The garden and orchard

Since 2014 my wife and I have lived on the North Coast of N. Ireland, between the Causeway Coast and the Glens, with our young family. 

In the early 1900s our house was on a small farm known as Esdale's, after the owners at the time. Prior to that it was owned by the McCooke family. Records show that as far back as 1793 John McCooke and his family lived here.

Since moving to the house in 2014, we have changed the garden and adjoining land from lawn and grazing space, to a mixed garden and orchard, with some grazing areas with beech and cherry trees, focused on supporting wildlife. We've built a quarter of a kilometre of stone walls, created wildlife ponds, created woodland areas and built habitat piles and planted over 1,000 trees (as headges and independent specimens). See pictures below to see the transformation. 

[2014]

[2024]

We have other farmland in the area which we also try to manage sympatheticaly with nature. As a result, we've seen a real boom in wildlife. As well as foxes, hares, badgers, rabbits and hedgehogs we have seen an abundance of birds, butterflies and insects who make the most of the habitats we've created.