Magic garden

It's been there for three years now, and I've read about it in the local paper, but today for the first time I found myself in Ardentinny Walled Garden, a community project that is still being created, the subject of a Beechgrove Garden programme, and a truly magical place.

Surrounded by a tall stone wall - precariously in need of restoration in places - the garden on this sunny afternoon bore no resemblance to the beach close by, where children were shouting and people camping and someone braved the sea in a sudden breeze. The air was warm and still and filled with birdsong, and it was so quite that when the thrush desisted in his song and began bashing his way into a snail we could hear the noise of its shell hitting off the top of the wall. 

There are wonderfully whimsical touches in the children's quarter of the garden - magical heads, toadstools, a small hide with a grassy roof. We laughed aloud at the strawberry beds - laid out as full-size beds complete with bed-heads and foots and coloured "blankets" through which the plants poked. There is an orchard of young trees - pear, plum, apple - and an extraordinary yurt-shaped construction of living bamboo plants. 

This has to be one of the most peaceful places I've visited - and you'd never guess it was there. Wonderful!