Reflecting the sunshine of this past week, were blooms in the Glasshouses of Dundee Botanics on Thursday. It’s been a glorious week of weather so a Garden Visit just had to be on the cards – even if it was just to continue testing my camera fix again. Ha-ha this could be a fine excuse for future garden visits 😉
Granted, it’s not as big as RBGE but Dundee Botanics has a nice feel to it and there is always some feature that catches my eye. I had one area in mind on this visit and it didn’t disappoint. 🙂
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Purple Pitcher: Didn’t spot label – Sarracenia purpurea perhaps?
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Purple Pitcher: Longer view. Growing in Glasshouses.
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Glasshouse plant: Spotted white bugs and not label – looks familiar.
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Established climber: Enjoying warmth of Glasshouse – couldn’t see label.
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Pond opposite visitor centre: I was looking forward to seeing this again:-)
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Pond plantings: This is the look I am going for 🙂
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Pond wildlife: Something is swimming under the lily pad leaves…
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Garden visit surprise: Large terrapins (2) swimming in a pond in Scotland!
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The Gunnera view: No terrapins spotted from this side of the pond.
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The grass path view: In a few months border plants will really change it.
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A nutrient rich loch: from a mountain stream feature through native plants.
This small loch is bigger than my wildlife pond – a wilder look than I was going for.
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Who lives in a house like this? It looked like an open door in this tree trunk.
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Trillium blooms: Growing in clusters under trees in parts of the garden.
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Photographed label: Delicate pink blooms of Rhododendron albrechtii
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A fitting entrance: The Garden of Evolution with dry-stone dykes.
Plants from green algae to flowering plants over the last 1200 million years.
Suspecting that the outdoors will beckon everyone this weekend, I’ll not chat on. I whole heartedly recommend garden visits as something the whole family can enjoy as well as for inspiration for your own garden – especially if you are working on a new area like I am with my wildlife pond.
Dundee Botanic Garden It is situated just off Riverside drive, above the River Tay – postcode DD2 1QH. If you’d like to know a little bit about this garden here’s a little on its history and ethos…
“The need for a botanic garden at the University of Dundee was identified by the University botany staff in 1966. A case was then made to the University administration, but it was promptly shelved for lack of funding.
The botany staff had considered how a new garden could be maintained in the longer term, bearing in mind the more complex traditional designs which were labour-intensive and thus costly to run. Dundee’s proposal was therefore developed to allow an operation on a shoestring budget: a policy which continues to this day. This low cash demand has remained one of the Garden’s important attributes and was the key to reviving interest in the project.
Our current aim is to encourage more visitors to access and enjoy the Garden; and to increase the facilities for their education. Thus enabling them to appreciate the vital role plants play in everyone’s lives.
The founding principles of the Garden are science, education and conservation. Moreover the aim has always been to bring these principles to the attention of the entire community, and for the Garden to act as a one of the main links between the University and those who live in this part of Scotland.
Core functions have included the cultivation of plant communities in appropriate layouts and the supply of materials for teaching and research to organisations that have need of them. These users greatly influence the choice of plants grown and the groupings in which they are displayed. At a time when the survival of many plant species is threatened, conservation is a necessary further aim. Increasingly important objectives are the encouragement of visits by schools and colleges and promoting the use of the collections for biology classes, environmental education and instruction in the fine arts.”
History and Ethos of the Garden.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend 🙂
This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in April 2014.
Interesting and nice tour in Dundee Botanic Gardens. Thank you.
The plant with the bugs looks like an abutilon.
Was the terrapin an invader or had it been put there on purpose. I've heard that people release pets that grow too big and these cause havoc amongst the indigenous wildlife.
Looks to be an interesting garden.
Trilliums are beginning to bloom here too. We don't have the one you have in this picture. Mine is the Prairie Trillium. FUN to see what is blooming in your area.
Beautiful gardens and unusual plants and a shock to see the terrapin!
Hello everyone, thanks for all your comments. I especially love sharing garden visits for those who live in the area and probably have never visited this garden and to those who will never be able to 🙂
Janneke, I'm delighted to be able to take you along with us 🙂
Sue, thanks, that’s the plant name I was thinking of too. Now, I thought the same as you on the terrapin after our initial delight at seeing it. I asked the info/ticket lady about the terrapins. I eventually recalled seeing a terrapin there many years ago. I also wondered if they caught them and put them somewhere to over winter indoors. I was told that yes, there had been terrapins for many, many years in this pond but they died. The two that are in there just now were donated by someone and have been there two years. They don’t remove the terrapins from the pond during winter. It is believed that they choose to hibernate out of the pond in the ground material of the Gunneras. I didn’t ask her the question about them possibly causing havoc amongst indigenous wildlife but instead planned to email the University to ask for a more detailed response. When I do, I will post their response in a comment here or as an update to this post. You’ve got to think that the terrapins have to be changing the balance of nature in this pond. However, you’ve also got to think that a University Botanical garden has to be sensitive to this too. An interesting one this.
Lisa, Ah… great to hear you are enjoying flowers with you now after your hard winter. Oh… just looked at images of your prairie trillium and it is a beauty! My garden is enjoying many blooms and I need to get my camera out to record them before they are gone again – garden and gardenwatching time is just flying by 🙂
Suzie, this is what I’d call a modest Botanical garden but I do enjoy my visits here. If it wasn’t for my interest in the pond plantings and standing near the edge we probably wouldn’t have noticed the terrapin swimming in the pond. How many wildlife moments are under our noses that we just don’t see while walking and chatting 😉