… at The Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, last week, pre stormy weather, snow flurries and temperature drops. I’d take an accurate guess that the garden won’t look quite the same a week on. Yesterday alone will have changed the landscape – it was a quite ‘orrible day.

Have one tree to straighten here today – moved 1 month ago so not properly rooted to spot. Fortunately my night cam survived the double storey (wooden) guinea pig hutch fall on it. Unfortunately the small gorrillapod tripod has been broken at the head. Better that than the cam.

The hutch was sighted under my pergola in a (lol) sheltered spot. The wind pushed through a substantial planting of ivy and that’s after a wind breaking ranch style fence and another structure with ivy just a few metres before it! We heard it thud down suspecting our chimney had come down… phew!

Okay… let’s leave the storms for now and we’ll try not think of likely damage to the Botanical Gardens and head back to a calmer, chilly, sunny morning last week…

As mentioned on my recent garden visit video post of this garden, here are the photos of what caught my eye on the first day of December. In search of plants and trees with berries, I went to my favourite area of this garden – The Chinese Hillside. I wasn’t disappointed.

I’m not sure on the ID of the black berries shown below (any suggestions please) but the red cotoneaster berries were very familiar after seeing them being eaten by Blackbirds in my garden. Actually, it was after that post I decided on the theme for this visit to the Botanics.

The orange/brown berries above, catching the sun, high up on a tree caught my eye. I never read the label when I took my photo before moving on (it was chilly, I wasn’t wearing gloves) and now realise that they were in fact fruits on the Malus, yunnanensis. Okay, not berries then. Pretty though 🙂

Not so pretty was the sight of the pink/white berries (Sorbus aff. filipes) on the ground beside the path. Shame, I thought, I wondered if the birds will eat them from there. Maybe the Blackbirds will find them as they scurry about the ground. I heard them clearly calling and chattering as I walked through this part of the garden.

The Hillside garden is my fav because of the thick planting of trees and shrubs that you wind your way through. I know so many birds will be in there but it isn’t until this time of year that you can get a chance to see what you hear singing, calling or chattering.

I only took my wide angle camera lens so couldn’t get close-up shots but was thrilled to be able to see what looked like a pair of Bullfinches – definitely a male (deep pink breast, bottom corner pic below) and female Bullfinch.

Hopefully, the montage below captures the feel of this area of the garden just before winter takes hold. There is more depth to the planting and design than is perhaps seen on first impressions. You can see the waterfalls were in full flow then.

Many visitors may just walk along the winding paths through large shrubs, bamboos and trees, over the small Chinese bridges and down to the Pagoda and pool at the bottom. Lol… chatting as they go too. I hear them when I stand with my camera. It’s good to see a garden come alive with ‘people’ visitors too especially families of all ages/generations getting out together 🙂

Catching my eye above, top pic RH corner, (yours too probably) was the Liriope platyphylla flowering. It’s one of those plants that is listed as having a blue flower but for me it was a wonderful purple/blue. With an upright flower spike growing above an evergreen grass-like clump it would fit nicely into my garden. Yep… flowering at this time of year too… definitely on the wishlist 🙂

My garden visit wasn’t long so I headed to my new (next favourite) part of this garden – The Biodiversity garden sited beside the John Hope Gateway Visitor Centre.

You can see below that this area has a naturalistic style of planting with flows of grasses, cornus and a variety other plants grouped en masse. You can also see we have paved, straighter winding paths here as well as soft curved ones. I’ve chatted long enough… it’s the weekend, I’ll let you enjoy a quite stroll by yourself 🙂

That Calendula on the path edge and poppy flower buds made me smile and show that plants do their very best to survive and set seed. I suspect the Calendula wont’s be looking like this today but perhaps the poppy will have held on. With a stronger drop in temps, its days are probably numbered though. Winter is on its way. Oh yes… not sure on that orange wall at this time of year.

One last thing before you go… note the bird feeders in the Biodiversity Garden. Yes, it looks like there is a camera there (perhaps images shown in the centre) but what interests me is that there are no plants below the tree with feeders on its branches (I try to do this too). Perhaps there were plants earlier in the year but now during winter when more birds come to the feeders visitors, people and birds, will get a clearer view of the area. For the gardeners who tend this area it makes for weed damage control too when uneaten seeds germinate. Win, win all round 🙂

Well, that’s enough from me, hope you’ve enjoyed (my) brief visit… lol! Wishing you a great weekend. Stay safe and warm 🙂

This post was written by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in December 2011.