Scottish Garden Visits (5)

Edinburgh Botanical Garden saw many families wandering through it yesterday afternoon. We joined them. A blue sky and light winter sunshine brought us all outdoors. The garden was full of chatter from people and its resident birds.

Palm House, water falling through Chinese Garden, Temperate House with Eucalyptus in front. Clicking on photo montages will enlarge them.

I have to confess, despite the comments from my daughter suggesting it was mad that so many people were visiting a dead garden, I do enjoy visiting winter gardens. I love to see the skeleton branches on shrubs and trees. I also love the ‘see through’ aspects they offer.

Twiggy and dead looking branches. Sculptural twiggy plant supports ready for plants in long border.Gunnera with winter duvet of leaves.

Yes, perhaps you need to look a little closer to see new plant life emerging for the year but that’s exactly what I do enjoy about visiting them. That and seeing the overall winter structure of the garden including its hedges, walls and buildings.

Spring flowers and blossom. Wonderful warm leaf colour from Bergenia.

Water in a winter garden is a huge plus too. On a bright day it reflects wonderful light and on a frosty or cold one the ice adds so much interest too. As I plan to build a new pond this year I was interested in the edges of any areas with water. To be completely honest I am a bit apprehensive about starting it.

Chinese Garden views. Pagoda pool, tumbling water, dense planting below and through shrubs. City view from above Chinese Garden shows Edinburgh Castle in the distance.

Once the weather breaks and the soil is easily dug I’ll get out there and make a start. I know I need to get physically in the space get a ‘feel’ of where I want to go before I can make a master plan. For the moment, I’m just absorbing all spaces I come across in the hope that all my individual thoughts will come together.

Mature tree branches catching sunlight. Hellebores and Iris hug ground. Bulbs and Alpines grown in clay pots plunged into sand filled benches in Alpine House. Pity about the mesh grid protection from human hands.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a series of montages. I’ve enjoyed doing them. They are a great way to share a small flavour of a visit like this. There is another reason I’ve chosen to use them though. I’ll explain more shortly. I had another Garden Visit posting planned. All my photos are uploaded but unfortunately I'm going to have to reconsider my choices and start this one again.

Here’s hoping it was nice with you at the weekend too and you managed to get outside :-D


All photos above were taken at Edinburgh Botanical Gardens on March 7th 2010.

2010 Nestbox News: First visits

Finally, after some deliberation outside our new camera nestbox we have seen the first images of blue tits inside it this week. Their curiosity has satisfied mine too! I have been very interested to see what quality of images we would get from this nestbox showing only black and white images. This nestbox has infra red to allow viewing at all times and both features are what attracted me to it.

The floor area of this Gardman Nestbox is smaller and the camera closer to the floor so I did expect the images of birds to be larger in the space. However, I have been surprised that the difference has been quite so noticeable with my Camnest Nestbox which you can see in the montage below.



The top four images show a visit just ten minutes after the rooster of 4 months in our colour nestbox was seen on a morning visit. By the patterns on the eye band I’d say they were different birds.

That was interesting to see that two birds were inspecting different nestboxes in my garden at almost the same time. You can see the video footage captured below. Note the rooster removes her droppings as she leaves. There is no background music with the videos below so you can hear the birds move about the empty boxes.

Note the flickering is pretty strong with the camera flooding light in the box. I suspect if there was a nest in this box then the contrast would be less uncomfortable to watch.

The last image at the bottom right hand corner of the montage above however, is the most interesting of the group. I’ll let you watch the very short capture and see if you can guess what is happening…



The flickering outside suggests to me that there is a bird at the entrance. The Blue tit inside is not agitated in any way to suggest that is comfortable and does not appear threatened. The wonderful assumption now is that this was a pair visiting this nestbox! Excellent news, but this is very early days.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, birds can investigate quite a few nestboxes at the same time. I am now deliberating myself that perhaps this pair also looked in my colour nestbox yesterday. Perhaps they met up with our rooster too!

Why am I considering that? Well, after 4 months of having a rooster in my colour nestbox it was empty last night. Looks like the drama and speculation of a new year for the nestboxes has started already!

No speculation on the Blackbird nestbox though. Mostly as I cannot see it from my window and there isn’t a camera nearby. Once I start to see blackbirds collect nesting material from the borders around my pond where they are usually seen I’ll set up a camera in that area. I’m not holding my breath on that one though.

Wishing you a great weekend watching for visits to your nestboxes - if you have any. Based on the timing of the visits above I’d keep an eye on them from 8.45 – 10.15am.

If you’d rather be out visiting a garden instead then do come back and join me over the weekend for garden visit. Once again, no coat or sensible shoes required ;-)


The video footage and screen grabs were taken between March 1st-4th 2010.