Introduction
 

I'm glad to have found this site - I certainly could do with some advice. We moved to Fife about three years ago and bought a house. It has more garden than we would have chosen, but we needed to buy fast. I haven't gardened much in the past, but I watched my mother garden when I was small.

The garden is about three acres. One acre around the house, which has an area fenced against rabbits; one acre of field/wildflowers, with newly-planted fruit trees; one acre of sycamore windbreak which we have thinned and replanted with native species. We are on the top of small hill with a south-west oriented valley on one side and the North Sea five miles to the east on the other, so the garden is pretty exposed. We have some leylandii windbreak planting to the south west of the rabbit-fenced area, but are growing a deciduous windbreak to replace it in a few years.

This summer's plans: husband is felling another windbreak so that we can replant with something more attractive. Meanwhile I'm planning the new windbreak planting, admiring a new bed I just planted, and dreaming about a willow garden beyond the fruit trees in a hollow.