Bob and Vera Jones’ visit the Botanics in early Spring 2026 (photos below text, click to enlarge)
Photo 1 Checking one’s equipment before setting off – Crocus ‘Ruby Giant’ at the foot of the old apple tree
Photo 2 The mid-afternoon light was becoming soft as we passed through the John Hope Gateway to be met by Scilla Mischtschenkoana (Mishchenko Squill), which is native to northern Iran and The Caucasus
Photo 3 A carpet of crocuses in light and shade stretched before us across the hillside
Photo 4 Into the Chinese Garden where there were several specimens of Pieris Formosa, called the Taiwan Pieris or the Himalayan Andromeda
Photo 5 Cortaderia selloana ‘Pumila’ growing where a rivulet enters the pond
Photo 6 Time for a large cup of Scottish Breakfast Tea at the East Gate Café – this woodpigeon out-stayed us!
Photo 7 Returning by way of the Rock Garden, we spied a Betula Pendula Subsp. Pendula ‘Tristis’. Planted in 1968, it has an entry in the Register of Champion Trees (the largest and tallest trees in Britain and Ireland), where its large girth is noted. It sports slender brown catkins in the Spring
Photo 8 We were then confronted by an enormous Pinus Pinaster Subsp. Escarena, a subspecies of the Maritime Pine. It has deeply-furrowed bark, long needles and large cones. Native to the coastal regions of the Mediterranean, it is used to prevent erosion in sandy soils
Photo 9 And in the shade, a single bloom of Vinca major, the Greater Periwinkle
Photo 10 Rhododendron pudorosum, native to south-western China, afforded some colour
Photo 11 While an intensely-drilled Rhododendron Montroseanum had assumed a tight take-off formation. Native to south-western China
Photo 12 Pyrus Korshinskyi, the Kazak Pear, was also in bud. A native of walnut fruit forests in Central Asia, it is a critically-endangered species. We can look forward to masses of white blossom in a month or so
