Notes from the Cruickshank Botanic Garden

[David Nicholson]

Interesting point you made about Viburnum beetle. Here in Devon I lost V. bodnantense 'Dawn' to it last year as a result of it starting on V. tinus the previous year. Tinus was chopped back to about 18" high and has re-grown nicely with a much better shape than previously but it just wasn't worth trying to save Dawn.

I enjoy your notes by the way.

[Maggi Young]

Garden workshops start at Duthie Park Feb 19th with C.B.G. curator Mark Paterson on gardening for wildlife.

[Maggi Young]

Dear Friend

Attached please find a poster for the next plant sale.



The more plants we can offer, the better, so please don't be shy about providing items.  Plants for sale can be delivered to the garden up until 4:30 on Friday 12 May, or before 9:30 on the morning of the sale.  Delivery earlier in the week or help with collection/delivery can possibly be arranged through Dick as above

Volunteers to help on the sale day with setting up and staffing the stalls will be very welcome.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Kind regards,   Marion Hart

Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden

Registered Charity SC004350

[Cruickshank Friend]

Cruickshank notes Spring 2017         from David Atkinson

So here we are in Spring and curiously the weather is actually spring-like with daytime temperatures in double figures and warmth in the sun; I even sowed some veg seeds at the weekend though only in our polytunnel. Overall it has been a very mild winter with very little snow, I’ve scarcely spent an hour in total clearing it and the spring bulb display is increasingly delightful with warm enough conditions to persuade crocuses to open fully and daffodils racing to join snowdrops and early irises. The birds seem convinced too with territorial disputes, pairing off and the attendant twitterings at a high level.
More worryingly, trees and shrubs are also feeling the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, and their swelling buds and unfurling leaves are all too vulnerable to the almost inevitable late frosts which can knock back and even kill otherwise hardy but unwary plants. The lack of a proper cold spell often means an increase in and earlier onset of pests, greenfly and other aphids in particular. Still enough of ‘we’ll aye pay for it’ and on with the joys of Spring.
In the Cruickshank Garden as well, spring bulbs abound; daffodil buds are already showing yellow in the patch of grass to the right of the Chanonry entrance taking over from the fine snowdrop display. I spent a fair while gazing up at the buds on the shapely Japanese magnolia, M. Kobus, in the middle of the rhododendrons to the north of this lawn, trying to persuade myself that some were flower buds, though I fear it was wishful thinking - I’m not sure if this specimen has ever flowered! On the other side of the path the rhodies that were severely cut back a few years ago are resurgent with lots of healthy looking new shoots breaking from the trunks and should be back to flowering well soon. As every year the winter-flowering iris, I. unguicularis, which nestles at the foot of the Cruickshank Building relishing its sunny southern aspect, is in fine flower with fragrant purple flowers with a broad yellow patch on the falls. There is another very pleasant pale lilac and green and to my nose smellier, clone of this iris, I. unguicularis ‘Walter Butt’ to be found by the south western wall of the terrace.
In the peat beds nearby Helleborus argutifolius is flourishing with a crop of green flowers and a fine swarm is growing in the azalea beds to the south of the herbaceous border. This species enjoys a sunnier position than most and like the rareish British native Helleborus foetidus- which thrives in shade - makes annual stems which flower, go to seed and then wither, while the following year’s flowering stems grow up from the base.  The display from the various witch-hazels in the garden is all but over, but a near relative of theirs, Parrotia persica, the Persian ironwood, can be seen on the corner of the path leading to the weeping elm. It has an elegant weeping habit, fine patchwork bark and its bare twigs are covered with pleasing small,l red petal-less flowers.
The hedges round the rose garden looked particularly good in the spring sunshine, beautifully trimmed wide at the bottom narrowing to the top, and of three of the classiest hedging plants, yew, holly and box. In the sunken garden the bulb lawn is starting to liven up, the dwarf daffodil, Narcissus minimus, less than 6 inches high, is just coming into flower to join snowdrops and be complemented by erythroniums, fritillaries, orchids and more.
The herbaceous border is about future promise rather than current display, though the young shoots of the herbaceous paeonies are very pleasing as are the almost reptilian stems of Euphorbia sikkimensis, while the red-leaved ‘elephant’s ears Bergenia sp., decorates the western end. The mildness of the winter is attested by the two healthy looking young palms in containers on the terrace and by the tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica, in containers by the gate through to the rock garden. Similarly the half-hardy South-African shrub, with fine silvery pinnate foliage, Melianthus major, at the back of the terrace, has not been cut down by frost.
In the rock garden, my eyes were drawn to the fine early rhododendron, R. moupinense, a metre high dome covered in large blush-pink flowers. There is a fine patch of white chiondoxa, with a group of a wine-red drumstick primula, P. denticulata, behind them. The base of the large monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana, is surrounded by Cyclamen coum in full flower with a fine range of colours from fuchsia pink to white, while in the bed under the dawn redwoods, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, its autumn flowering cousin Cyclamen hederifolium, is showing the splendid diversity of its leaf markings. These two species are fully hardy and should be in everyone’s garden, thriving in sun or shade in a well-drained soil, often doing well when near a shrub which dries the ground somewhat in summer.

