Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Posted on 19 March 2024 by Katrina

It really felt like spring was on its way when I visited the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh on Saturday. It was busy, maybe the sun had brought people out, but there were quite a lot of tourists around who would have been there whatever the weather I suppose, they were mainly American and German I think. Entry to the Botanics is free, which seemed to puzzle some people, but they do recommend a donation of £3.

It seems to me that the gardens are quite sheltered, which could explain the early flowering of some of the rhododendrons, but there are still many that haven’t bloomed, I think I’ll visit again in a couple of weeks. The daffodils at the east gate will be over by then though, I think I saw them at their peak on Saturday.

My favourite area is the rock garden, in recent times it has been tweaked so that there is some wheelchair access but in general most of the paths are made up of stone steps.

There’s a burn/stream rushing through the rock garden which begins with a small but powerful waterfall.

As you wouldexpect there are some great trees in the garden.

From some parts of the botanics you can see the spires and roofs of some of the buildings in central Edinburgh, not too far away, but the photo I took was too blurry.

While I was there Jack was at a football match nearby, Dumbarton beat Spartans 6-2 (it’s not like them) so a good day was had by all.

My Spring Garden

Posted on 14 April 2021 by Katrina

There’s quite alot of colour in the garden at the moment, spring is definitely here as far as the flowers are concerned, but it started to snow not long after I took these photos!

I haven’t planted many daffodils as there are so many wild ones growing in the woodland near my house, but these ones above are smaller and daintier than the more common daffs.

The primroses and primulas do well here as they seed all around the place, I love getting plants for free! The hellebore below seems to be the only one thriving in the clay soil of my garden, at least two other varieties seem to have disappeared.

The red quince is flowering well as you can see but my white one is later, I hope it has survived our seemingly never ending winter.

The very slow growing holly below is supposedly suitable for rockeries, so far so good as I’m not great at hacking back shrubs, I feel their pain!

The tulips are flowering earlier than usual, very surprising given what our weather has been like and this pot has been frozen solid at times.

Not long after I took these photos it began to snow – such is life!

Springtime walk – daffodils

Posted on 24 March 2021 by Katrina

Over the past week my morning walk for the newspaper has been brighter and sunnier than usual. It’s the daffodils that are doing it. The poor things have been taking a wee bit of a battering from the wind, but they’re tougher than they look.

These ones are at Balbirnie, a place that has become a lot busier since lockdown!

Easter Daffodils at Balbirnie, Fife

Posted on 12 April 2020 by Katrina

Let’s go on a wee virtual walk on this lockdown Easter Sunday. When I took these photos of the daffodils on the Balbirnie Estate/Park in Fife last week the daffodils were in full bloom and as usual getting a bit battered by the wind, it always amazes me how much bad weather they can put up with, they’re obviously not as delicate as they look.

Some of the boundary stones that edge the Balbirnie driveway have faint ancient markings on them but most must have been placed there in fairly recent years. These stones aren’t far from the Balbirnie Standing Stones and they date back to the Bronze Age.

The daffodils below are growing in what counts as the rough of the golf course I suppose and we sometimes end up helping a golfer to find their ball. One day last month, in the glory days before the course was shut to golfers because of the lockdown, we witnessed one golfer whacking his ball in the rough and he managed to bounce it off a tree really hard, it bounced back with such force and ended up further back than the start. It might have killed him if it had hit him, but as it was – he almost died of embarrassment I think!

Even a water hazard looks quite scenic when framed by tree branches I think. We usually steer well away from the fairways when we go for our walks although in theory in Scotland they can’t stop anyone from just wandering over the course even as people play. But we noticed that the dog walkers are claiming the course at the moment – with no worries about anyone yelling FORE at them as they amble along. Every cloud has a silver lining for someone I suppose. Anyay, I hope you enjoyed your virtual breath of fresh air, especially if you are unlucky enough to be stuck in a flat.

Spring flowers in my garden

Posted on 5 March 2019 by Katrina

As the weather has been unseasonally mild I’ve been able to potter around in the garden a bit earlier than usual. I have no illusions that this is the end of winter for us though as we’re more likely to get snow at Easter than at Christmas, but the spring flowers are loving the weather and the snowdrops have been blooming for ages now. The ones that I transplanted for the wedding decorations are over and done now, they didn’t like being taken indoors.

These crocuses adored the sunshine. I’d never seen them open so far before.

Some of the wedding decoration snowdrops – below.

The miniature daffodils have survived the rough winds we’ve been having over the past few days.

The purple haze behind the daffodils below is a spring flowering heather, so the garden is beginning to look quite cheerful again, but I’m not going to clear all of the winter detritus away until I’m sure that the cold weather has gone. All those dead bits of last year’s plants help to protect them from frosts which I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of.

My spring garden

Posted on 11 April 2017 by Katrina

Although I say it myself, my garden is looking very colourful at the moment. I especially love the pansies in the photo below, but in reality they look more purple than they are here.

My so-called rockery, which isn’t very rocky – is full of primulas and the aubretia is just beginning to bloom too. There’s always work going on so buckets and tools are likely to be lurking in the background as you can see.

I wasn’t going to bother planting any daffodil bulbs as there are so many wild ones growing around where I live but I couldn’t resist planting some miniature ones.

Below are some of the wild daffodils just outside my back gate.

Or are these ones narcissi, I’m never quite sure? As you can see – some of the trees have really started to green up now, it seemed along time a-coming!

Spring Flowers

Posted on 8 February 2013 by Katrina

How are you coping with the winter? I shouldn’t really complain because we’ve had practically no snow, so far, but all the towns around us had snow which means that we haven’t been very far afield, after all there’s no point in driving into dodgy weather and icy roads.

But I can’t wait for spring and I’ve been having a look at my garden, the daffodils are just green spikes poking about two or three inches above the earth, and today I discovered two snowdrops which should be flowering in a few days. There should be more of them but I see it as something of a miracle that there are any about to flower at all because the soil seems have been sodden for most of last year really and I thought that the bulbs might have rotted.

Anyway the fact that my garden was such a disappointment last year is making me all the more impatient for things to get going now, so I ended up buying myself some spring flowers and I thought you might like a glimpse of them.

Well, they’ve cheered me up!

More spring plants

Posted on 31 March 2011 by Katrina

This is euphorbia ‘Fireglow’ and it disappears completely over the winter but it comes back with a vengeance in the spring because it’s spreading like mad, even into the grass despite there being a stone barrier. It does look lovely when it’s fully grown although I think the new growth is a bit brash and phallic looking at the moment.

Some of the pale daffodils in my front garden.

For some reason this pulmonaria which goes by the horrible common name of lungwort has come out looking really insipid. It is in fact three different colours – blue, pink and lilac.

Spring Garden

Posted on 25 March 2011 by Katrina

These are a few of the photographs which I took in my garden today and yesterday. I’m still not used to our new camera as you can see from this blurred photo.

These are looking a bit battered about the edges now but they’re still nice and colourful, if you don’t look too closely.

The double flowers somehow look to delicate for this time of the year but they are really hardy.

Not quite a host of golden daffodils but they do smell lovely, unlike the ones that you get in shops which don’t seem to have any scent at all.

I took photographs of hellebores, pulmonaria and euphorbia too, but I’ll do a post about them in a few days. It’s all happening in the garden now!

Pining for the West

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