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
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Look this way: the glass is half full
A proper winter morning for a change. I’m birdwatching by the window with a cooling coffee. There’s a cluster of blue tits on the birch tree feeder, chaffinches catching crumbs on the ground. One robin, two blackbirds, three red squirrels frisky in the snow. Sights for sore eyes and sad hearts this grim December when…
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Mother Country, get it right: Benjamin Zephaniah
It’s very touching to see so many new views of this old post. It’s a tribute to the great humanity of Benjamin Zephaniah who died on Thursday 7 December 2023. His loss is mourned but his poetry lives on. As first published on Sceptical Scot in 2016. [In 2016, on 50th anniversary of Race Relations…
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Life is just a bowl of bullaces
In other words, we’re a wild garden adapting to the challenges of climate change: – mulching, replanting, learning from plants and wildlife.
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Blowing in the wind
So I tried to tell the BBC how owning a windmill helps you rediscover the wonder of electricity.
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The warm heart of the Hidden Gardens
“Where would you like to start?” The question, presented with a smile, is a good one. Looking at the map I’ve just been handed there’s plenty temptation. The Hidden Gardens of Kingsbarns offer no fewer than ten gardens open to visitors ready to explore nooks and crannies of this handsome village. But the tantalising trail…
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Welcome to the Pond Garden and a splash of sunshine
This year our Scotland’s Gardens Scheme openings at The Pond Garden are supporting the extraordinary work of Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS). Sunshine and showers I’ve been walking round the garden through sunshine and showers. Mostly showers, it has to be said, some of them torrential. The sunshine blooms in borders at the top of…
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The Pond Garden in June
Blue skies again. Sunshine sparkling on the pond. A friendly breeze ruffles new leaves and turns the wind turbine merrily. What kind of killjoy would complain about the promise of yet another glorious summer day? It does seem perverse. How often have I moaned about waking to endless cold, wet midsummer days? Now, we open…
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Sunshine on Rachel House
This year the Pond Garden is fundraising for the inspiring work of CHAS (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland). We were invited to visit Rachel House hospice and garden in Kinross and discovered an intriguing link with Pond Cottage
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In Memoriam – a spring song in late summer
Early morning. Flickering light through the leaves of the cherry tree where the blackbird sings in May. A wayward branch of struggling winter flowering tree that never bloomed until spring and then only on this one limb which had found an escape from the westerly winds. But sadly, it has had to go. Or, to…
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Rebellion in the garden
The benefit of hindsight: a sometimes comforting blurring of the vision in the rearview mirror. Scrolling through Wikipedia timeline it’s unnerving to see how much trouble was piling up for the 21st century.
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Wanted: a deep mulch of money
”Pond Cottage is an acreage of weed, rot and litter but Fay Young intends to turn it into a Scottish horticultural paradise”. That was The Herald almost thirty years ago in a quirkily offbeat introduction to my new dream commission: a Weekend Extra series about Scotland’s gardens and gardeners…
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Snowdrops greet Pond Cottage spring in a hard hat
And here they are. Almost incredibly, undaunted by digging and draining and ditching and dumping, the first sharp green shoots have poked through the rubble and hardcore round our cottage. That’s hope for you. Hope in a hard hat.