A city escape with a beautifully designed garden

Before Tina Kelly and her husband John moved to Edinburgh over 14 years ago, the garden was never a priority.

‘We’d never really lived anywhere for more than four years. With this one, we had finished the work on the house and the garden frustrated us a bit, which is why we decided to get someone in to do it properly,’ says Tina.

That’s when garden designer Carolyn Grohmann set about creating the space the couple had always dreamt of.

Garden designer Carolyn Grohmann created the Kellys’ perfect garden

‘We said we really wanted the garden to be much softer in terms of rounded edges and our main criteria was having different areas in the garden to sit in. It’s a north-facing garden so it gets sun at
various times.

‘Down at the bottom of the garden we wanted an area where we could have lunch or a barbeque during the day and very importantly, we used to have a bench that we called the gin and tonic bench, so it was really important that we had a gin and tonic area,’ says Tina.

Colour was another essential.

‘The garden was a bit pink and bland before. We like hot colours so that was oranges, reds and a wee bit of purple. It’s just nice to be out here,’ she says.

Tina adds that the G&T bench has so far been put to good use!

Visit www.secretgardensdesign.co.uk for more details.