An award-winning landscaper has breathed new life into Pitmedden Garden by redesigning its upper terraces – with a new focus on biodiversity.
Chris Beardshaw, one of the presenters on the BBC’s much-loved Beechgrove Garden, began work on the upper level of the stunning garden near Ellon last year.
Helped by staff from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), as well as students and specialist contractors, he plotted out a design to both complement and contrast against the Great Garden below, which dates back almost 350 years.
Leaving behind the carefully trimmed hedgerows and manicured lawns of 17th-Century horticulture, the new upper parterre will need relatively little maintenance.
Instead, plants like bright blue cornflowers and fiery helenium will grow as they please – a modern approach that puts the emphasis on sustainability, while employing just enough careful design to make sure it never looks out of control.
And it has resulted in an impressive bloom that even took its creator by surprise.
Chris, who has won 14 gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, said: “It’s still a very young garden, still with lots of maturing to do.
“But since its establishment it’s had no food and no water, and that’s in a period where this part of the world has had no rain for 11 weeks. It’s standing up.
“That demonstrates that we can make much more sustainable gardens, we can reduce the resources that are necessary to create this floral bounty, as long as we choose the right plants and arrange them in the right way.”
Despite the 21st-Century approach to environmentalism, much attention was paid to the site’s history, right down to picking a “punchy” floral colour palette that would have been popular at the time of the garden’s conception.
Knowing that the original creators of the garden had links to Andre Le Notre, the legendary designer of the Gardens of Versailles, Chris and his team sought out some of his original landscaping sketches for inspiration.
“That makes a direct link between not only the international relations, but also the historic element of the garden,” he said.
The Pitmedden Garden redesign comes as part of the NTS’s recently announced 10-year strategy, which includes efforts to become carbon negative by 2031/32.
Philip Long OBE, the heritage charity’s chief executive, said: “The garden design that’s been created here has been very mindful towards that, in its choice of planting.
“The plant choices are hardy ones that will continue to self-seed, they’ll really need very maintenance and we hope very little irrigation.
“The intention is to create a garden which is sustainable, which supports biodiversity and is an illustration of an ambition to contribute to offsetting the climate crisis that we are all now clearly experiencing.
Support from MRI pioneer
The project was made possible with the support of Professor Ian Young OBE, a medical physicist and pioneer in the field of MRI who died in 2019, and his wife Sylvia.
The couple were also instrumental in helping out with projects at Crathes, Craigievar and Drum Castles in the north-east.
Their son, Neil Young, said: “As a keen gardener our father was particularly drawn to the development of the upper terrace at Pitmedden.
“He was no passive observer of the project but took great interest in the work as it developed.
“We think he would have been delighted to see how the Pitmedden vision of Chris Beardshaw and the National Trust for Scotland has been turned into a stunning reality.”
Conversation