Woodfall Gardens Recovering from the Storm
Many of us across the West of Scotland and Central Belt were affected by Storm Eowyn which swept across the country at the end of January. With several gardens having to close for early season opening due to storm damage, our thoughts go out to everyone affected, as beloved trees and shrubs have been uprooted and greenhouses and other structures torn to shreds.
We heard from Liz and Ross Muir, the owners of the beautiful Woodfall Garden at Glasserton in Galloway, who told us of the terrible damage they’d experienced through the storm. The garden is an historic walled garden with many old trees, so it’s heartbreaking to hear of the many losses of beautiful specimens.
The garden will be open to visit Sunday 18 May, Sunday 15 June & Sunday 20 July.
Read the latest update from Liz and Ross Muir, on their garden progress.
The dry weather has continued in the South West throughout April and although very different the garden is looking good again. There is a lot less shade in the garden and this will enable us to grow different plants. Fortunately we have lots grown from our own cuttings and from seed. The acers are much more obvious now and looking really well and the embothrium is just coming into flower. Woodfall is certainly worth visiting on one of our open days.
We were very pleased to have the help of our daughter and two young grandsons for a week during the school holidays. As we were unable to have any fires in the garden due to the dry weather Elliot constructed two wood piles hoping to provide a valuable habitat for nesting birds and invertebrates.
Many leaves on the evergreen trees and shrubs were blown off or damaged by the wind. Although this laurel hedge suffered it served its purpose as an effective windbreak protecting the plants behind it.
It was a surprise that this Drymis winteri survived as it is prone to losing branches in strong winds. The wind direction didn’t affect it this year and I has flowered really well.
It was great to see that a few of the Meconopsis survived being crushed by a large multi-stemmed conifer. There are other undamaged ones on in the garden which are looking better
Our walled garden is divided by internal walls into three distinct areas. This part became a football pitch for our grandsons over Easter (they were allowed some time off!!)
Our garden has been well named as there are heaps of wood lying everywhere. We had tree surgeons back last week and they worked hard. They had had to climb a massive cherry tree with three big dangling branches, and even more challenging was climbing and cutting out a huge manna ash which had intertwined with a beautiful tiered acer. This was done successfully with no acer branches broken. Amazing!
As the weather has been so dry throughout March, we’ve been able to clear up without making too big a mess. The good news now is that the garden will be ready to open for charity on Sunday May 18th as planned. Visitors can have fun identifying different types of logs, as well as seeing our garden.
We are delighted to share this March update from Liz and Ross Muir, on their garden progress:
We have had a very busy month since Storm Eowyn. We removed most of the small branches with loppers, an extending saw and a battery chainsaw. Some of the brash was shredded but because of the quantity most had to be burned. As there is only one door into this three acre walled garden we were unable to get an industrial shredder in.
We had three tree surgeons in on Friday and have another day booked. We are now making progress with the cleanup and seeing signs of spring in the garden. The weather has been great - that has really helped us.
We are now really waiting to see what perennials appear.
The week before the storm damage we took down our lean to greenhouse. Normally we would have had lots of plants overwintered in it but none this year when we will have lots of gaps to fill. However our new greenhouse was erected last week and Liz has seeds sown now.
Most of the wood is used for our log burner but will have to remain in heaps in the garden for a bit while we tidy up the garden. Quite a lot of wood has gone to local wood turners who are delighted with the rarer trees.
Paulownia Wood incredibly light - Liz could have held twice as much but awkward to hold.
February 2025
Liz and Ross told us that they have lost lots of large mature trees including three Paulownias, two Walnuts, one Manna Ash, three 3 Myrtles, one oak, two Cherries, two large apples and one ornamental pear (which had climbing roses and honeysuckle in them), several conifers, two large bay trees, three azaras..... the list goes on.
“These trees have caused extensive damage to the structure of the garden - landing on yew, privet, box and lonicera hedges,” says Ross. “Many shrubs, fruit bushes and perennials have also been flattened and we won’t know the full extent of the damage until we get a tree surgeon in and see what has survived. At the moment we are just trying to clear paths and burn the branches.”
Signs of hope
The work to clear the damage and restore the garden is underway already and Ross and Liz are not defeated and seeing signs of life in the garden despite the damage.
“The snowdrops have been wonderful throughout the garden and the pictured hellebore was visible after cutting away fallen branches. Most of our paths are now passable after 5 days chopping and burning,” continues Ross. “The garden is big enough with lots surviving the storm and we still hope to be ready to open in May.”
We hope to hear how the garden restoration progresses over the coming weeks and months and we send our thoughts and best wishes to Liz and Ross.
Some of the storm damage caused at Woodfall:
