Family trees, pruning apple trees and copicing trees

Another week, and another week closer to opening for the season on the 9th of March! So much to do! But we are nearly finished the garden tidy up and then it will be on to filling up the sales area. On Monday I was back into the herb garden today and the borders have been tidied, several barrows of our own compost down to top dress the beds and the gravel raked and weeded. Then I had a play with some hazel branches to create wee border edges, inspired by our visit to Sissinghurst when we were on holiday last November. Like the willow, hazel is a copicing tree, so by cutting and tidying the trees behind our office in our wind break we are encouraging them to produce new long lengths of wood, useful for future projects or to fill up the wind break. Isabel was back in the railway garden finishing that off and I’ll get photos tomorrow. David got another two sales tables renovated, not long now until we will be filling them up!

That's the nursery gardens tidied, ready for us opening back up again on 9th March. Now on to the next task

In amongs all the other wee tasks done last week, I got all the pots tidied, fed, top dressed and out in their spots in the garden. The mint collection to the herb garden, scented plants to ..... you guessed it, the scented garden and the shade plants in their wee corner in the sales area. It was all go with deliveries too, compost and pots for potting, bark for topping up some of the big borders and top soil for the new path we are creating through the scented garden. No more slippy narrow slabs, but a new grass path, this will take several months to make, grow the grass and be ready, so this path will be closed for a few months.

Scented plants

The mint collection

Pots for shade

We have had all the weathers some days, a chilly wind, glorious blue skies and hail! But when the wind dies down there was warmth in the sun, the birdies are singing in the hedge and it was great to see that blue sky. We have been pruning the apple trees in the orchard, great practice for Isabel before she does that module in her Botanics course this weekend. Isabel spent the afternoon in the tunnel sowing annual seeds and getting plants ready to go into the sales area. I re-wrote all the faded plant labels in the gardens, fed the Rhodos and azaleas and cleaned out the shop area ready to fill it up for opening in 2 weeks. David has finished renovating all the tables in the main sales area and will get the tables in the shade tunnel sales area done next week. We are on course to be super ready for opening on the 9th, now I've jinxed it haven't I

Here are the last of the border tidy up photo boards. Have a great weekend, its to be sunny but cold and I am off ancestor hunting, making the most of our last weekends off before we re-open on 9th March

Herb garden

Long stock bed border

Office border

Railway garden

Shade border

A walk in Edinburgh in the footsteps of some of my ancestors, 2 generations and two branches of the McDowalls - 8 miles, 3 cemeteries, 2 churches, 1 garden (sneaky huh?), many buildings with family links that have been demolished, city views, 5 family graves, a lovely lunch at Clock on the shore in Leith, 1 tram ride, hunners of rugby fans singing flower of Scotland on the over full tram, a walk through Princes street gardens and 1 tired out mouse dog. I know Edinburgh well so it was good to see places I know, places I haven't been and re-visit where my immediate family lived when I was a child. The garden we visited was Dunbars Close in the Canongate on the Royal Mile, dating from the 1600's. SO far with this one branch of my family I am related to Archibauld McDowall, one of the first to manufacture cloth in Scotland, a member of Edinburgh town council and several times on the magistracy, he declined the position of provist, through marriage related to every prominant scottish family in the middle ages and early modern period (1100 to 1600s) the Kerrs, Hamiltons, Gordons, Stewarts, Cambells, Frasers, Wallace, I am related to Archbishop Beaton, Henry 1 of England (McDowall married his Illegitimate daughter), Harold 3rd of Norway in 1060's his daughter married a McDowall and the ancient kings of Scotland back to 700AD! 39 generations from royalty, landed families in Galloway, influencial merchants in Edinburgh, to dock porters in Leith and finally a gardener in the Borders!

Dunbar close gardens

Family Graves in the Canongate

Canongate Church

South Leith Church

The Shore, Leith

Views from New Calton Cemetary

Family graves in the the Old Calton cemetary

Waiting on the tram in Leith

In my own garden these Tulips are flowering a month and a half earlier than last year and the Narcissus 'Jenny' is a month earlier!

Allium giganteum

Helleborus orientalis

Helleborus own seedling

Iris 'Natasha'

Narcissus cyclamineus 'Jenny'

Tulipa 'Ancilla'

Viola oderata

Viola oderata

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