The Walled Garden at Wilton Lodge
- ineshermioneart
- May 5
- 10 min read
My next garden was a little further afield. I borrowed my partner’s car to make the journey down to Hawick in the Scottish Borders. An hour and a half there and back… three hours in the car. I’d hoped to get the train to Galashiels and then cycle from there but due to pulling a muscle, this was no longer a possibility. Instead, cringing at my carbon footprint, I tried to enjoy the convenience of the drive.
I hate to admit it didn’t take me long… 21’c in Scotland in April? It felt more like summer. Rolled down windows, Olivia Laing’s ‘The Garden Against Time’ audiobook and sunglasses on, you can’t help but cherish time like that….And the views were gorgeous. Rolling hills, trees covered in blossom and new leaves, swathes of bluebells up banks, the smell of gorse in full bloom with its intoxicating buttery coconutty smell blew through the window, the thousands of dandelions lining either side of the road made me feel like I was on my way to Oz following my own personal yellow brick road. Sheep with their lambs were in the fields, along with cows, even a couple highland coos, rabbits and I even spotted three deer in a field and a couple buzzards souring high above. It felt like the whole world was out enjoying this amazing weather.
I was off to the Walled Garden at Wilton Lodge, an estate that was donated to the town of Hawick back in the early 1900s by the family who owned it. There used to be a smaller walled garden down next to the house, which is now a museum, but in the early 1800s the Walled Garden that stands today was built, much larger than its predecessor, the Garden would have fed the whole estate. Since then it has had two different lives, a working garden, then a bedding garden until the early 2000s, and since being awarded substantial funding in 2015 from the National Lottery, a return to vegetables and a wildlife focused initiative. After just a couple emails I was excited to meet Lisa the Garden lead since 2013 who has overseen and spearheaded this renewal.
As I pulled up to the Garden I was surprised by its size. Three huge red brick walls enclose the space with the fourth, front facing, left open will only a small fence and a gate blocking it off from the trail. I hurried towards the group of people in Hi-Viz up on the patio by the greenhouse as I was running a little late I couldn’t help but notice the 12 hornbeam trees, 6 on each side of the main path running through the centre of the Garden. Each one was dedicated to an individual with a plaque, I think about the individual, but also those who felt compelled to erect trees and plaques, a community was forming in my mind, and before even speaking to anyone, I can see how important this garden has been to so many people.
Just as I was wondering which one Lisa was, she enthusiastically called me over by name, offering me tea, coffee and biscuits. Lisa is full of energy and smiles and tells me straight away she’s not a gardener, she’s an ecologist.
I was joining the Wednesday morning group. The Garden sees a huge variety of people that come to volunteer. People from the local community, Borders College, Macmillian ‘Move More’ for individuals going through cancer treatment and rehabilitation, lots of mental health teams and learning developments teams make use of the gardens too –There are about 30 volunteers on the books but a core of 20 who come regularly on a Monday or a Wednesday. In 2022 Lisa and her volunteers won the green flag volunteer award for the whole of the UK. No small feat!
Sitting in the blaring sun on the patio, I was slightly regretting my hot coffee, overlooking the garden, I’m introduced to the team here today; Jacky and Anne both retired, Scott, a young man with autism and his support worker, Jake the eldest of all the volunteers at 86 and another woman who will remain anonymous. After briefly explaining why I was there they took no encouragement in telling me why they come to the Garden.
Jake ‘for me It’s the company. I’ve always been involved in gardens, mostly flowers but when I was young my parents had an allotment where they grew vegetables.’
Jake was a regular to the Garden when it was comprised of the flower displays. He loves flowers however has come round to this new era of the Garden ‘a lot of people still say they prefer the garden before’ says Jake ‘but this place would have been closed’. Due to underfunding and understaffing the Garden was on its way out and was saved by this new initiative.
‘It’s a generational thing’ Lisa chimed in.
