Logan Botanic Garden

Royal Botanical Garden Edinburg – Logan Botanic Garden is the place, where I spend half of my spring and summer this year. I was her between 24. May and 25. July, to be exact. Yes, I’m still in Logan, but my time here is running out. But before I leave, I still have a few days to spend in this beautiful garden. 

Me and three of my schoolmates came here for practical internship, because we have to have done 300 hours of practical education as part of studies to finish the college. And we thought, why not going abroad, if we get the chance. We had applied for some scholarship at ERASMUS and luckily we got it, so there were no obstacles left.  And we started our journey on 18th of May 2011.

We flew from Brnik airport to London and spent a few days there. I don’t like London much. It’s to crowded for me, and we spent too much money there, at least I have. After a few days of museums and galleries and, of course, fibulas Kew botanic garden (note to self: remember to write about it next time), we’ve moved on, from London to Glasgow, and from there we took a train to Stranraer, where the curator of Logan Botanic garden picked us up and brought us to where we are now. 

We’ve been placed in a cottage (you can see it at the end of the slideshow). And the air here is so clean and soft. 
 When the curator gave us the first tour of the garden, it was rather weary quick tour, my first impression was: I’m not in Scotland anymore!

I have seen pictures of it, on their official web site, but I couldn’t imagine, that it would be so different from the others gardens on this island.

The garden is practically in the middle of nowhere. One of our girls was just terrified by the thought, that there is nothing around there.  For me all of it together was just Paradise, two months of peace and relaxation. 

Working here was quite easy and relaxing. And the team of workers here is just fabulous. Oh, but these two months have passed as if in a blink of an eye.

Let me first tell you some facts about the garden:

Logan Botanic Garden got its name after the Logan Estate, because the garden itself used to be a part of it. The owners of Logan Estate were the McDouall family, for more than 700 years. The estate was passed on from generation to generation, until brothers Kenneth and Douglas McDouall became their owners. They became famous gardeners inspired by their mother Agnes, for which they believe was the first who planted Eucalyptus species on the estate.

The brothers had travelled to warm countries, for collecting plants. They also established many of the main structural plantings, which still remain similar today. 

To shorten the history part:

1         Kenneth McDouall died in 1945, the estate was passed on to his cousin Sir Ninian Buchan-Hepburn

2        in 1949 the gardens and house were passed on Mr. R. Olaf Hambro, who restored the gardens after war

3        in 1960 gardens were looked after by a Trust, until its founds became exhausted and the house along with the garden is given to the nation

4        in November 1969 the house and the biggest part of the garden became private again, but the Walled Garden and surrounding became part of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburg

Today we can find plants from South and Central America, South Africa, Atlantic Islands, Australia and New Zealand.

Together there is around 1,800 species here, just on 24-acre site. 120 of them are threatened in wild.

Here you will find plants, which other European botanical gardens can only keep in greenhouses. And it’s all because of the microclimate, which is unique in this part of Scotland, provided by Gulf Stream, also known as Atlantic convel.

I the garden, they also have a Logan Discovery centre, where you can explore the world of plants and where you can also find out about the work of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

In the Walled garden, the most interesting thing to me, is Cordyline Avenuse. It’s planted with cabbage palms or Coryline australis, that were planted there in 1980. And the Tree Fern Grove

(Dicksonia antartica) is over 150 years old. In woodland part of the garden, I liked to walk under Brazilian rhubarb. But my favourite place was, of curse, the bamboo bed, where I collected my first bamboo seeds of Chusquea culeou. But that is another story :D  

Now, just check the pictures out, and you will see why I was so surprised.

On Monday we are leaving this place. But I will return one day, for sure!

So read you next time!