Garden Plants for Scotland

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It is the biggest plant fair in Scotland, promising to provide everything from an abundance of beautiful plants to tools, equipment, garden furniture and all the inspiration you could need to make your garden grow. April, Spring one minute and before you know it the Daffodils are flattened with the snow.Never mind lets enjoy those moments of warmth in the sunshine while we can. However, every corner of Scotland can grow a huge range of edible crops as long as you select the most suitable varieties and adapt your husbandry a little.

C. A. Whatley, The Scots and the Union: Then and Now (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2nd edn., 2014), ISBN 0748680284, p. 85. Some crops – salads and radishes, for example – go from seed sowing to harvesting in a matter of weeks, while most vegetables take less than six months. It takes at least a year to get a decent crop on currants, raspberries, brambles and other soft fruit, two to five years for tree fruit such as apples and pears and, with them, you’ll need to do some pruning and training.Unless gardening in the ‘magic quadrant’ on the West Coast of Scotland which benefits from the warming Gulf Stream, the growing season in Scotland is short and unpredictable. A mixture of experimentation, commonsense and downright low cunning, however, can allow one to not only grow, but establish, perennial plants that are considered only mildly hardy, and extend the flowering period of annuals without the luxury of a heated greenhouse. Start With Your Soil

The first step to helping our wildlife, is to change our mindset, and start to think of our gardens as part of a much wider picture. Yes, they are man-made areas, but they have the potential to be much more than just a place that we can enjoy on a sunny day.This is the time of year when the warmer days tempt us to plant out the Summer bedding and and get the hanging baskets in situation. Gardens, as designated spaces for planting, first came to Scotland with Christianity and monasticism from the sixth century. The monastery of Iona had such a garden for medicinal herbs and other plants and tended by an Irish gardener from the time of Columba (521–597). [1] By the late Middle Ages gardens, or yards, around medieval abbeys, castles and houses were formal and in the European tradition of herb garden, kitchen garden and orchard. [2] Such gardens are known to have been present at Pluscarden Priory, Beauly Priory and Kinloss Abbey and created for the Bishop of Moray at Spynie in the mid-sixteenth century. [3] The gardens of castles and estate houses were often surrounded by defensive walls and they sometimes adjoined a hunting park. [2] Urban houses had gardens as part of burgage plots that stretched behind houses, often used to produce vegetables such as kale and beans. [4] Both The National Trust for Scotland and Scotland's Gardens were founded in 1931. The National Trust owns and maintains many major gardens, particularly those associated with palaces, castles and estate houses. The Scotland's Gardens scheme opens gardens not normally seen by the public, using the proceeds to fund charities. [22] Summer drawing to an end, some days feeling Autumnal with others reaching July temperatures. This is the month to lift and store those root vegetables before the quality starts to deteriorate. Collect seeds and beans for sowing next year. September is the best month to take hardwood cuttings from the fruit bushes. Dig up those Strawberry runners and get them potted up.