Let’s hope for a steady rise from an early Spring to a long hot Summer - please - and enjoy the illusion of control that is still possible in gardens at this time of year.
 David Atkinson

[Cruickshank Friend]

 From Kevin M.   Programme Secretary for the FCBG

Dear Friends,

As we step in and out of spring here in Aberdeen, I hope you have all been able to avoid the hail and enjoy the days of warmth we have been experiencing lately (touch wood). In addition to the lovely weather, the FCBG committee wish to extend our invitation to all of you for our Noel Pritchard Memorial Lecture on Thursday May 11th hosted by Peter Boyd. After studying Botany in Aberdeen during the late 1960s and being taught by Noel Pritchard himself, Peter holds the National Collection of Scots roses. I have attached an image below for your information and look forward to seeing you all for our final lecture of the series, until Autumn.

[Cruickshank Friend]

Summer Garden Notes from David....

Cruickshank notes – Summer 2017

I write this as nights are drawing in, on the day after ‘astronomical summer’ officially begins. For once actual summer has put in a number of appearances, with properly hot days albeit interspersed with some torrential rain showers. In a well-regulated world these showers would occur between the hours of midnight and 6am - maybe starting a little later at the weekend to allow longer periods of revelry. The rain has however been very necessary, after a very mild and almost snowless winter and an unusually dry spring, the ground had a serious moisture deficit and new trees and shrubs newly planted looked unhappy, and in number of gardens I visit, container grown plants died of thirst. On the upside, weed germination and growth was held back and the illusion of control was relatively easy to maintain.
For whatever reason - the mild winter, a warmish autumn or…?- trees and shrubs have in generally flowering beautifully; I have never seen broom and particularly gorse flowering so profusely with whole hillsides bright yellow for weeks, flowering cherries, lilacs and rhododendrons have also been good and roses are just coming into their own.
In the Cruickshank Garden too, shrubs are flowering well, set off by the early herbaceous plants and the many welcome volunteers, foxgloves, aquilegias in many colours and flower shapes, Dame’s violet- Hesperis matronalis- with its glorious evening scent, all self-sowing among the more permanent residents.
In the courtyard area the new bed under the double gean, Prunus avium ‘Plena’, is filling out pleasantly and a large plant of the not very hardy Convolvulus cneorum attests to the mildness of the winter, its silvery foliage nestling under the much hardier rockrose, Cistus laurifolius whose fat buds are about to release large white tissue paper flowers. Nearby the once magnificent white-berried rowan, Sorbus cashmeriana continues to look rather sick with, I guess some fungal infestation, large dead sections have had to be cut out and the rest is not thriving.
 The New Zealander Bulbinella hookeri, with bronze foliage and egg-yolk yellow flowers-shaped like a mini kniphofia- has colonised a large area of the first of the two peat beds just beyond the courtyard. In the same bed a lovely patch of the native, ragged robin, Lychnis flos-cuculli, is thriving, its profuse raggedy pink flowers held well above its rosette of leaves. Its specific name ‘flos-cuculli’ means flower of the cuckoo, allegedly because its flowering coincides with the first calls of the cuckoo.
In the bed on the north side of the path through to the weeping elm, a fine white deutzia is flowering profusely despite the relative shade, next to an equally prolific Fuchsia magellanica, while the last of the blue poppies Meconopsis grandis and M. betonicifolia, adorn the bed above the eastern end of the sunken garden. The weeping elm, Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’ – probably destined to be the next victim of Dutch elm disease - is still providing a lovely shady bower. On the western side of the shrub border that leads down to St. Machar Drive, a large specimen of the yellow leaved philadelphus, P. coronarius ‘Aureus’ stands both for its excellent golden foliage and for the powerful sweet scent of its large white flowers. This philadelphus is an excellent plant for dry soils, thriving in sun or even quite deep shade where its golden–yellow leaves become more lime green. Though eventually a medium to large shrub it is very amenable to quite hard pruning.
