Wild in the City

Amidst the bustle of city living, close to the heart of Glasgow, one dedicated organic gardener has created an eco plot which has become a magnet for all kinds of wildlife.

Spring is here and at number ? Ravenshall Road, the residents are stirring. Not just Euan Sutherland who has lived here for more than a decade, but the field mice and hedgehogs that have been overwintering in the hides and nesting boxes that Euan has constructed for them.

Soon the swallows will be back to take up residence in their custom-built lodgings beneath the eaves. Buff tailed bumblebees may again make the clay bread over their own, while the jackdaws are busy refurbishing the old chimney pots and the blackbirds are once again nesting in the ivy and honeysuckle.

As the days have started to lengthen, the garden has come alive and in every corner small creatures are responding to the arrival of the new season with bursts of vigorous activity, while the birds have filled the air with their chirping.

It is hard to imagine anywhere more densely populated by wildlife, but this is not some rural idyll far from urban sprawl, instead this garden sits hard against Shawlands railway station in the bustling south side of Glasgow.

Just yards from where commuters rush to office jobs and traffic queues on Pollokshaws Road, foxes bask in the sunshine on the green roof of Euan's shed, squirrels mount raids on the bird feeders and bats swoop low in the evenings to feast on the glut of insects.

At times the air thrums with insect vibrations and birdsong, but it wasn't always like this. When Euan arrived the orderly lawn and flowerbeds supported few wild residents and it wasn't until he began to develop the garden in accordance with his ecological principles that new arrivals began to  make an appearance.

He dug ponds, let the grass grow long, created a muddy ditch for frogs, built turf seats and set up compost heaps and wormeries to recycle household waste and garden refuse into nutritious food for the soil.

Raised beds, lined with woven willow hurdles, were soon filled with herbs, wild flowers and vegetables and a greenhouse, picked up online for very little cost, was in no time supporting a flourishing vine.

"I've been slowly replacing parts of the greenhouse over the years, adding extra ventilation and staging," says Euan.

"I've got plans for bigger alterations but the kiwi plant, which produced a bumper harvest last year, is pretty much part of the intertwined structure of the building now."

This is a garden that never stands still. Euan has designs on creating a tumbling stream at the front of the house and for creating another composting area to recycle the plant-based crockery which he has used in his projects and activities as an artist.

He has already constructed an eco-shed, its exterior clad with wooden boxes filled with cones and stones, hollow stems and stacked slates, where insects can find shelter. Beneath the roof there are bird boxes and a motion-sensor camera for capturing wildlife images while inside there is a composting toilet. Nothing here ever goes to waste.

Euan sees the garden as a series of experiments, always pushing the boundaries to discover how productive and wildlife-friendly it can be and at times leaving patches uncultivated to see how they develop on their own.

His view is that modern life, with its "quick fix solutions of food filled with chemicals and the use of weedkillers to get as large a short-term harvest as possible" is unsustainable and that its time for a common sense approach, one that nurtures everything that grows.

"I enjoy the challenge of recycling and love the harvest, not just picking food, but also the flowers, the seasonal changes and the sensory stimulations. A garden is a place to relax, unwind and socialise, somewhere you can educate yourself and others, a place to keep fit and become transfixed by the antics of the tiniest bug or the acrobatics of a squirrel."

Others clearly think the same because when Euan opened his garden to the public on one afternoon last year, more than 100 visitors crammed into it to see what he has created.

The plot may be small, but Euan's imagination has not been restricted by its dimensions and nor has his harvest of organic produce, which includes skirret and Jerusalem artichokes; welsh onions and wild rocket; gooseberries, apples, loganberries and quince.

Wild flowers, including ragged robin, teasel, ox eye daisy and red campion, are welcomed wherever they appear and they grow in glorious tangles amongst alliums, oriental poppies and other decorative residents.

An ornate ironwork bench - the top prize in a national competition to find the UK's most beautiful eco plot - provides somewhere for Euan to sit and contemplate his handiwork, but with seeds to be sown, weeds to be added to the compost heap, a leak in the pond to be plugged and fresh areas of the garden to develop, he seldom sits still for long.

Compost Corner
The compost heaps and wormeries are the engine of the garden. Everything from the plot that isn't eaten is returned here, along with waste from the house and kitchen.

Hi-rise Habitats
The boxes attached to the eco-shed contain a range of different materials, including straw and animal hair that birds can use for nest-building; hollow canes, lengths of plastic piping and folded plastic compost sacks where many different insects can over-winter or escape from predators and slates and stones that provide nooks and crannies where spiders can live.

Garden notebook
Location: Ravenshall Road, Shawlands, Glasgow.
Size: 30m x 13 m
Soil: Heavy clay that has been improved by the addition of large quantities of home made compost.
Features: Recycled greenhouse, eco-shed with composting toilet, materials store with green roof, ponds, ditch, cold compost heap, wormery, raised beds for flowers and vegetables, mini-meadow, turf seats, bird boxes, insect habitats.
Resident and visiting wildlife: grey dagger moth caterpillars, hawthorn shield bugs, buff tailed bumblebees, larch ladybirds, greater spotted woodpecker, hedgehogs, field mice, foxes, bats, squirrels, blackbirds, magpies, swallows.