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The Quirky Life of a Scottish Landscape Gardener

What a sensational start to our Scottish summer. Take it from me though, one week of rain and there will be folk out there complaining about this summer. For landscape gardeners across Scotland though, that means one thing: we won’t see our sofas again until October. If you’re a fellow professional, you’re probably already hearing the sound of lawnmowers firing up, trowels clinking in toolboxes, and clients asking if we can do “just one more thing while you’re here”. One of my customers does this regularly and has honoured herself with the title ‘the Columbo Client’.

Working as a landscape gardener is like being in a wildlife documentary — except the creatures are less majestic and more… fragrant. There’s a common myth that gardeners spend their days serenely pruning roses while birds sing and butterflies flit about. In reality, we spend an alarming amount of time lifting and shifting, ankle-deep in mystery mud, dodging wasps, and trying to avoid standing in something left behind by next door’s cat, a local fox, or, on one particularly grim morning, a badger with digestive issues.

If you’ve never had a steaming pile of animal ‘presents’ appear exactly where you’ve just laid turf, have you really lived?

Then there are the finds. You’d be amazed at what lies beneath the average Scottish lawn. Aside from the interesting Time Team stuff, like bits of tenement building materials left behind 150 years ago, I’ve unearthed antique beer bottles and broken dentures. Even a sneaky carryoot, no doubt a teenage secreted cache awaiting collection.

Of course, it’s not just the wildlife and weirdness underground that keep us on our toes — it’s the people. We love our clients, truly. But now and then, we get requests that make us wonder if the heat has gotten to us.

Top of the charts? A customer once asked at lunchtime if I could completely remove a 200ft pine tree by the end of the day. Another chap wanted his garden path laid out in the shape of the Loch Ness Monster, complete with a gravel hump for the head. (I gave that one a go. As there is little proof as to what Nessie looks like my attempt could, or could not, be accurate).

One memorable job involved ‘trimming’ one beast of a Holly tree in Kilmacolm. Six hours and several scratches later I received a message from the owner thanking me for shaping it into a love heart. Not my intention! I’ve also been asked to paint rocks “to match the energy of the house.” To this day, I’m still not sure what that meant, but I gave it a bash with a pot and a prayer.

But as quirky (and occasionally chaotic) as the job can be, there’s no better place to be a landscape gardener than Scotland in spring and summer. From now until October, we’ll be flat out — taming jungles, turning muddy patches into proper patios, and wondering how the weeds grow faster than our weans. We’ll be dodging hailstones, enjoying May heatwaves, applying sunscreen and waterproofs in the same hour, and drinking more tea than a chimpanzee piano removal company (a reference for the more seasoned reader).

We might spend a lot of time in other people’s gardens, but it’s never dull. Every space tells a story, and every client has a vision — even if that vision involves building a moat around the flowerbeds to “keep the slugs out.”

So here’s to the long days, the muddy boots, the cups of milky tea, and the daily game of “what’s that smell?” (Spoiler: it’s always either manure or something that used to be alive.)

To my fellow gardeners: may your knees hold out, your van always start, and your gloves never develop holes in the worst possible finger. And to our customers — keep the weird ideas coming. They give us something to talk about when we’re pulling couch grass at 7am.

Roll on summer — we’ll sleep in November.