DAY 4: “GIVING NATURE A HOME”… LOGAN BOTANIC GARDENS

Logan Botanic Gardens (National Trust of Scotland), is a satellite of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, which I know well, as my brother Graham, now a renowned garden designer, photographer and author, was a student of Horticulture there. Logan is a short distance from the Luce Bay peninsular and the beneficiary of the mild gulf-stream micro-climate of this southern tip of the west coast. As ‘the most exotic garden in Scotland’, it showcases tender perennials, trees, shrubs and bulbs from the planet’s southern hemisphere, many of which I recognised from my visits last summer to Australia, Japan and Bali. Having lost several of my own beloved mature cordylines, palms and yuccas to the ravages of our harsh winter of 2012/13, I was amazed that the lush and opulent planting at Logan that reminded me more of the flora and fauna of Australia, Madeira and Tenerife, had survived intact.

Personal highlights were the tropical water lilies in the formal pond, the famous primeval looking Gunnera Bog, sadly without resident dinosaur, and the historic Walled Garden with its living tapestries of spectacular flowering plants collected and brought back by plant hunters from all around the globe for our education and enjoyment. Plants are of course an endless source of inspiration to the artist and below is a photo-collage of images that caught my eye for their stunning variety of colour, form and texture.