Day 4, Saturday September 19 "Gardens"

Today was a garden day. Go out our door and up the stairs. Turn right and walk to the end of our street, Eildon St. Then turn left on Inverleith Row and walk about 2 blocks; cross the road but remember to look the opposite way from what you are used to because people are driving on the wrong side of the road. You are now at the entrance to The Royal Botanical Garden. What a bonanza for gardeners like us. There is a 70 acre garden full of plants from all over the world, grouped together by places in the world and by environment. Even though it is September, it is filled with eye-popping, mouth-gaping plants. I didn't take my camera since I knew I would be back many times but I will soon try to show you what I mean.

After about an hour of walking around a small part of the garden, we headed down to a shopping area called Canonmills. Our flat has a washing machine but no dryer. With the climate here it takes about 2 days for a pair of jeans to dry and who knows if a towel would ever get dry. So we checked out the hours of a laundry mat so we can take our wet clothes down to dry. Thankfully there are several great coffee shops and bakeries that people go into while their clothes are drying.

Then we went and ate lunch at a great pub called The Orchard. (see, more garden stuff). We sat on a great leather sofa with a fluffy bolster pillow. David got a chicken, bacon and ayrshire cheese sandwich and mine was mozzarella, tomato, rocket and pesto. YUM! We each ate half and brought the rest back for dinner tonight.




Back at the flat and it was time to plant the flowers that we bought yesterday. Remember, I told you there was a pot at the bottom of the stairs with some kind of vine growing up the stair railings. Here's what it looked like when we started.

I think you can see that there are two kinds of tiny ferms growing there and a beautiful carpet of moss. I tried to leave the moss as much as I could and planted around the ferns.


The little violas were planted in a twelve pack made out ouf styrofoam instead of the plastic packs that we are used to. We hated to tear it apart but couldn't figure out any other way to get them out so we started ripping.

Not having any gardening tools, we improvised with a big spoon and a pie server! But we were careful not to bend or break them and thankfully the pot was filled with good dirt that parted easily.


We put the sedum in toward the middle and the violas (my dad calls them Johnny Jump Ups and I think they are one of his favorites) all around.

The finished pot looks pretty good I think. Those of you who are our fellow gardeners, will understand and not think we are crazy for planting our own little garden even though we're only here for 6 weeks. (and close to half of that we will be visiting other places). I can't tell what the temparature is, I can't count the money correctly and I'm not really sure which way to look before I cross the street. But I do know what flowers are in the U.K. or the U.S. so maybe that's the reason...something familar! So hope you enjoy the Capes Botanical Garden at 11 b Eildon Street.