EDITOR'S WELCOME
The changing seasons are starting to muddle traditional times in the gardening calendar when certain jobs were undertaken but we’ve got lots of seasonal advice in this issue to see you through to the end of the year, and well into planning for next year’s garden.
We feature some fabulously festive garden and houseplant suggestions to embrace the season both outdoors and indoors, including the iconic Christmas Rose. Olivia Thomas gives us ideas to bring garden foliage inside to deck the halls this Christmastime, coupled with a touch of festive folklore from Karen Stewart-Russell. If the season of giving resonates with you, we hope you’ll be inspired by our Compassionate Gardeners story inside this issue and perhaps encouraged to see gifting of your time as the most precious gift of all.
To the uninitiated, winter may seem like a time for retreating inside but Andy Peasgood takes you through his winter checklist for his container garden, Katrina Gelderbloem shows us how she uses cardboard to keep the garden cosy over the colder months. We feature advice on helping songbirds through the winter, whilst Katie Reynolds highlights the beauty in bark exposed in the winter garden, and we take a closer look at Scotland’s National Tree, the Scots Pine. Ensuring that you do get outside, Discover Scottish Gardens makes some brilliant suggestions of gardens across the country still open to visit for some seasonal inspiration.
There’s also a heap of fruitiness inside as Janice Clyne shares recipes for using hawthorn berries and apples to make your very own home-made ketchups, we feature juicy lingonberries and a free fruit tree scheme in Fife, as well as cooking up a Christmas storm with Dina Watt featuring Brussel sprouts - one of my favourite veggies from the winter garden.
Looking ahead to the new year, Olivia Thomas offers advice on planning next year’s cutting garden, and Eli Appleby-Donald takes us on the start of her journey to grow daffodils to show at the spring shows, and we are delighted to bring you news of the Down’s Syndrome Scotland Garden which will appear at RHS Chelsea next May and then be relocated back to Scotland.
There are other great gardens and gardening initiatives inside this issue from the often impossible gardening challenges at the National Trust for Scotland’s Inverewe Garden, to the first public garden planned for Edinburgh city centre in 200 years, and the wildflower planting at Westfield Park, a key site in the Aberdeen B-Lines project that aims to create stepping stones of habitat across the city to support pollinators.
Last but by no means least, we could not fail to pay tribute to the grandfather of Scottish gardening in this issue as we remember both Jim McColl’s appearance on the Scotland Grows Show, and some fond tributes from many across the Scottish gardening industry who worked alongside him and in whom his legacy lives on.
From me personally, can I offer a heartfelt thank you to you as a subscriber to Scotland Grows magazine? It is no easy task to keep a magazine dedicated to Scottish gardening alive and kicking but with the support of the absolutely amazing columnists who offer you their seasonal advice in every issue, and the gardening industry greats who support us, we hope to bring you even more Scottish gardening goodness into 2025, and do hope that you will stay with us to encourage and contribute to the story of Scottish gardening which we weave with you.
M.T. O’Donnell
Editor
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