A front garden in Pitlochry has been the healing space for a woman who felt at a personal crossroads – and her incredible self-taught green fingers have earned her a place representing Scotland at a top British flower show.
Caroline Bavey (46) was invited to judging day at Chelsea Flower Show last weekend and will be the only Scottish member of a six-strong team presenting a community garden exhibit at the prestigious RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in July.
Caroline has no horticultural background, but she found her gift for planting when Covid and a marriage separation saw her alone in her home in Pitlochry with seeds to plant and, for the first time in decades, time on her hands.
Her early life was complicated, but now like her garden, she’s positively blooming.
Caroline said: “I moved to Pitlochry when I was 15, estranged from my family.
“I put myself through college whilst working as I had no parents to help.
“My life could have gone two ways, after leaving home so young, but I have always been determined and focused on doing my best, I wasn’t going to let life beat me again.
“I took a job in sales and marketing and my office career went from there.
“I moved to London when I met my husband and was there for 11 years, had my two children and wanted to move back to Pitlochry for a better life and to be able to offer more to the girls.
“And here we come all the way up to 2019, I separated from my husband and was suffering from really bad depression.
“In 2020 Covid-19 took the world by storm and I was eventually furloughed from my job as a procurement and logistics manager. I know for most people, lockdown was really hard, but for me it couldn’t have come sooner. I got the breathing space I needed.
I was trying to shelter my girls from how I was feeling, trying to be as best a mum as I could for them, but after having lockdown on and off, walked every possible square inch of Pitlochry, my attention turned to my tired old garden that had had no love spent on it. I’d given the last 18 years solely to my children, now I had the time to nurture something else.”
Caroline saw her mainly retired neighbours had lovely gardens, while her rotten decking out the front was not pretty.
“My home let down the street,” she admitted. “I ripped up part of the wooden deck and made my first back border.
“I had a makeshift greenhouse made from odd bits of wood, netting, plastic that came from furniture and a roll of bubble wrap, it wasn’t pretty but it worked a treat.
“2021 was when I decided I needed more. That’s when I decided to take the rest of the deck up and totally make it in to a designed garden.
“Little by little it came together. I spent all my spare time in what had become my ‘wellbeing’ garden. Over the second lockdown I learned so many new skills, reading about plants and growing, looking at YouTube videos on gardening as well as how to use power tools – which became my new-found love.
“Most of the things in the garden are either home made or free and upcycled. I try and reuse as much as I can as funds are limited so I have to come up with cheap ideas.”
In the bad storms in October last year Caroline lost her faithful makeshift greenhouse.
“I was lucky enough to get a budget greenhouse in February and that’s when I started growing for the new borders I had made right around the house,” she said.
“Then I heard back from one of my social media groups that I had been selected to play a part in a show garden for Hampton Court Show Garden.
“There are six of us , living around the UK, growing things for the team, but I’m the only one in Scotland.
“It’s been quite hard work with working full time. I didn’t really think about how much work would be involved."
The chance to try her hand next to top gardeners at the show near London was an enormous boost to hard-working Caroline.
She said: “This kind of thing doesn’t happen to normal people like me and it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I’m super excited to get there.
“Then a couple of weeks ago I was invited as a guest to come down to Chelsea to judging day of all days, a double wow. I feel privileged and so thankful.”
The opportunity is a costly affair - two trips to London, staying near the Hampton Court Festival from July 4-9 and expensive items like the big quantities of compost for her show garden exhibits and transporting the plants there.
But the resourceful mum put a plan together.
She revealed: “I set up a GoFundMe page to help with the costs. So far around £300 of the £2000 I’ll need has been donated.
“Then I had the idea of selling my spare seedlings.”
Caroline held a plant sale two weekends ago and Pitlochry folk flocked to her garden to buy her potted plants, with over £300 handed in over the garden fence.
She revealed: “Opening up my garden and sharing the journey with strangers was a great experience.
“My garden and lockdown helped me through a very dark time in my life, it really did save me, in more ways than one.
“Hearing the news just a couple of weeks ago that I had an invite to make a show garden at Hampton Court lifted my spirits massively.”
There is a link here to Caroline’s GoFundMe appeal: https://gofund.me/07f97bd8
