Category Archives: Gardening

Hortus Botanicus Haren – Groningen, Netherlands

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We visited the Chinese Water Garden at Hortus Botanicus Haren – Groningen back in June. It was a glorious day, we were really lucky with the weather.

Chinese Water Garden, Pagoda, da +

 

Chinese Water Garden , Groningen, Netherlands

 

Chinese Water Garden, Groningen

 

Chinese Water Garden, Groningen, Netherlands

There were lots of different types of dragonflies around. Unfortunately I didn’t get any usable photos of them. I’ve only see them a few times before in my life, they don’t seem to be that plentiful in Scotland, so it was a bit of a thrill to see so many.

Chinese Water Garden, Groningen, Netherlands

 

Chinese Water Garden, Groningen, Netherlands

 

Chinese Water Garden, Groningen, Netherlands

 

Waterfall, Chinese Water Garden, Groningen, Netherlands

In the photo below there’s a huge koi carp, it seemed to be the only fish in the water garden. We assumed that it had eaten all the others!

Carp, Chinese Water Garden, Groningen, Netherlands

This botanic garden has a lot more to it than just this Chinese section, well worth going to see if you happen to be in north east Netherlands.

Robert Burns Cottage Garden, Alloway, Ayrshire

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It ‘s quite a while now since we visited Robert Burns’s birthplace and I meant to blog about the garden soon after blogging about the cottage here, but I’m just getting around to it now.

Burns’ father planned to have a smallholding and market garden here but the plan didn’t quite come to fruition. You can walk around the area now and admire the wicker structures.

Smallholding, Burns's Cottage, Alloway

Below is a different type of ‘wicker man’.

Garden at Burns cottage Alloway, Ayrshire

Below is a wicker Tam O’Shanter on his horse Meg. Really well done I think.

Tam O'Shanter

And there’s a more formal topiary garden that you can walk around too.

Robert Burns cottage garden, Alloway, Ayrshire1

It doesn’t take long to go around the cottage and gardens but the entrance price also includes entry into a very modern Robert Burns Museum and Centre not far away, and that is very interesting, and has a good cafe!

Robert Burns cottage garden, topiary, Alloway, Ayrshire

My garden – a few weeks ago

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We were away in the Netherlands for three weeks last month. People there have always been able to watch the BBC there so every day we could see from the weather forecasts that as soon as we left Scotland the temperatures soared to crazy heights, as high as 30 Celsius some days. Typically until we left the UK the weather in Fife had been really cold and wet – luckily we were also experiencing good weather in NL too, but I was realy worried about my garden getting totally frazzled. but when we got home everything was fine, if untidy and overgrown, it looked like the place had exploded!

My Garden in June

June Garden

June 2023, My Garden

 

My garden – a few weeks ago

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I took these photos of the plants that were beginning to wake up after a long , seemingly never ending winter – where I live anyway.

The lungwort below, or pulmonaria if you want the fancy name looks delicate but it had been flowering for weeks when this photo was taken.

lungwort, my garden

Instead of multiplying as I had hoped, only two of my ‘Joyce’ dwarf irises appeared.
dwarf Iris 'Joyce'

As you can see I still have quite a bit of tidying up to do, the weeds seem to grow all through the winter.

Rockery, my garden

Snowdrops, my garden

You can just see a glimpse of purple/lilac to the left of the snowdrops below, that’s a heather just beginning to flower.
aSnowdrops 2

Since taking these photos the forsythia has started to flower, and it looks like the plum tree won’t be far behind, however our weather is going to get really cold overnight again. It’s tough being a gardener in Scotland!

My Snowy Garden

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Snowy Garden

The temperature in Fife hasn’t got above freezing for days now and we’ve had snow all week, which wouldn’t be so bad on its own but when all the ruts and footprints ice over it makes for an interesting walk for the Guardian in the morning! The garden looks quite pretty though.

Next week it’s supposed to be very mild for the time of year again, but it does mean that I should be able to get to some far-flung shops, something I really need to do.

Dumfries House, Ayrshire

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Since we visited Dumfries House for the first time last month the house keeps popping up on TV. First it was featured in The Repair Shop, with King Charles. The yesterday it was on TV again with a documentary about how it was saved by the King who headed a consortium of like-minded people.

It was interesting to see the gardens being planned and constructed, but here are a few photos of how it looked in October, with the planting really coming on.

flowers, Dumfries House gardens, Ayrshire

If you ever are able to visit Dumfries House remember that the tours of the house are guided and you must pre-book.

Below is a photo of the steps leading to the Belvedere.

, Dumfries House, Ayrshire, Belvedere steps

The garden areas are coming on nicely.

Dumfries House garden, Ayrshire

garden, Dumfries House, belvedere

Dumfries House, Garden Arches

Probably the house below is /was for the head gardener.

garden house, Dumfries House gardens

The cute wee house below is in the kitchen garden. It’s my idea of a dream house, or certainly from a fairy tale. I/we could just move in, there wouldn’t be much to do in the way of housework, and it has a handy chimney!