The rose garden was just getting into its stride when I visited, with the early species or near species roses in the bed at the southern end looking particularly good; Scotch White, the vigorous Rosa moyesii, and the splendid early yellow  Rosa ‘Canary Bird’ particularly caught my eye. At the northern end, the newly replanted beds are filling out nicely with some promising buds already.
Like Gaul, the herbaceous border is now divided into three parts, though in this case by paving - I’m not yet sure whether I approve or not yet, one could get a pleasing sensations of being in the border- without being shouted at by irate gardeners but it spoils the long view down the border. Anyway the border is working up to its full summer glory without as many plant supports as usual (let’s hope for no wild winds!) and there are already many early delights, amongst them various paeonies, the orange pea, Lathyrus aureus, a fine stand of the evil looking, and indeed poisonous Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana, with white or green flowers which develop into glossy black berries on reddish stems which may reach 2.5m in height.
Against the warm south facing wall, the bladder senna,  Colutea x media ‘Copper Beauty’ is in full flower, while the Chilean fire bush, Embothrium coccineum has a display of scarlet flowers and will hopefully regain its former height and magnificence after a couple of difficult years. Nearby on the terrace both the red flowered currant, Ribes speciosum, and the splendid wisteria are past their best though still attractive. Further along, Abutilon x suntense is covered with large pale purple flowers and relishing the shelter the wall provides.
The tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica, in pots near the gate through to the rock garden, which have taken over sentry duty from the Prunus ‘Ukon’ that used to grow there, look as though they would relish a moister, shadier home. Through said gate, hellebores are proliferating round the stump of the large holly which used to shade them out. The prime period for the rock garden has passed but there are still many delights, a number of species and forms of the ginger relative (and who in Scotland hasn’t got a ginger relative) Roscoea spp. looking superficially like orchids can be found, Angel’s fishing rods, Dierama pulcherrimum will soon be waving their cerise flowers in the wind and much more too to the keen observer. There is even a newly planted mulberry, Morus nigra, to go round!
                  David Atkinson

[Cruickshank Friend]

Please save the date for the upcoming plant sale hosted by the Friends of Cruickshank Botanic Garden, also please share this with your communities and in doing so support our botanic garden in future endeavours!



Plant Sale 28th October 2017

[Cruickshank Friend]

Latest  Cruickshank Garden Notes -Autumn 2017 - from David Atkinson

There is now a definite coolth in the mornings, the hairst is proceeding apace, and mists and mellow fruitfulness lie just around the corner. The dryness of the early part of the growing season this year has been more than corrected subsequently with all too regular showers. Together with warmish temperatures these have produced abundant growth; our growing season is short but intense. In the last couple of weeks butterflies, not much in evidence earlier, have finally reached our northern latitudes. Peacocks and red admirals have joined the hardier small tortoiseshells in profusion on buddleias both out in the country and in town -no painted ladies yet though!
 