Scott ‘I like having a cup of tea and plenty of chit chats’. Self-declared ‘New young volunteer’ Scott’s been coming since last spring ‘I do the cutting the grass, and the edging’ he also likes being on the wheelbarrow duty I’m told.
Jacky ‘It’s the company and fresh air’, ‘I’m constantly learning about things’
Anonymous ‘it’s just about being outside for me. I’m just happiest when I’m outside’ she started coming just after lockdown ‘Lisa inspired a bit of “oh wow yeah I’d like to do that”, now I look forward to Wednesday mornings’
Ex schoolteacher Anne says she comes ‘for the banter’
It is obvious the volunteers are here to work but also to have fun, I was quickly told that ‘what’s spoken in the walled garden, stays in the walled garden!’. Which had us all laughing. (Although thankfully they're making an exception for me!)
Lisa sent off the volunteers with their jobs. Jobs are based on individual's ability, no matter their level of ableism, there is something for everyone to do. Lisa also told me that even when volunteers can’t do anything for various reasons they’re still invited to just come and join for a cup of tea. People are always welcomed and encouraged to just come and enjoy the garden.
‘I’m here because I want to learn’ says Lisa, it’s more of a collaboration between herself, the volunteers and the Garden ‘we work together, I don’t like hierarchy’
Lisa ‘for me the walled garden is a place where you invest a lot of time, I’ve invested a lot of my time in it with the volunteers. Its kinda ingrained in me. Physically it can be quite hard, it can take its toll on your body. I have thought about moving on but when you’ve invested so much time to a place you get attached. My sister and my mum tell me its not my garden, and I know that, it’s the council’s, but when you’re really really trying and you’re attached you do have that sense of connection, and I know it intimately! I know if someone or some-thing has been in here. I have a connection with it. I hope when I’m not here that folk will look after it.’
‘The biggest thing for me was to not take everything to heart’ not everyone was happy with the work Lisa was doing in the garden and she bears the brunt of all the negative comments as the figurehead within the garden itself. The focus is now on ecology, it’s on increasing the biodiversity, bringing in and welcoming the wildlife and moving away from the monoculture bedding gardens it was before. She shows me pictures of how it was, it’s pretty impressive I won’t lie, but it’s not my thing. The Garden in front of me now is unrecognisable, it’s a working garden, full of potential for people and wildlife.
‘We try and strike a balance’ Lisa says ‘ we have wilder areas but it is a formal walled garden that the public come to. The gates are never locked, people can come in anytime and I do feel like you have to have that balance of the wild with the semblance of tidiness. It’s a battle in my head’. Lisa isn’t alone, this seems to be a theme amongst the ecologically minded gardeners I’ve spoken to. How do you literally draw the line, where is that line, so that you maintain ‘the Garden’ but also care for the wildlife that deserves to be there. After covid the garden was hugely overgrown ‘it looked a mess, but the wildlife was happy.’
Lisa ‘Wildlife likes random chaos.’
But Lisa doesn’t get free reign of the Garden, as mentioned above it’s council owned and they’re the ones officially in control. This came to a head recently when after requesting more seeds for the Garden, Lisa and the team were sent seeds from Spain. ‘They want the cheapest seeds, which often aren’t native.’ There is a tension and a disconnect. Lisa is striving to make the garden as close to Scotland’s local ecology as possible. ‘Take for instance the wildflower beds’ that were in-front of us on the patio, ‘all native 40 percent wildflower and 60 percent grasses.’
Lisa hit another problem with the council not long ago. The beautiful tall red brick Victorian wall that border three sides of the Garden used to be completely overgrown with ivy. The council wanted to kill the whole thing, but Lisa fought against them, wanting to conserve as much of the ivy as possible for the wildlife. A compromise was met and the ivy has now been cut half way down, a long and laborious process, so that the top part dies off naturally, protecting the old wall and the mortar from damage, while leaving the bottom to remain a haven for wildlife. I get the impression that this was a long fight and although a compromise, the effect is really lovely. The beautiful red wall, which is amazingly still the same brick and mortar from when it was first made back in the Victorian era, overlooks and protects its diversity encouraging green skirt.
