to remind me. Summer’s over before it began. Our virginia creeper has had so much rain this year it is smothering the garden and beginning to cover the next door neighbour’s house. But it’s going out with a blaze. Happy autumn equinox!

  • Gone fishing

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    I’m off and away for a week to the island of Canna where the summer has been hot and dry, so dry they had to cancel some holiday bookings because there wasn’t enough water to cope with extra visitors. I have a horrible feeling that lack of water won’t be the problem by the time…

  • Open and shut

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    And so, let’s pause a moment here, draw strength – and reclaim what is ours. Ron Butlin It was a fine affair: a red carpet, a string quartet, speeches from private and public bodies, a poem composed for the occasion, and fizzy wine to wash it all down. But, rather oddly, the official opening of…

  • Opening and closure

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    I’m off to the official opening of St Andrew Square this morning. In some way it feels like the end of a journey that started for me when I joined the board of Edinburgh City Centre Management almost exactly five years ago. The big item on the agenda at my first meeting was a plan…

  • Sheer poetry in St Andrew Square

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    I set off for the launch of the poetry garden this morning with two boxes full of lotus flowers and a big tartan umbrella. Which was just as well because by the time I reached St Andrew Square it was pelting with rain and blowing a gale. Even so I walked home with a warm…

  • Made by many hands: Return of the Soul

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    “This isn’t political, it’s humanitarian.” Jane Frere. Each one is different. You can’t be sure of course, it would take a long time to study each of the 3,000 figures suspended from the ceiling of Patriothall Gallery. But although it’s the mass of humanity that you notice when you first walk into the gallery, I…