In both my garden and the Cruickshank, two other harbingers of autumn are flowering; colchicum and dainty cyclamen. The naked leafless flowers of colchicum can be seen in many places in the garden, including in the bed on the left as you enter by the Chanonry gate, but stand up best -and I think -look most appropriate growing in meadow conditions, as in the bulb lawn in the sunken garden where their flowers are supported by the surrounding vegetation. The plant contains the alkaloid colchicine which is used pharmaceutically to treat gout though its leaves, corm and seeds are poisonous. Murderer Catherine Wilson, the last woman to be publicly hanged in London, is thought to have used it to poison a number of victims in the 19th century.
 
The tiny white berries of the small rowan, Sorbus forrestii, named for that great planter hunter, George Forrest who introduced it into cultivation from Yunnan where he had discovered it in 1921, can be enjoyed in this same bed near the entrance, the far end of which is taken up with a fine weeping ash, Fraxinus excelsior ‘Pendula’-a large airy parasol!
Another rowan with larger white berries this time, Sorbus cashmeriana still has a decent crop of said berries though the tree itself seems unfortunately to be slowly dying, the main trunk looking very sick.
In the nearby peat beds, various dwarf rhododendrons are in unseasonal fine flower, while in the bed by the Cruickshank building, there is a fine stand of the British native Eupatorium cannabinum, Hemp Agrimony, with massed heads of fluffy pink flowers. A plant of moist places, this last is a robust clump-forming perennial flowering over several months in the second half of summer. Its American cousin, Eupatorium maculatum, which can reach two metres in height can be seen in various colour forms, white pink and my favourite rich reddish purple with purple stems (the form ‘Atropurpureum’) enlivening the herbaceous border.

The better of the two weeping elms, Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’ is still forming a pleasant bower, but its friend by the wildlife pond has been put out of its Dutch elm disease induced misery and lies sadly on the ground with surrounding colchicums relishing the increased sunlight.

In the nearby shrub border by the path down to the St Machar Drive wall, the fine specimen of the Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata, is currently carrying a good crop of cones. Sciadopitys, the only member not only of its genus but also of the family Sciadopityaceae, is endemic to Japan and has been known in the fossil record for about 230 million years. It is thriving here much better than its flanking neighbours, the even older ‘living fossil’ Ginkgo biloba, the maidenhair tree, known from 270 million years ago, but sulking here as they dream of warmer summers. Between this border and the rose garden are two fine large pinnate-leaved trees, the foliage of both resembling that of the common ash to which neither is related and nor indeed are they related to each other. Firstly, nearer the boundary wall, there is the Chinese Tetradium daniellii whose corymbs of small white flowers are about to open and release their pungent scent into the autumn air, while its neighbour the walnut relative, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, Caucasian wingnut is draped in long green catkins of developing nuts. Berries, seeds and fruits are much in evidence and there are fine hips on the species roses in the rose garden -I suppose they are indeed child-bearing hips!

In the beds around the sunken garden you can find the more sinister poisonous berries of various species of the baneberry, Actaea spp.-the black berries of the rareish British native A. spicata, bright red berries of the American native A. rubra and the white berries of another American, the aptly named dolls’ eyes A. pachypoda. In the sunken garden there is also a fine patch of the perennial Viola ‘Inverurie Beauty’ with large purple flowers more or less continuously from late spring. Here too under the rhododendrons, you can see patches of the North American woodlander with small orange berries over glossy foliage, Disporum smithii.
There is still plenty of colour in the herbaceous border with the yellow daises of Helianthus, Phlox paniculata in many colours, including my favourite the rich purple form ‘Le Mahdi’, yellow Crocosmia and much else. In the bed opposite against the wall the enormous herbaceous Aralia cordata, Japanese spikenard demands attention. It stands more than two metres tall with almost metre long flowering stems carrying large umbels of white flowers and its stems are apparently eaten in miso soup in Japan.