Wee House, Dumfries House, Ayrshire

garden path, topiary, Dunfries House gardens, Ayrshire

Dumfries House Urn + Steps

It wasn’t great weather-wise when we were at Dumfries House so we didn’t spend a lot of time exploring the grounds, we’ll do more of that the next time. It does have a great play area for kids though, so it’s a place for all ages to enjoy

As ever, click on the photos if you want to enlarge them.

If you are interested in visiting the area you might like to look at the nearby small village of Maybole which you can read about here.

My Autumnal Garden

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A couple of weeks ago I took some photos of my autumnal garden as I thought that the leaves wouldn’t be hanging on for much longer.

The acers (Japanese maples) are looking good, as you would expect.

acer, my garden

acer , Japanese Maple, my garden

acer, Japanese maple, my garden

Our weather has been so mild that everything is confused about the seasons, with some birds actually starting to nest again. As you can see the ceanothus (Californian lilac) beolw, which normally flowers in July and August, has begun to bloom again. It’s more than a wee bit worrying!

ceanothus , garden

I think the berry tree below is some sort of cotoneaster. It has lovely bright berries anyway and at the moment I’m trying to turn it into a manageable shrub rather than the too big tree it was becoming.

berries, my garden

The hebe (Veronica) is always a good splash of colour in the garden at this time of the year.

hebe, Veronica

Below are some general views of parts of the garden.

garden

my garden

my garden

The photo below is of one of my favourite plants Viburnum tinus, the birds love it for the berries, it’s evergreen and the flowers last so long too.

viburnum, my garden

Don’t look at the leaves on the rose below! I have no idea what the rose is called but it flowers like mad and the cold weather seems to have no effect on it at all, it gets really big so I’ll have to be brave and whack it back. Sadly it has no scent.

pink rose, my garden

Two weeks on from when I took these photos, the begonia and fuchsias are still going strong. I can’t bring myself to clear the begonia away until it dies from the cold. The fuchsias will be good for next year though, I’ll give them some shelter over the winter.

begonia, fuchsia

It was a strange gardening year as it was much hotter and drier than we are used to here in the east of Scotland. You would think that that would be a good thing but the flowers didn’t last nearly as long as they usually do and it was sad to see blooms over and done with so quickly. Yes – we gardeners are never happy!

Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

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A couple of weeks ago we celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary (I know, but I was a child bride!) and we couldn’t think of anything better to do than to spend the afternoon at Jupiter Artland, which is an outdour sculpture park by Edinburgh. It was a hot day, and we hadn’t had any rain for quite a while but as you can see the Charles Jencks landforms below are holding up quite well to the drought.

Jupiter Artland, Charles Jencks Landforms

In the distance you can just see the three bridges which span the Firth of Forth in the photo below.

Three Bridges from Jupiter Artland

I must admit that I’m not that enamoured with some of the art on offer here but it’s a lovely place to walk around and when it got too hot we just headed for the surrounding woodland for the shade. I wasn’t too impressed with this ‘bomb’ below, but each to their own.

Jupiter Artland, Bomb Sculpture

I didn’t really think much of the Tracey Emin sculpture below either, but Jack quite liked it. He took some of these photos.

I Lay Here For You at Jupiter Artland

You won’t be surprised to know that I was more impressed by the garden which surrounds what was the separate ballroom of the ‘big hoose’ where the owners of the Artland still live.

Jupiter Artland Ballroom Garden

The ballroom houses some of the Tracey Emin paintings, you can see some here but the link is really better for showing the inside of the ballroom. The artwork is ‘parental advisory’, and Emin seems to have just one thing on her mind at the moment, these paintings are all very recent, done after her radical cancer surgery.

Below is the garden gate. I love the design of the grass intersected by paviors.

Ballroom Garden gate, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

And through the gate you can see one of those lit up signs similar to the ones at Modern 1 and 2 in Edinburgh. I find those ones a bit depressing.

You Imagine What You Desire, Jupiter Artland

Ballroom Garden, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

And below is the ballroom building which at the moment houses part of their Tracy Emin exhibition, we didn’t stay long, but as ever admired the interior decor.

Ballroom, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

The ceiling looks like an intricately iced wedding cake, upside-down.

, Edinburgh

I did quite like the very large metal structure below which is called Firmament. For some reason there are no information boards about the artworks but there was on the map we were given at the entrance. Firmament is by Antony Gormley. There are info boards in areas where art used to be located but has been moved on, telling what used to be there.

Firmament, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

Way off in the distance we could see a tower and it turned out to be the rose walk below. It’s made of wood, I don’t know how well it’s going to weather Scottish winters, but it looks very elegant now. It would be a lovely place to get married I think. Oops, I’m in this one which Jack took.

Jupiter Artland, The Rose Walk,

All of the roses are white but you can’t really see them in the photos.

Jupiter Artland, The Rose Walk, Jupiter Artland

The heleniums below were enjoying the heat and sunshine. This path surrounds the pond.

