Tabi's Butterfly Mind: A garden tour of St Abbs...

...with some "before and after" photos ~ actually, lots of photos. Don't say I haven't warned you!

So, this is St Abbs when we first moved in. Unfortunately the hedge along the front wall, like the rest of the garden, had been sadly neglected and was beyond salvation. The shrubs were extremely woody and brittle, despite the greenery at the top.

We have been so lucky to have found a fab, sympathetic-to-what-we-are-trying-to-achieve, gardener. Vernon (Smiddy Cottage Garden Services) is such a lovely chap, so helpful and full of ideas 😊 He and his colleague, Mark, worked really hard taking out the old shrubs. The soil is lovely, don't you think?

Here is our new escollonia hedge ~ a mix of pink, white and red. It looks a little sparse at present, but will be lovely in two or three years. We won't be letting it grow anywhere near as high as the old hedge!

The hedge on this side was also taken out. The arbour seat and bench are laying down because it had been so windy!

The grass has died back considerably on this side, but rather than re-seeding I am contemplating making very generous borders, something I've never had enough space to do before.

This monster was a fuschia! As you can see, it was growing way too close to the wall and had to come out.

The garden is so much more open now. Folk were stopping to chat with Vernon, saying how nice it was to see the house lived in and being looked after again 😊

The border along this side has rosa rugosa shrubs ~ again, sadly neglected and overgrown.

Vernon cut them back hard, assuring me that they will grow back again quite happily. I have never grown rosa rugosa, even though I would have liked to, as I didn't think our previous garden was large enough to take them, quite frankly! They are extremely thorny but I think the flowers and hips are beautiful.

Lots of potential for more rosa rugosa along this border 😊

I'm going to have these rocks moved to the other side of the house. The border needs to be tidied up ~ I'm still thinking about what to grow here.

As the border sits along the steps leading to the front door, so it would be nice to have scented plants.

The sun porch will need a new roof, windows and door in due course!

I'm convinced that it's the same gull who sits on the chimney ~ Chris, our builder, thought he was very funny when he said that it was Steven.....Steven Seagull (as in Seagal)! Now, every time I see a gull sitting up there I can't help but think of it as "Steven" LOL

Even though it needs a lot of work, I do love our new home 😊

And just look at that now-empty space and the pretty roofline on the bathroom extension! Vernon and his son took down the sycamore tree that was growing so close to the house. When I say "close to the house", I really do mean close! It took the two of them a good few hours to get it down, as it had to be done extremely carefully so as not to damage the roof on both the house and the sun porch. I was sad that the tree had to come down, but it was in danger of doing great damage to St Abbs. The view from the guest bedroom window is lovely now, and much more light is getting into the bathroom lobby too.

Vernon took away much of the smaller, more twiggy, branches and we have been left with a great start to our woodpile. We may actually have the log-store more or less here, as it will be less of a trek taking logs into the living room than if we had it out the back somewhere.

A view down the garden before the hedge was taken out.

As you can see, we have another sycamore in the garden ~ thankfully, planted further away from the house so it can stay!

I think I will have the rocks taken out of this border, too.....

.....and have them all put in this sweet little corner instead.

Miss Mermaid was already here in the garden when we moved in. She is made from some kind of plastic but I still rather like her. She is a bit too white and stark for my liking, though, so I will try to tone her down a wee bit!

This little bit of garden is on the other side of the wall where Miss Mermaid hangs out. Those strange cone shaped things are in fact rhubarb plants!

This is looking from the bins to the kitchen. It will be lovely when we get a new back door 😊

As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done out here in the back garden.

I took this photo outside but it is the view we get from our kitchen window. Not much to look at right now but I have lots of ideas swirling around in my head!

The shed is in better condition that it looks LOL We had a joiner out yesterday to take a look, and he has confirmed that renovating it is doable. I want to use it as my craft shed, so it needs a wider door (to get my work bench in!) and a couple of windows. It also has a pair of dilapadated double doors at the left-hand end, which will be replaced with a new wooden wall.

This all needs to be changed. We want to make the walkway around the house wider, so will have to take down the block wall, dig out some of the garden and have a new retaining wall built. A job for Vernon and Mark, methinks 😉

This is the window on the half-landing that I mentioned previously. I think the replacement window will look so pretty with deep blue corner squares.

This is looking back to the bathroom extension. You may have noticed that the roofline at the back is different to how it is at the front! Vernon and Mark are going to take out a lot of this part of the garden to make access to the house better.

And this is to be a job for our builder, Chris! It appears that it was originally built to support a water tank. I think it will be quite a job for the lads getting it broken up but it really does have to go!

Looking back from the bathroom to the wall at the end of our garden. The ground here is very higgledy piggeldy, but hopefully all the soil that Vernon and Mark dig out will help to make it more level. The arbour seat will be set along the side wall.

Another elderly, neglected shrub ~ a flowering currant. It too will be coming out a) to enable us to move the block wall further from the kitchen, and b) to let in more sunshine for the arbour seat.