Flowers

We had an American visitor here at the week-end who was astonished by the size of our flowers. She was a keen gardener and had some of the same flowers in her own garden as we have in ours, but she said ours were much bigger.  Flowers – gardens and wild flowers –  are a feature of Scotland that are possibly not as famous abroad as rugged mountains and bloody battles, but they are  one of the things I love about living here.

Garden poppies

This year has been a great year for growth as we’ve had plenty of rain and sunshine and the wild flowers have been a delight as well as the flowers in the garden. The flowers in my pots at the back have done wonderfully well and I haven’t even had to water them once.

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The yellow flag irises have multiplied this year next to the drive. They have benefitted from the expansion of the beaver wetlands.

Yellow Flag Irises

 

 

Orchids have flourished too.

 

 

Wild Orchid

 

The foxgloves are always a delight and come in three colours in our woods. White foxgloves are said to be a sign of the presence of fairies. I think we must have a thriving population of fairies. Or perhaps faeries – the Celtic kind.

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Shops

Another thing people comment on when they come here are the shops in Alyth.  We are very lucky to still have an old fashioned grocer’s shop that is very much like Ginger & Pickles in the Beatrix Potter books.

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Mrs. Ferguson’s shop has done well through the years,  in spite of being next door to the Spar. She stocks lovely things like vegetables straight from gardens in Alyth, with the earth still on them,  and raspberries grown  in the sunshine, from a farm that doesn’t use poly-tunnels. She also has a great range of biscuits and sweets in jars and she serves you!  Visiting her shop is always a pleasure.

 

.Mrs Ferguson's shop, Alyth

We also have a real butcher’s shop that sells all kinds of good things. Somebody once wrote in our visitor’s book “A butcher to die for”.  I couldn’t help thinking that might be going a bit far .

 

The Alyth Butcher's shop