Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Dawyck Botanic Garden

Rob and I had a trip to the Scottish Borders today. We started out with a visit to Dawyck Botanic Garden. The garden has a superb tree collection, as well as many shrubs and herbaceous plants. The fir trees, and rhododendrons were spectacular and there were carpets of blue bells and some beautiful meconopsis to see.

You can see views of Dawyck House (below) from various points in the garden. There are many trails and paths to follow, so you could easily spend 1 - 2 hours wandering around.


The function of this mysterious little building was not mentioned on the map, but I think it might be an ice house.

 
Scrape Burn runs from top to bottom of this sloping garden and provides some refreshing movement and sound.


We ended our visit with lunch in the cafe, which was really excellent. Lots of home cooking with local ingredients. We enjoyed jacket potatoes with cheese, coleslaw and side salad, cappuccino and Early Grey tea for under £17. The salad was fresh and crunchy, the homemade coleslaw included apple and sultanas and the potatoes were perfectly baked with tasty cheese. Some of the best we've tasted (and we've eaten quite a few over the years!).


The small shop has lots of interesting seeds: Rob choose some Scottish wildflowers to attract bees and I bought some pink oyster mushroom spawn. I have tried several times to grow mushrooms, with very little success, so fingers crossed!

We went on to the picturesque town of Peebles afterwards, which was lovely - lots of small, interesting shops, including delis, clothing shops, cafes and restaurants. Also a handful of charity shops, which were ideal for me to search for buttons :) All-in-all a very nice day out!

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