Tag Archives: flowers

My garden in Fife, Scotland

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Just a couple of days after I did my previous garden post, when I had a bit of a moan about the lack of colour in the garden – things started to flower. The irises below must be happy where they are as they’re multiplying.
Irises, my garden

The Olearia shrub below is an evergreen with tough leaves but at this time of the year it produces very delicate looking daisy-like flowers.
Olearia, evergreen shrub, daisy flowers

The white foxglove planted itself there, as did the fern I think, but if you look closely between the fern fronds there’s a plant with a very delicate blue flower, I can’t remember its name but I bought it at the Logan Botanical Garden in the south of Scotland and it seems to be surviving well. I’ll have to look out its label
Foxgloves, fern, my garden

The London’s Pride below is a nice frothy pink but it doesn’t show up well in the photograph, it is however doing its best to take over the ‘rockery’ area.

London's Pride, my garden

My dad had big daisies in his garden which he called Shasta daisies, and I bought the ones below as a reminder of him and his garden, he started me off in gardening when I was a wee girl. Sadly he’s been dead for 40 years now. I went back to my childhood home a few years ago and walked up the lane which skirted the garden and peered through the hedge, but there was no garden left – only grass and a garden shed. THEY do say that we shouldn’t go back to places!

flowers, my garden

The roses are doing well now, Firecracker below is indeed a cracker although it doesn’t have much in the way of scent, it flowers for a long time so I don’t suppose we can have everything.

Firecracker rose, garden,flowers

Firecracker rose, garden, flowers

Branklyn Garden, Perth, Scotland – part 1

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Earlier this week we visited Branklyn Garden in Perth which is a smallish garden, just two acres, which is owned by the Scottish National Trust. It’s a lovely place and has some gorgeous plants, it’s especially scenic at this time of the year with all the acers, rhododendrons, azaleas and Himalayan poppies in flower at the moment.

acer , meconopsis, Branklyn Garden, Perth, Scotland

There are some wee winding paths through the acers/Japanese maples, but there are wider paths too.

acers, Branklyn Garden, Perth, National Trust Scotland

The orange coloured flowers are particularly striking. I think these are azaleas rather than rhododendrons.

orange azalea , rhododendron, Branklyn Garden, Perth, National Trust Scotland

But the primulas and meconopsis are putiing on a great display at the moment too.

primulas, poppies, Branklyn Garden, Perth

I think you’ll agree that the acer below is contributing a lot of colour too, with it’s zingy citrus shade and the red of its seed pods.

Japanese maple, acer, Branklyn Garden, Perth

This garden is like a slice of heaven, the only thing which mars it is the sound of traffic from the nearby road below it. Obviously when the original owners of the garden built their house and garden in this location the traffic was a lot lighter.

orange azalea, Branklyn Garden, Perth

There is a small stream which runs through part of the garden, but I’ll leave the photos of that to another post. It was just so lovely to get out and about and do something quite normal but certainly different from sitting at home as we have had to do for so long, and it felt safe.

acer, Branklyn Garden, Perth

My garden in Fife, Scotland

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I took these photos of my garden on the 5th of August.

my garden , Fife, Scotland

The combination of a few hot days followed by some really terribly wet days has resulted in a lot of lush growth. You know what British summers are often like – two hot days followed by a thunder storm. Just a few days after I took these photos we had the worst thunder and lightning storm in the east of Scotland that anyone could ever remember, it lasted for at least twelve hours and towards the end of it our house actually shook, it was more than a wee bit disconcerting. Remarkably my garden survived unscathed.

my garden, Fife, Scotland

August is traditionally a bit of a slack period where flowers are concerned, often the mid summer blooms have gone over and the late summer plants haven’t got going yet, but my garden still has quite a lot of colour within it.

my garden, Fife, Scotland

If you look at the tree in the top right of the photo below you might be able to see some apples growing. This tree had been sheltered by a large native honeysuckle at the time of the May air frost which killed off the pear and plum buds. Failing to cut plants back sometimes ends up being an advantage!

my garden, Fife, Scotland

The perennial sweet pea which is flowering in the photo below is becoming more thuggish each year. I really should pull it out, but I know that I’ll never get rid of it all. I like the flowers but sadly they have no scent, unlike the annual sweet peas, and I have a feeling that the plant is choking anything else that’s growing near it.

my garden, Fife, Scotland

At the moment our garden waste bin men aren’t coming as regularly as they used to, so whenever the bin has been emptied by them it’s no time at all before it’s full up again. This has been curtailing my garden tidying somewhat – well that’s my excuse! I must admit though that if I hadn’t had a garden to potter around in during the lockdown I suspect that my mental health would have suffered. There’s something about the combination of exercise and the thought processes that you go through when gardening that are just perfect for balancing life out somehow.