Moving house is always daunting. But when author and art historian Alan Tait found his dream home in 1972, it meant taking on the sort of challenge most of us would have nightmares about. "I bought a wreck," he says of Polmoodie, the derelict sheep f
arm he acquired in the Borders. "It had not been inhabited, except by sheep, for 40 years." Working on the house itself is one story, but it's Tait's long-term commitment to the garden and surrounding land which forms the focus of his new book,AGarden in the Hills.
Most of us have things that annoy us in our gardens – perhaps there isn't enough light or there's a tendency for things to get waterlogged. But Tait's horticultural circumstances make for sobering reading. The farm was at the bottom of a steep and narrow valley where the ground rose quite abruptly from 400ft to over 1,000 ft, with the hills on both sides offering a gradient of 45 degrees. A hanging valley closed off the eastern end while the western end "was more open and allowed, indeed encouraged, a prevailing wind from the south-west that swept up and over the house, to bounce back again in the opposite direction."
The soil was generally poor, acidic, and in places only a few inches above the shale. The bottom fields had richer soil, but were a frost pocket, and the garden was starved of heat and light during the winter months. "Just as well that I was an optimist rather than a botanist," says Tait.
The garden had some protection from the remains of a 19th-century shelter belt, and it became clear that if anything was going to thrive, more shelter would be needed. So Tait set about starting two further plantations: "the larger, and more successful western one, was predominantly beech that grew well on the south-facing slope to the river: the eastern one, of birch, alder and sycamore, has done badly on boggy ground and has been replanted twice." His next challenge was to integrate the house with its new woodland setting.
The waterlogged and extremely acid ground on one side of the house was deemed to be suitable for Scots pines, which had to be mound planted, with rhododendrons as underplanting. Tait tentatively began something of a collection of the species, describing it as "a challenge both for them and for me". His position as a member of the National Trust for Scotland's Gardens Committee gave him access to rhododendron experts and Tait was advised to start with the hardiest varieties. He planted Rhododendron ponticum, "Cunningham's White" and R catawbiense which grew slowly and produced "extremely wishy-washy flowers." The pollution-hardy hybrid "Christmas Cheer" did well by the road, scented varieties R fortunei and R decorum were also judged a success. By 2000, the garden had about 40 species.
In some ways, the shelter belts had become too successful. "The shelter has got up sufficiently that the plants survive, but the shelter has now become too high so it's cutting the light," says Tait. "This last year or so we've been cutting them back, to allow light in, and hopefully some of the larger-leaved rhododendrons will now start to flower." Throughout his book, Tait makes the point that this has been a long-term project with a strict budget, rather than an expensive, instant makeover. He limited himself to six rhododendrons a year (the cost of which has risen over 20 years from about £80 to £120) and says, "I liked to buy small plants, for they needed less shelter and recovered from the shock of exposure faster, though the failure rate was still high."
Rather than trying to present his garden as a dazzling success story, Tait is brutally honest about the occasions when the elements defeated him. "For a gardener, it's distressing when you think that after two seasons something's well away, and then frost or something smacks it and that's it," he says. "Working here you really have to bear that in mind, although what one can grow has changed enormously, because the climate has got warmer and wetter in summer and less cold in winter. Plants that I wouldn't have dreamt of putting in ten years ago not only live here but actually flower."
In Tait's more formal garden, by the house, he decided against growing herbaceous plants as these would require too much work. He also chose a limited colour scheme of white, yellow and green, beginning with several large plants to give scale and the basic colour of white – Viburnum plicatum "Lanarth" and "Mariesii" to the east, and Hydrangea sargentiana, and Viburnum bodnantense "Dawn" on the damper west. The garden also contains roses such as the sweet-smelling "Madame Legras de St Germain" and the vigorous Rosa filipes "Kiftsgate". Adding yellow are the shrubs Philadelphus coronarius "Aureus" and Weigela middendorffiana, along with a Japanese cherry, Prunus "Yukon".
Perhaps surprisingly, Tait also has a fruit garden, complete with white, red and blackcurrants, plums, gooseberries and 15 apple trees, including old varieties such as "White Melrose" and "Scotch Bridget".
"The person I got the apple trees from grew them organically," he says, "which means they're slower to take, but I would imagine that once they get going they'll probably settle in much faster than more pampered ones." Close to the fruit trees is a sundial, perhaps an optimistic ornament for this setting. Ever his own critic, Tait says, "At the base is a planting of yellow day lilies and the invasive Alchemilla mollis, fine in summer but a rather dismal bundle in winter."
Despite his critical eye, it's clear that Tait is proud of all that he's achieved in this inhospitable setting, and his efforts provide inspiration for anyone else who's taken on a challenging plot. "If you are judicious about what you choose, and you've got the right amount of wind cover, a lot really does grow," he says. "Just bear in mind, you always have to be prepared that you might have to plant two of everything, not one."
• A Garden in the Hills by Alan Tait is published by Frances Lincoln, priced £18.99.
The full article contains 1055 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
