Jupiter Artlands

August 2018

Jupiter Artland 

Life Mounds Charles Jencks

We were en route to Dunbar to see friends when I asked them for recommendations for garden visits.

My friend knows my interests well and suggested Jupiter Artlands, and so after a few aborted attempts to discuss it, it was finally agreed and online tickets purchased. I was convinced we had to have tickets purchased before rocking up, but I might be wrong... and there are carers tickets as well as disabled so we ended up paying for only the kids. Result! Especially as I paid, or did I?...

Hubby did his usual bit of not using my blue badge and we must have walked through the spacious reserved area several times over the afternoon. Hey ho! We’ll know for another time.

Life Mounds Charles Jencks

Husband across the reflective water

Squeaky points...

The Rose Walk Pablo Bronstein

And I have a feeling we will go back. Jupiter Artlands is currently having its 10-year anniversary, and I recognized the wonderful Charles Jencks’ curving landscape of grassy mounds and reflective water. We actually ended up spending a lot longer in the Artlands than we thought we would but I was having a better day with less pain and it meant we were able to follow the curving paths and see a lot of the current artworks and a ghost trail of artworks that have been exhibited over the ten years. Refreshingly, sculptures can be clambered over and examined from all different angles.

Weeping Girls Laura Ford

The Temple of Apollo Ian Hamilton Findlay
I make no apologies for this
instance of placing ourselves
in the artwork.

Ian Hamilton Findlay's Xth Muse

Landscape with Gun and Tree
 Cornelia Parker

The kids loved the discovery aspect of finding sculptures among the trees and borrowing my camera to take their own arty shots – in fact, I went through the over 100 pics and I couldn’t remember which ones were mine! It also means you will see some of me for the blog. 

The path under the trees sometimes had roots, making it a bit less friendly for a chair-user but they may have had motorized chairs available – they seemed to have made lots accessible but not all. I was struggling with stairs on the holiday but it wasn’t going to stop me, only slow me down. And I did visit an upstairs gallery, climbing very slowly I admit.

An afternoon snack of sandwiches and a treat of cakes later and it felt like a perfect holiday afternoon. 

Rivers Tania Kovats
I loved the peaceful setting here

Inside the Rivers boathouse

Stone Coppice Andy Goldsworthy

Map of the Jupiter Artlands

By the time we got round to
The Light Pours Out Of Me
by Anya Gallaccio, I stayed
above while  the family
went in...

Going back to the car we also passed pigs (and the girls loved their spots) and sheep – it is part of a working farm after all.

Stone Coppice Andy Goldsworthy

We left in the early evening and went out the way we came in – having realized we had actually come in the exit (meeting cars which weren't expecting us!) and discussing all we had seen.

And my blog always includes some roses...

The trees are often quite spectacular.

Quarry Phyllida Barlow

Detail of The Light Pours
Out Of Me,  Anya Gallacio

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.

And breathe...

I am not looking! Sculpture in Jupiter Artland

A guide to Branklyn Gardens, Perth

6th September 2018

Kids are back to School!

I realize I have been quiet this week but even knowing it was going to be a weird week – 2 kids starting different schools and needing different things – I hadn't anticipated no energy to blog about our trip to Scotland.  We had a great week at the end of August seeing family and friends and places, returning to old haunts of my university days and revisiting the beaches and seafronts I love. But returning home was met by a familiar MS brick wall and I lost all energy or enthusiasm and I was reminded of how much I have had to ignore while recovering from surgery.

I can't ignore everything forever but it will be a slow return to my old normal.

I will post reviews of the 2 amazing and incredibly different gardens we visited, Branklyn and JupiterArtland, and how the holiday filled me with energy and enthusiasm, our annus terriblis felt like it was improving just that little bit more. But in case you think it is all good I walked round our garden this morning and despite the sun being out, it is a mess!

The house is a mess too, but as I still can't lift anything significant, I will tap away at my keyboard instead...

Fungus en route to school this morning!

Stats of blog?

9th August 2018

August rainfall...

On this damp and dingy day, I got up feeling a bit bleurgh! After shouting about a tidy house a bit to my daughters, I fired up my laptop and got a surprise.
On Gardening with Limits I have written 105 posts. I started it in March 2017 (posted first blog as Jan 2017) and I've had over 8,000 views... not exactly amazing but I am quite astounded.
I get some feedback but no comments, suggestions or questions so I don't really know what gets me views –  pictures or visits or my recent surgery? I do this for my own benefit more than anything else, but I am feeling a bit disoriented by the recent surgery and its recovery time. Those plans I said I was going to make have disappeared into the novellas on my kindle. It's not even that comfortable to read the kindle to be honest, as aches are constant at the moment. I wish there was an answer that took all my woes but it's a constant battle just to keep track of my paracetemol and ibuprofen intake if I'm honest!
Recently I have not found technology to be my friend, but I don't need that to lay out a plan for the garden. I just need an endless stream of fairy dust...

A new reality!

5th August 2018

Limitations have increased...

I wasn't expecting this! Strange but true... I have had operations before but never really experienced the likes of this! Lift nothing is scary to someone who usually muddles through and does what she can, but the pain is extreme now if I forget and try to be normal. And that is weird for an MSer to admit. I try to be as normal (what does that even mean???) as possible. I try to do what I can but two nearly three weeks in and the limitations I have are extreme. My youngest admitted to me today that she was scared when I was in hospital. Ouch!
The school holidays are going to be that bit stranger for the girls. Slinging a handbag over my shoulder (hurts), and speeding into town takes just that little bit more effort (not driving) and despite my best efforts we haven't got the girls signed up to anything, and that afternoon spent in Lister paediatrics, the Wednesday before my operation, took away the time I was going to spend trying to sign the girls up to holiday fun...
Granny has gone back to Scotland, and two weeks of being looked after are fading into a lovely memory. I am slightly more able but nowhere near enough to lift my impatience. I am sleeping better which means my long-suffering husband is able to sleep better too. If it gets too much he can always send me to the shed granny just vacated?
Piles of dry plants have been pulled up and I think we might need to look at getting our garden waste collected and pay, or we will be sending tumbleweeds over the town. The area we were clearing for a compost heap now has been filled up with cuttings and the brambles will take over if I can't lift them.
Talk has been made of a cycle ride (the other three, not me) but later on when I am likely to be bushed. Naptime for me then. Back to my kindle, perched on a pillow as I can't really prop it on my sore bits, and I am still having to lie on my back. This will improve/change, please?

Brambles have been giving
lots of fruit for my youngest to eat.

Second blooms for the rose bushes...

Hubbie checked these
are not weed type lilies... 

August already!

1st August 2018

Wormery or compost bin?

I never thought that might be an option, but my mum is spending another week here and has been pulling up overgrown areas I haven’t touched in the months of our annus horribilus that 2018 became. We now have bags of weeds and they should go somewhere. The leftover wood from the extension has been hidden from the main path.

I really can’t lift anything for six weeks (entire school holidays to most parents) and it’s going to be tough. On a positive note, deadheading those roses has given us double blooms! There are positives in the wizened and dry landscape. And boy do we have bees, I counted ten on the lavender bush yesterday. I got some gardening magazines while in hospital and it’s really inspired me to think the small steps I have taken are part way towards turning the garden into more than a football pitch. We must,however, make it safe, the littlest ended up with a sharp splinter in her foot a couple of days ago but again it’s knowing what to target first.

My hubby has shown an interest in helping me with the tech of my blog, maybe positive change is afoot after all. My surgery has left me tired and uncomfortable but it’s not taken my spirit!

F