Coffees finished, Lisa took me round the Garden and the greenhouse. The wall, believe it or not, was once heated by big boilers an incredible feat of Victorian engineering, while the greenhouse is new, 2022. Before this it was a huge 80s style structure. ‘It once had chipmunks, parakeets, fish and tropical plants in it’ Lisa told me. Not your usual garden! But when the team started using it in 2015, it wasn’t fit for purpose, ‘we were dodging drips all the time … it was really dilapidated.’ The new greenhouse is much more similar to what would have been in the original garden back in the early 1800s, and it’s now used as a growing space, oh and also for their Christmas party.
On either side of the glasshouse the team harvest rainwater for their irrigation systems ‘plants like rainwater better than anything’ Lisa tells me, while ‘fan fruits’ such as plums and greengages line the back wall.
The garden is terraced, and with the redevelopment new accessible raised beds were made with built-in benches so that those with mobility issues can still take part in the planting. I spied a few rogue potato plants beginning to poke their shoots out of the soil. Lining the outer perimeter are three different types of pear, various apple varieties, and plum trees, there are alliums, lavender, laurel, rudbeckia, sage, red currents, rhubarb, comfrey, and brambles, wildflowers, hyssop, marigolds, and chives filling the beds below the trees. The latter, chives and marigolds, I learnt are a natural pesticide, keeping the aphids away from the fruit trees and carrots in particular. The garden is completely organic and the team make their own compost.
There is an edible garden, inspired by a team visit to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh in 2018. Four living willow arches provide entrances, while two plum trees, a damson tree, and a quince tree mark the four corners. Lisa and the team have parsnips, runner beans, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, brassicas, sweetcorn and cabbage, with a wildflower centre, planned for the consecutive rings that make up the space.
The raised beds behind have a series of herbs including thyme, chives, rosemary and mint. There are potatoes, onions of various types, peas, green beans, carrots, parsnips, courgettes, and more brassicas. Each corner of the raised bed is ‘bee-friendly’ with various plants planted to encourage the pollinators.
Although too early to see much in the vegetable patches, the trees are in full bloom ‘it’s the best blossom we’ve seen in years’ says Lisa. And the garden really does seem to be thriving. Last year the weather was so poor that nothing grew the team told me, but the atmosphere in the garden today is full of life and hope.
Lisa is incredibly hard working and quite obviously passionate about the garden and the people who come to work and enjoy it. ‘I didn’t used to enjoy it myself’ admitted Lisa, but after some encouragement from a friend ‘when everybody leaves at the end of the day, I take a bit of time to just sit and enjoy it’. Lisa has to be reminded to sit back and enjoy the garden herself, rather than focus on everything that still needs doing. Something I really resonate with as an artist… I rarely am able to sit back and look at my own work and appreciate it, I always see the things I want to change, the bits I’m not happy with, rather than all the bits that actually, you know what, I’ve done really well, look how far it has come on! Maybe I need to take a leaf out of Lisa’s book.
The garden is in need of more funding, the single loo needs replacing and they would love a kitchen to be able to run cooking events straight from the garden. ‘I want to be able to put up some tables and feed people here’ Lisa says, they want more opportunities to teach, and to learn in return. They do have some exciting things coming this summer though as yoga classes are planned in the terraced area and a new pond is going in which will bring a lot more diversity to the Garden.
While a pond will make a huge difference, the wildlife has already been coming back after the monoculture bedding garden it was before. Lots of birds flock to the feeders, hopping in amongst the beds, there is also a much larger diversity of pollinators including bee species, we saw bumblebees and worker bees, butterflies like white cabbage and orange tip, solitary burrowing wasps making their homes in the raised beds, even crickets - which were never here before. And the local community also seem to be coming back to the Garden. ‘Folk in the town are coming round to it now, and when you speak to folk it’s just a lack of knowledge’, the sharing of knowledge, of learning from each other and the Garden, is what makes this place so special.
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