Seeking hidden, overlooked or taken-for-granted gardens in and around Broughton is a happy pursuit, especially this shining summer, writes John Ross Maclean. Three such gems caught his eye last month.
Art aficionados will be familiar with the garden at the rear of the Scottish Gallery on Dundas Street, but it is otherwise secluded from the public gaze.
This charming, understated space features artworks in metal and other media which one chances upon as if exploring a classic corner of one of Gertrude Jekyll’s creations. Here Art and Nature fuse in a gentle echo of Andrew Marvell’s ‘green thought in a green shade’.
This summer, as elsewhere, her roses have been spectacular, with achingly large blooms. Happily, Mrs Thomson says all her flowers have attracted many bees – Deo gratias.
Other visitors have included the greenfinch and all of the tit family. She is also thrilled to report a sighting of the rare swallowtail moth.
Mrs Thomson plans to imbue the bed with a Scottish emphasis and add to the handsome thistles which already flourish in this most exhilarating of gardens.
Finally, let us not forget another charmed caesura at the corner of Broughton Street and Albany Street outside Simpson & Marwick’s. It is a miniscule space to which the gardener has given much thought.
Here there are alchemilla, campanula and roses inter alia. It is the voluntary creation of Brian Wilson, a retired employee of Simpson & Marwick, who has transformed what was once an overgrown nullity of things. To Mr Wilson we owe the pleasure of sitting among flowers when taking a breather on the low wall as the traffic pelts on by.
Yes, despite tramilitis and litter et al., Broughton blooms!