Helenium , Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

We had a walk around the nature pond, if you look carefully you should be able to see the swans with their three cygnets.

Pond 2 Swans, Jupiter Artland

Jupiter Artland is on the outskirts of Edinburgh and is close to the flightpath for the airport. Below I managed to capture an aeroplane on my phone, as it flew over the Jencks landform.

Landform + Plane, Jupiter Artland

Then it was time for lunch at the cafe, which was very good. It was the perfect way to celebrate 46 years of annoying each other!

My Garden in Fife

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I suppose we gardeners are never happy, but to be fair, in the east of Scotland summer weather sometimes just fails to appear and that can be a bit depressing. This year though we’re having a wee bit too much of a good thing, the heat and bright sunshine have been scorching some of my plants and everything has sped up with flowers going over far quicker than normal. It’s sad to see things go so fast when you’ve waited a whole year for them to arrive again. Anyway, I can’t complain about the crop from my apple tree. I was sold this tree as a Bramley and got quite a lot of apples from it last year for the first time. I’m sure I harvested them in September but this year they are ready and most of them have turned red in parts, the Bramleys in the shops are all green, so I’m not sure what variety it is. It has so many apples on it that I had to remove quite a lot to give the others space to grow, but still the branches are bending alarmingly with the weight. I made apple crumble for pudding on Sunday, the only day we have a pudding, it tasted good.

apples, my garden

The irises below seemed to just last a few days. I just didn’t get out fast enough to take photos of flowers before they were over.

Irises, my garden

I was thrilled to bits when my peony rose flowered as I’ve been waiting for at least three years and had only had leaves before, just one flower but I hope for more next year.

Peony Rose, my garden

The climbing rose below is called Firecracker, and it is a cracker, but it just wants to grow straight up and is quite brittle if you try to tie it down, sadly it has no scent.

Rose Firecracker, my garden

The rose below is a similar colour to Fieracracker but it’s a bush rose and was just labelled ‘orange’ rose when I bought it, here you can see it at all stages, from buds to dead heads, my dead-heading this year hasn’t been fast enough! This rose has a lovely scent, something which is quite rare nowadays and I’m really pleased that the cuttings I took from it earlier in the year have been successful and are actually beginning to flower already, I thought I would have to wait until next year for flowers.

Front Garden , orange bush rose

It has been too hot to do any gardening in the daytime, I’ve managed to do some cutting back in the evenings though. For the past few days it has been 26 Celsius/78.8 Fahrenheit, that might not seem very hot to you, but around 65 F is my comfort zone.

Falkland Palace Gardens, Fife, Scotland

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On the 18th of May we made a quick viisit to nearby Falkland Palace, I had wanted to see what the orchard looked like as the apple blossom in my garden was looking pretty, I thought the palace orchard would look fab, but their apple trees bloom far earlier than the ones in my garden. After realising that I vaguely remebered that I had discovered that the last time I tried to see the blossom! I must remember to visit earlier next year! Anyway, I enjoyed mooching around the other parts of the gardens, taking these photos.

Falkland Palace ,garden, shrubs

Falkland Palace gardens, Fife, Scotland

Falkland Palace Trees, Fife, Scotland

Falkland Palace Wall + Plants, Fife, Scotland

In the distance below you can see one of the Lomond hills, I’m never sure whether it’s the east or west Lomond.

Falkland, Orchard Lawn + Palace

Falkland Palace Lawn + Greenhouses

Back at the orchard there’s a huge sculpted wicker woman, she’s wearing well as she has been there for a number of years now.

Falkland Palace, Wicker Woman + Palace

I think possibly she’s meant to be Mary, Queen of Scots as she was very fond of Falkland Palace, she did a lot of hunting around the area and would have flown birds of prey.

Wicker Woman, Falkland Palace, gardens, Fife, Scotland

But the birds that I was interested in were the swallows, or maybe they’re swifts, I’m never quite sure. I wanted to see if there were many nesting in their usual place at the palace Real/Royal Tennis court. There were just a few to be seen, usually all of the nests are occupied. There are none to be seen around where we live, so that’s two bad years in a row they’ve had here. If you look carefully at the photo below you should just be able to see a teeny wee bird perched on the left of the roof support.

Swallow, Falkland Palace, Fife

Falkland Palace, Tree + Steps

The lilacs were looking particularly pretty and fresh.

Flowers , Lilacs, Falkland Palace garden, Fife, Scotland

As you can see it was a lovely sunny day. The garden was very busy and at the beginning we were having a hard time dodging other people, we’re still being very cautious which I think is sensible given that the Covid numbers are rising again in Scotland. That’s surprising given that it’s summer (supposedly) and people are outside more. It seems to be coming in three monthly waves now and just about everybody I know has had it.

Anyway, I hope to have photos on here of our Orkney trip soonish, amazingly we had great weather again, well great for Scotland, it wasn’t exactly warm but at least it wasn’t wet.