Glorious Gardens visits Ayrshire

Horticultural heritage was under discussion in Ayr recently.  SGLH met up with the Ayr and Arran Plant Heritage group in Ayr to hear about SGLH’s project, Glorious Gardens, currently operating in the Clyde and Avon Valley and the Falkirk Council Area.  Project Supervisor, Sue Hewer, explained the work undertaken by the volunteers, including desk-top research, site survey and report writing.

Her regrets that the older the garden, the more difficult it was to determine what might have been grown there, was the cue for the members of the Plant Heritage to suggest what might have been growing in the 1913 garden and greenhouses below.

Going much further back, they were also able to ‘interpret’ some of the plants and vegetables listed by John Reid in his The Scots Gardener  of 1683. How about these for starters: skirrets;bairs-ears; beet-rave; cole; succory; kidneys; beet-card; orach; carvy; colworts; barberries; metheglin (to drink); hepaticas; mezerion berries; larks heels and hassell?