In the rock garden, the patches of Cyclamen hederifolium in various beds are delightful, and the ageing Korean fir Abies koreana, is looking healthier than in recent years and is carrying a good crop of blue cones. The large leaved woodland Hydrangea aspera, next to the Magnolia wilsoni in the shady border looks splendid with its large heads of mauve sterile flowers surrounding the small bluey-purple fertile flowers.

So with hopes of an Indian summer as the nights are drawing in, it’s perhaps a good time to wander round our own gardens with a critical eye and make innovative plans for next year.

David Atkinson

[Cruickshank Friend]

Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden Programme 2017 - Jan 2018

October 12 MANAGING THE CRUICKSHANK BOTANIC GARDEN
Mark Paterson, Curator, Cruickshank Botanic Garden
Often a visit to a public garden is a snap-shot in time; what is visible on any given day frequently does not show the breadth of work and planning behind the scenes, nor provide an opportunity to know what future plans and developments will be forthcoming. Mark will outline current and future plans for the Garden.

October 28 (Saturday) Plant sale in the Garden – 10.30am to noon

November 9 THE URBAN FLORA OF SCOTLAND -HOW IT MAY BE CHANGING
John Grace, President, Botanical Society of Scotland
The Botanical Society of Scotland is in the midst of a project to record the urban flora of Scotland, with the aim of bringing plant life to the attention of a new audience, re-kindling an interest in botanical ecology in schools, and making a contribution towards developing an eco-civilisation. The underpinning scientific questions relate to climate change, urban climates and plant introductions: what has been happening to our urban flora and how will the future shape up?

December 14 VEGETATION CHANGE IN SCOTLAND
Sarah Woodin, School of Biological Sciences
Over the past 100 years the Scottish landscape has faced many environmental changes ¬locally and globally. How has the vegetation responded? Sarah and her team have repeated historic vegetation surveys to quantify changes in occurrence of individual species and in community composition. Sarah will illustrate how upland vegetation has changed and, using an understanding of the ecology of species which have changed most in abundance, will suggest what the most important drivers of change might be.
Soft drinks and mince pies to follow

January 11 THE EXPLORERS’ GARDEN
Julia Corden, Head Gardener, Explorers’ Garden, Pitlochry
Scotland has produced some of the world's most successful Plant Hunters and the Explorers’ Garden celebrates their lives and their contribution to the way our gardens look today. Julia describes the development of the garden, its fascinating collection of plants and her plans for the future.

[Cruickshank Friend]

The next newsletter of the Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden  is due out  in the next day or so  -  here are David Atkinson's Winter notes .....

Cruickshank Notes- Winter 2018.

‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’
Well it certainly felt a long way away on a cold dreich day, a few days  after Hogmanay, as I crept like a snail from rural revelry to the mean streets of Old Aberdeen, with the damp cold of the almost freezing air seeping into my mind and bones. This winter has already brought more snow and particularly ice than for the last few years and our track regularly resembles the Cresta run and the courtyard an ice rink, though the minimal temperatures have not been very low and I hope not too many plants have been damaged yet.
There are some signs of continuing life however, tips of daffodils and snowdrops are just poking through the grass under the big beech by the Chanonry gate and in the paved area in front of the Cruickshank building, the not entirely hardy bindweed relative, grey leaved shrub, Convolvulus cneorum, with a wide distribution on northern Mediterranean coasts is still sheltering happily amongst the Cistus laurifolius bushes. It is the hardiest of the cistus, surviving many years out here at Craigievar and enjoying a sunny dryish position in poor soil. The first flower on the sun-loving, winter-flowering, Iris unguicularis tight against the foot of the building, had opened and looked as though it had immediately regretted it.
In the nearby beds – formerly known as peat-beds - a Corsican hellebore, H. argutifolius is coming into full flower and in this fairly unshaded position has not yet flopped over its neighbours, its lime green flowers a pleasure on a dull day.
On the other side of the path from these beds, a large witchhazel, Hammamelis mollis is flowering well, though no scent was discernible and its neighbour and fellow family member, Parrotia persica is also ready to flower, the red of its small petal-less flowers just visible. The Chinese ‘Paperbark Maple’, Acer griseum by the azalea beds to the right of the path to the remaining weeping elm, stands out well in winter, its cinnamon coloured peeling bark very pleasing indeed. This is a very good tree for a small garden, slow-growing and very hardy, thriving in sun or shade with excellent autumn colour as well its beautiful bark. In the azalea beds self-sown plants of Helleborus foetidus,  the stinking hellebore - a British native, are thriving and flowering.
The rosettes of monocarpic meconopsis  in the bed on the eastern edge of the sunken garden also please with their softly hairy leaves glistening with drops of melting ice, while in many beds around here the greying  stems and translucent seed-heads of honesty, Lunaria annua punctuate the winter scene.
In the shrub border leading to the St. Machar Drive boundary wall the Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata a distinctive slow-growing conical conifer, with whorls of long leaves like the spokes of an umbrella, has a fair crop of ripening cones. Aided by the thinning of shrubs, I found a slightly unhappy looking specimen of the Pocket-handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata, magnificent when in flower with its large white bracts, but here striving for more light - I wonder if it has ever flowered? Nearby is another witchhazel relative, the Asian Distylium racemosum, a slow-growing evergreen shrub, about four feet high here, with, allegedly, petal-less flowers in May, consisting of clusters of red stamens - I must remember to have a look!
In the sunken garden there were no signs of exciting foliage in the bulb lawn as yet, and the coffin or incense juniper- introduced by Cox and Farrer from upper Burma in 1920-, Juniperus recurva var coxii with shaggy deep brown bark and drooping grey-green foliage presides gloomily over the winter scene. The herbaceous border is wisely hibernating, while the shrubs against the long south wall are sheltering from the worst of the weather, which has not yet been enough to kill the handsome grey pinnate foliage on the tender South African Melianthus major or the palm in a pot on the terrace. Desultory flowers can be seen on the winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum by the tree sculpture and Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ has many spikes of fragrant yellow flowers near the gate through to the rock garden.
In the rock garden, it is mainly the architecture of the plants that is striking, the elegant weeping of Cercidiphyllum japonicum ‘Pendulum  by the lower pool, the gently spiralling trunks  of the three dawn redwoods, Metasequoia glyptostroboides in the bed at the south east corner and the determined uprightness of the ageing Korean fir, Abies koreana in the same bed. The flickering floral torch is being carried forward to the delights of Spring, by the autumn/winter flowering snowdrop, Galanthus reginae-olgae, in this latter bed and its neighbour the splendid hardy cyclamen, C. coum, which is also thriving at the base of the nearby large monkey-puzzle tree.
 D. A.

[Cruickshank Friend]

David Atkinson's  Spring Notes

Cruickshank Notes    Spring  2018

As I write these notes the almost biblical ‘Beast from the East’ has already visited twice and is allegedly slouching its way towards us for a third time. Fortunately, from the plants’ point of view, we haven’t had any prolonged precocious warm spells this year, so although buds are swelling there shouldn’t be too much tender young foliage exposed to the icy blasts, and delicate looking spring bulb flowers, crocus, iris, snowdrops and so on are remarkably resilient, keeping the faith as they lie under snow waiting for the thaw and a frost-proof pollinator. Despite the continuing cold, we are at the point in the year where the winter sense of plenty of time to catch up on all those jobs in the garden, can suddenly give way to mild panic as our short intense growing season abruptly crosses the starting line.

There are of course signs of spring in the Cruickshank Garden too, the snowdrops in the grass area on the right as you come in through the Chanonry Gate will soon be joined by a host of golden daffodils, buds on the resurgent rhododendrons on the light are swelling and some colour is already visible. As every year, the winter flowering Iris unguicularis, at the foot of the southern wall of the Cruickshank Building, has arrived early at the party and is already showing off its fragrant pale purple flowers.  I noticed today that here at Craigievar a plant of this species is deigning to flower in a well-drained position at the foot of a south-facing wall.

