Visiting the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

A trip to Scotland and the chance to finally tick off the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh from my ‘must see’ list. For various reasons, we’ve had several visits to the city over the past few years but each time there’s never been a chance to see this world famous garden. Until now.

Here’s a little of what caught my eye – phone snaps only, I’m afraid. I was supposed to be on holiday!

The first thing that struck me was how far behind the season was compared with home. Bar a couple of late varieties, my daffodils are long over and the tulips are in full swing. While there were some that had finished flowering, there were still huge drifts of daffodils in Edinburgh.

Despite being relatively early in the Scottish season, there was plenty of colour – notably huge drifts of anemone that put my few flowers to shame. I also rather liked the mass planting of bergenia, which has long been a favourite.

There were also signs of new life everywhere with leaves and flowerbuds on the verge of opening. I loved this combination of ferns and gunnera just beginning to unfurl.

Acid-lovers such as rhodendrons are rare in the Cotswolds so to see displays like this was a treat.

There was a vast range of colour and shapes among the flowers with a few on the endangered list – part of the work of the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh is to safeguard plants that are under threat in the wild.

Woven into the garden are various water features ranging from tranquil pools to tumbling streams that add both movement and sound. Although it was a dry day – rare that week – it wasn’t the weather to linger on nearby benches!

It was clear enough to get the best of the views over the city though.

One of the delights of visiting a garden is to get ideas and there were several interesting pieces of planting.

This combination of Helleborus argutifolius and Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’ caught my eye as did the underplanting of dark purple hellebores with Pachysandra terminalis.

And a botanic garden is always the place to see something different.

I’d never come across Heloniopsis orientalis before nor this strange purple parasite, Lathraea clandestina, though I’d seen pictures.

This might not look much but it made a big impression on me. These are meconopsis, something I can only admire at flower shows and dream of growing as I have completely the wrong soil and conditions. It looks as though there’s going to be a magnificent display.

Add that to the fact that the glasshouses are closed for refurbishment and it seems a return visit to the garden will be needed.

Details of opening hours for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh are available here.

You can read more of my garden visits here.

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