Meet the Chickens of Smithycroft House
With thanks to Susan Waldron and you can visit Krissy, Pear and their buddies in their beautiful garden at Pettinain in Lanarkshire on 23 August 2026 - come and say hello!
An August update from Pear, Smithycroft garden resident.
Cluck, cluck, cluck! Let me tell you, my beak was considerably out of joint when I heard that Krissy Hinde published a blog welcoming you to Smithycroft Garden in June. Of us five chickens, I, Pear, know our garden best - I refuse to lay in the hen house so am familiar with every nook and cranny, where I …well, you know...
When Fin and Susan first considered opening their garden for charity, I counselled them to choose early summer and late summer. I reasoned if a poor spring, in June they could still rely on lots of lovely spring flowers, and hopefully come August the garden would be in full flow with summer perennials. I have to admit, I did not anticipate a good early spring and a belter of a summer. The water butts did run empty, but Susan and Fin stuck to their principles and still did not use a hose or tap water, although dishwater was frequently recycled. So, the late August garden is not as I imagined it would be, with aspects more like an autumn garden …but there is still much to see.
The front garden is doing its own crazy thing, and as a result of the weather is all about the seed heads: verbascum, teasels, lychnis coronaria, sea hollies, bronze fennel, echinops, and giant cephalaria. Susan would normally cut these back as the self-seeding is become unmanageable, but I advised her to leave them for you visitors – to see the beauty such structures can provide into winter and for wildlife, and to take seeds …so if you want, bring your paper bags and snips.
Fruit trees in the orchard are burgeoning - take an apple, or plum, I won’t tell. Now in the perennial borders it is all about the nectar plants – buddleias, eupatorium (purpureum and macalatum), with punches of colour from sunflowers and dahlias, Susan has been having fun reporting sightings of the humming bird hawk moth and the comma butterfly on the iRecord Butterfly app. If the sun is shining on the 23rd August you can help her count the butterflies. I am quite fond a butterfly myself, but they are difficult to catch.
You must go inside the greenhouses (lucky you, we are banned). All ten different chillies Fin grows are fruiting, and I am sure he will share some fruits. We chickens don’t bat an eyelid eating capsaicin (the active ingredient that makes chillies hot), but trust me…if Fin says the chilli is NOT hot, DON’T believe him!!! In the veggie patch, we are most excited about the corn, grown for the first time this year. It is putting out its silky tassles, and we hope a few cobs will come our way.
The soft fruit is over, but in the village hall where there will be cream teas (for donations) there are delicious jams to buy Susan has made with this organic fruit. Did you know she has won prizes in local shows for her jams and jellies? Our garden neighbours, the bees, have also been busy, so delicious single apiary raw honey will be available to buy. We think the garden bees enjoyed a strong nectar flow from local lime trees. There will be a small plant stall and pond plants if you want them, but this time also house plants for sale! All proceeds to worthy charities.
In Lanarkshire, Smithy Croft is the last domestic garden having a set open day for 2026. It may be too late to open, but why don’t you be the judge of that, and come along on Sunday 23rd August for a first, or even a second time. At the very least, this is a great opportunity to see what plants have been ‘good doers’ in this hot summer, which may be more common in the future (spoiler alert: astrantia is the best!). Leave the dogs at home (we are scared) but bring grapes please. Krissy Hynde did not successfully deliver that message the last time.
May in the garden, from Krissy, Smithycroft garden resident.
Hello, my name is Krissy Hinde - the chicken, not the pop star… although I do think my fringe is better than hers. My Sunday name is Chrysanthemum, and my four buddies are Marigold, Pear, Peach and Apricot. There is something afoot in my garden: my keepers, Susan and Fin seem to be frenetically working outside, every hour that it is not raining, and sometimes in the rain. They tell me they there are a lot of people coming to visit their (my) garden soon, and we chooks must be on our best behaviour.
The garden is a special place to me. It's where I live, sleep, eat, and have fun. In turn I keep the slugs down and produce lots of eggs and help with the grass cutting…I love a freshly cut lawn as small blades of glass as easier to eat, and as the chlorophyll is great for the yolks, my keepers love my eggs.
Susan tells me that some people may visit on June 7th as they may be interested in seeing how to garden with roaming chickens. Well, I tell you – we are proud of the garden and don’t set out to damage it. Honestly, we don't make much of a mess and our poo is great for the compost bin. Admittedly, we are fenced out of the vegetable patch, not allowed in the greenhouses, and Susan does have to spend a bit of time protecting new small plants that go in. This is not generally because we eat them …rather than we might run across the garden and excitement and trample them, but once they're established there's absolutely no problem.
Susan is a bit annoyed this year because some of us (not me), have eaten her sweet peas and they were unprotected as she did not expect this. I can understand her annoyance as Susan’s sweet peas are usually gorgeous, and she likes to grow them to give to friends. Also, she is about to net the gooseberries….damn her. We love a gooseberry even before ripe and last year we worked out how to land on the bushes to get the biggest berries at the top! We don’t eat the gooseberry saw-fly as their stripping of foliage helps us see the berries better. Chicken win-win!
What else can I tell you about the garden? I like the pond. It's actually 1.5 meters deep in the middle. We drink out of it when we can't be bothered to go to many of the other places of clean water that Susan leaves around the garden, and I like to watch the bees land on the surface and rest on the small floating plants while they have a drink. Also there is a stunning beech hedge that Fin and Susan planted at the same time they first got chickens. It creates a microclimate, but it also provides shade for us, and on sunny days we love to try and make a dust bath in front of it …ruining the lawn they say, but that is a matter of opinion.
Anyway, I just wanted to say hello. There's me and my 4 friends. None of them are as pretty as me, but we'd all love to see you on the 7th of June at Smithycroft House in Pettinain. If you're coming to visit, please bring us some grapes (but not dogs as they scare us). There will be cream teas, so if visitor numbers are high – plenty of grapes; if visitor numbers of low - plenty of scones for us. Another chicken win-win!