In the nearby beds - formerly known as peat-beds,  Helleborus argutifolius, is opening its light-green leaves. This species, whilst growing happily enough in shade, is more compact and less floppy in a sunny situation, whilst its near relative, H. foetidus, which can be seen in the nearby beds on the right as you walk through to the remaining weeping elm, thrives and stays upright in very shady woodland conditions, its lime green flowers contrasting pleasingly with its dark green leaves. The flowers on the witch hazels, Hamamelis cvs, to the left and right of the path have all but faded, but the red petal-less flowers on their relative, Parrotia persica, are still busy advertising their wares.
 
The early rhododendrons in the bed on the eastern edge of the sunken garden, R. dauricum, R. mucronulatum, and the hybrid R. ‘ Praecox’ are all flowering well, pleasant at this time of year if not the most exciting colours. The bulb lawn in the sunken garden is about to reach its peak, the early flowering dwarf daffodils and irises soon to joined by erythroniums (dog tooth violets) whose pleasing mottled foliage is already visible.
On the terrace, the splendid and sumptuously flowered, Paeonia rockii, as do my two specimens, stubbornly refuses to produce anything that looks like viable seed, though this year’s buds are already swelling. So far the palms in the metal containers here have survived the winter winds though I imagine them cursing their lot and dreaming of sunshine and heat. The Himalayan Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’ fills the air with the fragrance of its clusters of pale lilac flowers. This evergreen shrub thrives in a sunny, sheltered spot in town, though I have not yet managed to get one to thrive with me.  D. bholua is one of a number of species of Daphne that are used in traditional paper-making in Nepal and the inner bark also yields a fibre that is used to make rope. Although all parts of the plant are said to be poisonous, the bark and roots are used in traditional medicine in Nepal to treat fevers - don’t try this at home!

In the rock garden area, enjoy the many patches of spring bulbs and note particularly the lovely Iris ‘Katherine Hodgkin’, an amazing hybrid between I. winogradowii and I. histrioides. It is much more vigorous than many of the cultivars and has significantly larger bulbs. The flowers are an extraordinary mix of cream and yellow overlaid with blue and green and the bulbs increase well in a sunny well-drained situation. Snowdrops and snowflakes, Leucojum vernum, abound and the spring flowering and very hardy cyclamen, C. coum whose species name more likely refers to Koa or Quwê  (an ancient region in eastern Cilicia now part of Armenia and south-eastern Turkey), which is part of the species' natural range, than to the island of Kos, where the species does not grow, is flowering beautifully, having taken over from its Autumn flowering relative C. hederifolium, whose intricately and variable patterned foliage is still pleasing.

So let us hope that actual Spring does not lag too far behind calendar Spring and that both are succeeded by a long hot summer!        
                                                       David Atkinson
             

[Cruickshank Friend]

Thanks to Tricia Schooling, we are able to see these photos she has taken at the Cruickshank Botanic Garden
These  first ones are from the end of April ....

[Cruickshank Friend]

These are from Tricia yesterday - 6th May 2018

[Cruickshank Friend]

and  ....

[Maggi Young]

Scotland's Gardens Aberdeenshire
Cruickshank Botanic Garden, University of Aberdeen

Come and enjoy an evening tour with the Curator, Mark Paterson and Head Gardener, Richard Walker. The garden comprises a sunken garden with alpine lawn, a rock garden built in the 1960s complete with cascading water and pond system, a long double sided herbaceous border, a formal rose garden with drystone walling, and an arboretum. It has a large collection of flowering bulbs and rhododendrons, and many unusual shrubs and trees. It is sometimes known as The Secret Garden of Old Aberdeen.
Admission is £5, Children Free.
The admission price includes tea/coffee and biscuits.
For more details, please see scotlandsgardens.org