Botanical News

Tuesday 15 September (today) was a lovely day in Aberdeen – blue sky, warm – bit like Perth spring weather – though I believe it’s warmer in Aberdeen today than it is in Perth….I’m sure that will change soon enough.

Today was a little different to our usual homeschooling day…the children had done extra work on Sunday and Monday to allow for time on Tuesday to visit Duthie Park. So schoolwork being over by 10.30am (Sam had been up and working since 6.30am!) we walked to Duthie Park – about 15-20mins away.

It’s one of the three large parks/open spaces in Aberdeen – it has a water fountain feature, ‘pool’ where people hire canoes, two large slides, playground, large grassed areas and huge glass houses.

The children had a play on the equipment for a while and then we went to wander through the glasshouses (something that one of the older brothers at the Ecclesia recommended we do)…

As you enter you can choose which ‘area’ to view first – we went thru the tropical section – which was the typical steamy/humid environment with luscious green plants and some lovely flowers - I knew the names of some of these plants.

Next was the ‘arid’ display – we saw a huge variety of cacti – some very thorny, some spiky and some hairy…again the children got a good idea of what sort of plants you’d find in a hot, dry, desert area.

There was a Japanese garden – with a miniature temple, large wood sculpture, bamboo and other plants…

The display which caught our eye or noses particularly was the ‘scented corridor’…as we stood at the crossroads between the outdoor garden and two other areas we could smell this warm honey scent…so we headed that way. I have no idea what the plants were called but each leaf we touched/rubbed our fingers on had a different smell –from lemon, rosemary, mint, apple, vomit (so the kids thought) and so on…we had great fun smelling the different plants.

Then we passed thru the ‘victorian corridor’ – pretty flowering hanging and potted plants – not really my favourites to be honest. I should know the names of some of them but they didn’t and still don’t come to mind.

There was a 2m x 1m display of venus fly trap plants – I didn’t realize there were so many types of plants that ‘attracted’ insects only to ensnare them once inside. We saw a few plants with dead insects inside and we watched with bated breath as two flies crawled all around the outside of the plant, then ventured into the actual plant but not enough to trigger the trapdoor – we were very disappointed but are planning to go back another day and photograph the plants.

On our return walk (about 2 1/2hrs later) we discovered blackberries growing along the side of the path and having been assured they were not sprayed the kids and I helped ourselves…they weren’t overly sweet but the odd delicious one here or there kept us going back for more…Jo wants to go back with a basket ‘lined with leaves’ she told me to collect more. Sam/Matt also discovered we have blackberries in our garden at ‘home’ but not with the same amount of fruit. Consequently they’ve had slightly purple/blue lips and fingers today.

Also on our walk back we saw an old man working in his veggie patch and stopped to say hello and ask what he was harvesting…we had a great chat and he enjoyed telling us about his produce… He was saying that he grew onions for the country produce competition – his best onion was 20 inches circumference but he only came third – the winning onion size was 23 inches round….not bad..

He generously gave us some carrots (massive compared to the ones we’ve grown back home in the garden patch) and some beetroot – both were very sweet and we really enjoyed eating them.

The other plant we’ve discovered is the stinging nettle. We had gone for a walk by the River Dee on Sunday afternoon and Jo was picking up the soccer ball when she got stung - she had no idea what had happened – she thought she’d been bitten by an ant, then Matt, then Mase who realized it was nettle. The sting marks do look rather like ant bites – white, raised marks with the skin a pale red surrounding the marks…I was curious to know how bad they were and found out today….I was stung around 10.30am and they were still stinging at 8pm. The sting isn’t hugely painful but it’s definitely there in the background.

Our last piece of botanical news is that Jo spotted a lovely garden near our place with a ‘patchwork’ (her description) of flowering plants. The plants look like diosmas with a tiny flower at the end of each stem. Colours of pink, orange, purple, yellow etc – looked really nice.

So that’s all the news for today…we all really enjoyed the change to our routine and I think it’s motivated the children to work ahead of their timetable to make sure we have more days like it….