Gardens: Village gardens in Fife burgh Crail offer a diverse visitor experience

WHEN gardens in the Fife burgh of Crail are opened to the public each July, visitors get much more than a glimpse behind the traditional stone facades of the old terraced houses. They can explore the winding streets and meet the gardeners, and be inspired by their skills and experience.

You would imagine seaside gardens in the same village, with the same free-draining soil and vulnerability to the cold, salt-laden winds, would be similar. Not so in Crail. Each garden is different: some have sea views, while others enjoy a sense of enclosure in the heart of the village.

Jeni Auchinleck is district organiser for Scotland’s Gardens and has years of gardening experience. Her own garden, a two-part area tucked away in a side street, is an inspiration for anyone dealing with an awkward site. A rock garden unfolds in front of the house; a romantic, plant-filled flower garden with a traditional herbaceous border filled with delphiniums and roses, and a compact vegetable garden, laid out with raised beds separated by stone paths, are both sited a little further down the slope.

In her vegetable plot are peas, runner beans, onions, shallots, courgettes, potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli. This year she is experimenting with a new asparagus bed. These remarkable results, Jeni says, are due in part to the rich soil, which was once ballast in old ships and dumped in the town, and also to the compost she makes herself in a neat row of beds.

The use of space is also tightly controlled in the tiny plot Nessie Wilson shares with her daughter Jennie and son-in-law Philip. Only gardeners with imagination could find a place for the crops of potatoes, lettuces, leeks, onions and strawberries – the latter spilling out of a terracotta container on the patio.

For inspiration on compost-making, look no further than the Jerdan Gallery, where Sue and David Jerdan have created a fresh, airy garden in the nine years since they turned their hobby of art-collecting into a business. Here, you walk past a newly built rock garden, a fountain and along a simple layout of grass paths and beds punctuated with contemporary sculpture. A pair of blue wooden gates lead though to the lower garden – normally closed to the public – which is laid out with immaculate vegetable and soft fruit beds and an old wooden glasshouse. Tucked behind the glasshouse is a long, earth bed across the width of the garden. David cuts a trench every year to fill with biodegradable household and garden waste, and then covers it with earth again before the next trench is dug. “I stop at the end of September so everything has the winter to rot down,” he explains.

Cathleen Main’s herbaceous garden, tucked behind a simple stone façade, chimes with the general notion of how a traditional garden should look, feel and smell. Plant-packed borders spill out on to a grass path that winds the length of the garden. Furnished with places to sit, the garden invites you to pause and enjoy the planting.

There will be 13 gardens open as part of Small Seaside Gardens in the Burgh of Crail, East Neuk of Fife, on 21-22 July, 1pm-5.30pm, under Scotland’s Gardens (www.gardensof scotland.org); Jerdan Gallery (www.thejerdangallery.com)