With my teenage daughter, on the second day of January 2025. We arrive at Southerness lighthouse, on the Solway shore. The tide is just on the ebb. To our right we can paddle through lapping waters and reach the track beyond. Here we pass huge boulders of white granite, barricaded to protect the properties above.Continue reading “A walk by the Solway Firth”
Author Archives: David Graham Clark
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Zen influences
On a spring break this year at a well known family resort, I noticed that adjacent to the ‘spa’ and overlooked from the heated recliners was something called a ‘Zen garden’. I have to say I was quite taken by it and for some months pondered how something similar might be created in Dumfriesshire. Yes,Continue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Zen influences”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Year ending
It’s always a delight to see these catkins as the year is ending. Bright, shining, moving in the breeze, they are an inspiration for the year ahead. But elsewhere in the Dumfriesshire Garden there are still plenty of reminders of the year that’s coming to a close. The pictures below also have their own beauty,Continue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Year ending”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Xanthocyparis Vietnamensis
This letter of the alphabet was causing me a problem with my A-Z of the Dumfriesshire Garden in 2024. Then I realised the solution was right in front of me. One day this summer, my neighbour rang to say that the owner of a large specialist plant nursery in Galloway had called to say helloContinue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Xanthocyparis Vietnamensis”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Winter and its tasks
The tasks of winter in the garden, it seems to me, are twofold. On the one hand there are practical things that need our attention. Pruning out the hazels, tidying up the rose arch and the bentwood hornbeam tunnels. There is some strimming to be done in the longer grass where daffodils and narcissi willContinue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Winter and its tasks”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Visiting other gardens
I’m not an assiduous visitor of gardens, though I do have my favourites, such as Hidcote Manor in the Cotswolds (seen here in the featured image), which we head to at every opportunity. Visiting any garden is always a chance to garner new ideas and inspirations and maybe to bring them home for local adaptation.Continue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Visiting other gardens”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Uninvited guests
For a place that is largely unfenced and merges seamlessly with the surrounding landscape, the Dumfriesshire Garden has been mercifully free of serious damage by rabbits and deer. Certainly the former have been scarce in numbers in recent years, but the latter are seen regularly in the nearby woods and fields and do occasionally visitContinue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Uninvited guests”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Topiary and clipped evergreens
Topiary is putting it rather strongly. There are no elaborate geometric forms, leaping dolphins or stags at bay in the Dumfriesshire Garden. But over the lifetime of the garden I have come to appreciate more and more the evergreens (and the beech hedging) that we have been able to clip into pleasing shapes. In truthContinue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Topiary and clipped evergreens”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Salads, herbs, fruit and vegetables
It’s one of the great pleasures of gardening to grow some crops for the family to eat. However modest the quantities, something grown at home, freshly harvested or carefully stored over time adds to our diet and the pleasures of eating. To this end, the greenhouse and the raised beds work in conjunction to extendContinue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Salads, herbs, fruit and vegetables”
An A-Z of the 2024 garden: Roses
Roses are not my specialty. But they are nevertheless essential to most gardens. In the Dumfriesshire Garden the big rose feature is the rambler on the metal arch. We try to tidy it up every winter as it seems to get more and more unruly. But the effect can be fantastic. It’s had a reallyContinue reading “An A-Z of the 2024 garden: Roses”
Quotidian 