On my holibobs! Branklyn Gardens, Perth

Last week of August 2018

Branklyn Garden, Perth
We escaped to Scotland for the last week of the kids holidays and on one of the days a grandparent looked after Squeaky and Curly, we (my husband and I) visited an amazing garden on the edge of Perth. And it felt like it was a high edge when we overlooked the city from viewpoints in the gardens.

This garden has a collection of over 2,000 plants and has been looked after by the National Trust since 1968. So it’s older than me and the original owners had planted an amazing collection from this vast cornucopia of plants cultivated by the original plant hunters of the UK and contains some of the UK’s collections of notable species, including blue Meconopsis. It was the wrong time of year for those but I purchased some seeds...

This robin was following the workers.

We had a lovely scone sitting overlooking the garden, and unfortunately were targetted by wasps. This led to a chat with two of the ladies in the cafe who said it had been a terribly funny year and nothing is on target (which made me feel better about my OWN garden neglect...).
We met and spoke to the head gardener, Jim, and some of the gardeners working with him. He said that he had plans for reconstructing areas his predecessors had neglected! But as a novice gardener, I was very impressed. If I had any suggestions it was the use of some Slugaway I have been employing, however, my hostas are nowhere near as healthy!

We spotted lots of wildlife including the gardens robin.
I found myself buying plants and seeds which were distributed among friends during our week rather than expecting the plants to survive a few days carbound en route to home.
I have another garden to tell you about too, Jupiter Artlands, outside Edinburgh! More to follow...
PS: I am not going to name or caption the plants I photographed as there were so many different cultivars I will get in a species mess.

The information in the garden leaflet was really interesting.

Rock garden which was being reworked.

I loved the bark on this tree.