Scotland's Garden Scheme

Lonicera periclymenum “Honeysuckle”
“The floures steeped in the oile and set in the sun are good to anoint the body that is benumbed and growne from cold”
Gerard 1636

St Mary's Pleasance will be open on Sunday 14 June 2009 from 2.00pm to 5.00pm as part of Scotland's Garden Scheme (SGS)

Admission: by donation - £2.50 is suggested.
Haddington Garden Trust will receive forty percent of the sum collected, with the net remainder going to SGS beneficiaries.

There will be conducted garden tours, as well as plant stalls and homemade teas. So please note the date in your diary!

Work in Progress

Crataegus oxyacantha “The Hawthorne Tree”
"The hawes or berries of the Hawthorne tree doth stay fluxes of blood”
Gerard 1636

As at January 2009 there are two renovation projects underway in the garden.

The Community Orchard

Thanks to a grant from the BBC's Breathing Places fund the trustees, with the support of the local community, are in the process of redeveloping the wildflower meadow into a community orchard.

Over the winter the meadow has been cleared, save for a number of original plum trees, and sections of the wall wired to allow for the planting and training of period appropriate standard, espalier and fan fruit trees.

The ground below the new trees will be seeded with grasses and native wildflowers and planted with bulbs. Work is also in hand to make this area of the garden more attractive to small mammals and birds with the installation of nest and bat boxes.

The Cottage Garden

Thanks to grants from the Stanley Smith Trust
and Haddington Community Council the cottage garden is being renovated and replanted with period appropriate herbaceous plants and herbs. A new hedge was planted in late autumn, partially enclosing the site, and the whole area should be replanted and re-turfed by the Spring of 2009.

The Trustees are grateful to Beryl McNaughton of Macplants, who has helped research and designed the in period planting for this part of the garden, to Hamilton Waste for their kind donation of compost for the new beds and to East Lothian's Community Justice Team for undertaking much of the labour and hard landscaping.

Use of video

We are experimenting with use of video clips to show the progress of the renovations and indeed some aspects of the ongoing maintenance that takes place in a garden of this size.

Over time we hope our shooting and editing skills will improve, so please forgive any technical shortcomings in this first clip which includes views of the area set aside to accommodate the new orchard and the new layout of the cottage garden.

History of the garden

Rosmarinus officinalis “Rosemarie”
“If a garland be put about the heade, it is good for infirmities of the heade and braine”
Gerard 1597

Haddington Garden Trust (HGT) was established by the late Duke of Hamilton in 1972. The trust’s aims are to: “preserve the garden as an open precinct to enhance the environment of

St Mary’s Church and Haddington House, and for the enjoyment in all times coming of members of the public, and to encourage the study of old Scottish gardens and gardening methods.”

The garden occupies the ground at the rear of Haddington House, which dates from 1648 and is located in Sidegate, one of the oldest streets in the Royal Burgh of Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. (Postcode EH41 4BU)

The garden is known as St Mary’s Pleasance.
It is planted with trees and plants known to have been in cultivation in Scotland when Haddington House was built. The garden contains a “mount” and “sunk garden”, both period features of a 17th century garden. Other features include pleached allées of laburnum and boxed hornbeam and a wildflower meadow.

The garden has an area of 0.65 hectares (1.59 acres). It was designed by the architect Schomberg Scott to a specification of the late Sir George Taylor, former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

All photographs copyright of Anna K Dickie