Wrong date

When I tried to upload my blip yesterday I discovered that I had the wrong date and time on the camera. So with less than 10 minutes to do another I had to do the emergency blip and post it the same day and make a reminder to myself not to leave it till almost the last minute. Today when I had the chance for some good blips I didn’t have my camera and so this is the one I had intended yesterday as it was supposedly taken on the 10th.

We went to Dawyck Botanic Garden near Peebles in the Borders. The gardens were developed by plant collectors on a hillside over the last 300 years and then donated to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh in 1978 and so the collections are now being continued. Dawyck has a great collection of plants and trees particularly from the cool hill and mountain areas of the northern hemisphere and which can tolerate cold winters. I was surprised to find that there are still swathes of narcissi flowering while the bluebells are still in bud yet further north the bluebells have been in flower for over a fortnight. It should look good soon when the rhododendrons and azaleas are in full flower and must be spectacular too in autumn.

The garden contains three of the “Heritage Trees of Scotland” and several rare trees, particularly conifers, were first introduced in Scotland to Dawyck while the first horse chestnut tree in Scotland was planted there in the 1650s. The photo shows some of the trees beyond the bridge in Scrape Glen where there are examples of rare Scottish plants. For those who are interested in fungi, mosses and lichens there are many examples in the cryptogamic sanctuary in the beech woodland while the varieties of lichens indicate how unpolluted the area is.