These three areas lie directly behind the house and were the first part of the garden to be completed.  They were completely overgrown and had to be cleared with a JCB. As is common with most ancient houses the rear of the house backed into the soil behind it and so this had to be removed and new dry stone walls constructed to hold the soil in place.  This was where I built my first dry stone wall and I’m quite proud of it!

Alistair who did most of the dry stone walling for us managed to complete a quarter of a mile of dry stone walling before I finished mine!  Steps were made to access all areas and everything comes together harmoniously.  The rose garden and herb garden are protected by box hedging which are now around 4ft high having been planted from small plants, and cuttings from these plants were used to put box hedging around the lawned area behind the holiday cottages.

Roses are notoriously difficult to grow this far north and I spent many hours deciding which ones were the most likely to survive!  I love old English roses and so went for the new old English roses by Peter Beale.  Some survived and others didn’t so varieties have changed from my original choices and still do change from time to time if they succumb to black spot, the wind, or the wet.

The toughest survivor has proved to be Sir Walter Raleigh a beautiful crimson velvet colour – I guess he’s used to the rough wind and wet conditions?!  The roses are planted in deep beds edged with lavender and underplanted with chives and alliums.

Walking through from this area into the small herb garden under a large pergola which is covered with the rambling rose Dorothy Perkins, clematis Wilsonii and passion flower (which does not produce much in the way of fruit this far north but the flowers are lovely). I cram as many herbs as I can into this area and guests are welcome to pick them for cooking as they please. Two of my favourites here are the monardas which I have only grown over the last two years and the Florentine iris which finally flowered for the first time last year after almost five years. The root of this famous iris is the orris root which is used as a fixative in pot pourri.