The box hedging in the garden of Edzell Castle was famous for its intricate topiarised Latin inscriptions but has suffered box blight and is no longer as magnificent as below:-

Window onto garden:-

Garden information board:-

Garden from Tower:-

Garden + tower:-

Garden topiary + box hedging:-

Tower from garden:-

See my Falkland Palace post here.

The gardens are very well kept. I believe they try to make them as much like they were back in the days of the Stuarts as they can. You can easily imagine Mary, Queen of Scots wandering about under the trees.

Trees in garden:-

Palace from garden:-

Steps in Falkland Palace gardens:-

View from steps to gallery and tower:-

Gate to orchard:-

Bridge in orchard:-

During that brief time when lockdown was lifted last year we were able to go to Edinburgh and visit the Royal Botanic Garden there, using a pre-booked and timed ticket.

As she’s keen on gardening and gardens it’s one of the good lady’s favourite places.

Planting by hothouses:-

Monkey puzzle trees (araucaria):-

Path with acer:-

“New Zealand ” section:-

Path in Botanic Garden:-

Bridge over burn:-

Waterfall from bridge:-

Waterfall video:-

Burn from bridge:-

The gardens are worth a visit at any time of year.

More photos of Pitmedden Garden.

Gates with steps down to formal garden:-

Heart shapes by the gates above:-

Bottom of steps:-

Drinking fountain at steps:-

Steps and gates above:-

Another set of gates. There is a private area beyond:-

Human sundial:-

The human acts as the sundial’s gnomon by standing where indicated, according to the month. It obviously matters what the weather is like. I tried it but cast no shadow at all:-

The most outstanding feature of the Lindisfarne skyline is Lindisfarne Castle – instantly recognisable. It’s now in the care of the National Trust.

The castle entrance is very restricted, up a flight of fairly narrow wooden steps, but there is a wider plaza above:-

One of the rooms has a ship model hanging from the ceiling!

Fireplace in kitchen. (This is flanked by a cupboard and a settle):-

Kitchen cupboard:-

Settle:-

Reverse of settle:-

Walled garden from Lindisfarne Castle. The garden was designed by famous gardener Gertrude Jekyll. The surroundings on Lindisfarne are so bleak and windswept there has to be a wall round it in order for anything to grow.

From the island side the castle looks very different:-

Castle from walled garden. Apparently the area just to the left of the castle in the photo above was where the Vikings would coast up back in the day as the sea reached in further then:-

Last April we visited Cowden Garden again. (There’s not much chance of another visit in the immediate future.) he garden had come on a bit in its development.

It takes a lot of work to achieve it but there’s something very relaxing about the way a Japanese garden looks:-

Lake and bridge:-

Zen garden, raked in the Japanese style:-

Ornamental stone:-

Lake and pagoda:-

Bridge over lake:-

Path and bridge over lake:-

Tree, lake and bridges:-

Small bridge and Zen garden:-

Closer view:-

Lunch was soup with bread and a coffee.

Cup, Cowden Garden café:-

Grasmere is a village in the Lake District of Cumbria, England, lying beside the lake of the same name.

It is famous as the home of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy at Dove Cottage:-

Dove Cottage was later also home to Thomas De Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

Side view:-

Side of house and garden:-

Part of back garden:-

Wordsworth’s bedroom:-

Sitting room of Dove Cottage:-

Back room:-

The graves of the Wordsworths are in the local cemetery:-

For the Great War Armistice anniversary some of the local lampposts were adorned with large poppies commemorating lads from the local school killed in the Great War.

Hero Oswald Hillerns:-

Henry Bowness Johnson:-

The good lady is a keen gardener and when she heard that the Japanese Garden, at Cowden, Clackmannanshire was reopening after being a long time overgrown, we had to visit. The garden was first opened in 1908, but was closed to the public in 1955 and left to go to ruin. Thankfully the recent restoration is returning the garden to its former glory.

Japanese gardens are very elegant. Despite the refurbishment still going on Cowden certainly is. There is an air of peace and harmony about the place. Japanese bridges are especially elegant. The first bridge below is by the path near the garden’s entrance. The second spans the garden’s large pond:-

Pagoda and bridge:-

Zen garden:-

Bench:-

The burn which feeds the pond:-

Path to bridge:-

Stones and ornament with bridge in background:-

The good lady is a keen gardener and also likes to visit large gardens.

One near to us is at Backhouse Rossie Estate but we hadn’t visited it till the summer of 2018 on what turned out to be a good day trip.

One of the exhibits there is a DNA path seen below from the side:-

Here you can see the interweaved paving stones representing DNA’s double helix:-

The DNA path from its other end:-

At the path’s central point is a sculpture on whose sides are carved the C,G,T,A initials of the base pairs which help make up DNA’s structure:-

An information board describes the sculpture’s inspiration. The garden’s creators, Andrew and Caroline Georgina Thomson, have names whose initials are also those of the base pairs:-

The garden also contains wooden sculptures illustrating the Goldilocks story:-

Daddy Bear asleep:-

Mummy Bear:-

There a putting green too (below with the estate house in the background):-

Threave Garden lies just to the west of Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway and are in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

The gardens are lovely, well worth a visit.

Pond and Japanese bridge:-

Japanese bridge (Threave House behind):-

Japanese Bridge from approaches:-

Cascade:-

I took a video of the cascade to get the full efefct:-

Threave House. I believe this is used as administration offices, now:-

Fuller view:-