Little Sparta’s Head Gardener, George Gilliland, has overseen the maintenance and development of the garden, and the conservation of its numerous individual artworks, since 2012. Until 2016, George’s work was supported by gardener Ralph Irving, who worked with Ian Hamilton Finlay and Sue Finlay for many years. This continuity has ensured Finlay’s original vision for the garden is maintained. George’s work today is supported by members of the Little Sparta Trust and by volunteers. This page features George’s monthly Gardener’s Diary, published with the Little Sparta Newsletters.
September in the garden… And longer fall the shadows from the mountains high… The last embers of the heather still glow on the hillside. Most flowering though has now
August in the garden… This month bears witness to the after effects of everything being parched for a good few weeks. Trees are shedding leaves to cope with stress
Summer Days… Summer days meadow sweet A large expanse of rose bay willow herb is culled on there hillside above the lochan and wherever else it can be
June in the garden… June in the garden sun and showers and
May days, honesty and archangels… Potatoes (‘Hermes’ and ‘Belle de Fontenay”) go in, there is further seed sowing in the greenhouses and everything is kept tended. All now coming on
Vigorous greens, raucous yellows… The Guercino signed landscape and Parsley Temple brick plinths have been taken apart, levelled and rebuilt. Both had been shifted out of position by swaying, lurching
Spring garden diary…. Man: A Passerby has been moved a few metres down the path from its previous location in front of a now unsightly uprooted stump. A delicate
Snowdrops and snow…. Distrust the snow’s manifestos. IHF – New Proverbs More stormy weather brings squally sleety rain and relentless raw gusting winds, so there are more
January diary…. The year begins with a slightly dismal series of events. The beech tree behind Man: A Passerby milestone which had developed a distinct lean due to earlier
December diary…. The year is bookended by storms. Having recovered from Eowyn earlier in the season we now see it out with Bram – not quite so destructive but a