A Dundee Garden
Both Anna and John are very keen gardeners and have developed the full potential of their home with a steep south facing garden in an area of low rainfall and plenty sunshine, (apart from 2007 and 2008 and 2009 has been just as wet, but with plenty sunshine.)
Design elements incorporate year round colour and interest using annuals, bedding plants, shrubs, roses, bulbs, a herbaceous border and climbers on every fence and wall. 
Anna is very happy to share these pictures of her home and garden.
Autumn colour extends the interest into winter and the colour stemmed border maintains the attraction until the early spring bulbs emerge.
A fruit garden was also planned to supply fresh fruit over the summer and into winter with stored top fruit, including apples, pears, and plums in the freezer. A recent addition to the fruit garden has been the peach tree grow against a south facing fence and a Brown Turkey fig.
Anna makes her own delicious jams and jellies using the fruits from the garden and her Dundee allotment. Wherever possible walls and fences are planted with climbers, and there is a lot of tubs and hanging baskets
A glasshouse was built to supply grapes, tomatoes and all the bedding plants as well as vegetables and cut flowers for the new City Road allotment garden in Dundee. 
As both Anna and John would need a place to relax after all the work of creating and maintaining the garden, they built three patios to follow the sun so they could relax all day long if ever they could find the time for it.
If only !!
The structure of the garden is set within a framework of trees and conifers suited to the small garden. Views of the garden can be seen from all the bedrooms, and views of the River Tay and Fife can be seen from the garden.
The Allotment
As if the large garden was not big enough John and Anna have got an allotme
nt to grow fruit, vegetables and cut flowers. This has been very successful, but with a lot of hard graft, deep digging, weeding, composting, planting and numerous other gardening tasks. John and Anna entered their plot into Dundee City Councils Britain in Bloom competition for allotments in 2008 and won the first prize for the best allotment in Dundee. One of the sponsers was the Hilton Hotel who gave John and Anna a fantastic evening out (wined and dined) in their Riverside restaurant. They can be seen here with the manager Raj Singh. Both Raj and the staff went out of their way to make the evening one to remember.
Follow John every week in his garden and allotment in his new blog
The scottish Artist and his Garden
Gardening in Dundee all year round
The garden year begins in winter.
The garden season starts in winter with coloured stemmed shrubs including, Acer palmatum Sangokaku, Cornus Westonbirt and Mid-Winter Fire, Kerria japonica, and Leycesteria coloured stemmed shrubs, as well as the highly coloured heather garden with an excellent specimen of a white stemmed birch tree, Betula jaquemontia.
In February the Snowdrops (though now often in January), Hellebores and Aconites burst into life to be followed with a succession of Crocus, Daffodils, Chionodoxa, Tulips, Anemonies, Bluebells and Hyacinths.
The spring garden show
The early spring garden shows colour with buttercup yellow aconites, snowdrops, anemone blanda, daffodils and tulips It then continues with Polyanthus, Myosotis, Pansies and scented wallflower in the tubs and beds at ground level. A bit taller are the Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Jasmine, and Clematis. At this time the herbaceous border puts on a great display with iris, and pyrethrums.
Blossom continues in the fruit trees with pear, apples, plums, cherries, peach, and lilac.
Summer roses Flowers and Soft Fruit
The rose garden steals the show in summer with bush hybrid tea and floribunda roses as well as an area devoted to highly scented New English shrub roses including the soft pink shrub rose Felicia, deep yellow rose Graham Thomas, shrub rose Benjamin Britten and there are several climbing roses adorning walls and fences, including Dublin Bay shown here.
Geraniums, fuchsias, and other bedding plants put on a great display in the beds, tubs and hanging baskets throughout the summer and into autumn.
Interest in mid summer turns to fruit with strawberries, raspberries, currants, blueberries, saskatoons and Scottish blaeberries.
The figs are ready to eat in late summer.
Then the top fruit have their time with pears, apples, plums, and peaches and in profusion. Anna uses the home grown fruits to make her homemade jams.
John gets ideas for paintings some of which can be seen be at the John Stoa Art Gallery
The Garden in Autumn
Late summer is enjoyed with carnations, gladioli, Chrysanthemums, lilies then the Maples in their autumn colour together with the rowans and birch.
In late August outdoor grapes, Vitis vinifera Brant, are welcome while the greenhouse grapes, Black Hamburg, Muskat of Alexandria and the red seedless Flame mature and provide grapes till the end of October. This range of grapes allows harvesting over nearly two months. The outdoor grapes are proving to be very sweet and juicy. The crop this year allows fruit for the house and lots for the blackbirds.
Scottish outdoor grown and unprotected raspberries and strawberries
are also available till the end of October depending on the weather from the varieties Autumn Bliss raspberry and Flamenco perpetual strawberry. In a favourable year the early strawberry variety Mae also has another flush of fruit in autumn.
Autumn Fruits
Berries are prolific on the rowans, pyracanthas, cotoneaster,
thornless blackberry Loch Ness and the early fruiting thornless blackberry Helen which produces large juicy fruits in August. The blackberries are picked to make blackberry crumble, jams and jellies.
Saskatoons for sale
John is experimenting with a new fruit, the Saskatoon, Amelanchier alnifolia, which grows abundantly in Canada
but has yet to be tested in the UK. John is finding it very successful in his garden and allotment plot and has many plants in pots for sale.
It is very similar to the Blueberry, but far easier to grow on almost any soil.
The bushes are yielding about 4 pounds of fruit per plant now in their fifth year.
John has some saskatoons available in pots for mail order and larger ones for collection.
These and a collection of outdoor and indoor grape vines will be available at the Dundee Flower and Food Festival at Camperdown Park from Friday 3rd September to Sunday 5th September 2010.
More information on this link to the Saskatoons fruit bushes.
Visitors to Dundee and Tayside whether on business, or holiday makers visiting Scotland for the first time are very welcome to wander around the garden and enjoy the flowers, trees and shrubs.
However, for those keen gardeners who live too far away, Anna has displayed her garden on the internet with pages filled with garden flowers, fruit, exotics and trees for the small garden plus horticultural notes. Please enjoy browsing her Scottish Home and Garden.
Dundee Botanical Gardens also have a lot of horticultural information which can be found on a link to the Dundee City page. The Scottish Artist Studio is very near to the Botanical Gardens where visitors may enjoy the garden and also the fine food served in the restuarant.
Back to the Homepage
