Midges and Saltires

We have had some very mixed weather up here over the last couple of weeks, a week of rain every day followed by a week of almost continual sunshine but overall it has now warmed up quite a bit. So much so that we are beginning to get a few midges about, but don't worry they don't bother tourists for a while yet!

Whilst we are gardening (i.e. standing still) we get lots of people asking us "why are you wearing that net over your face?" and we explain that its to keep off the midges. most folk look at us a bit strange and think that perhaps we are making a bit of a fuss (that may well be true) but what happens is the little beasties can detect the carbon dioxide given off by humans, so unless its a windy day if you are standing fairly stationary, you usually have about five to ten minutes before the itching starts!

During that warm spell last week I took advantage of the dry soil conditions and planted up our Saltire, a massive 60 square metre St Andrews flag on the right hand corner of the Lion terrace. It has been positioned for viewing from the principal floor of the house, as it would have been in the heyday of the country estates. We have built it on a slight tilt towards the house and have tapered in the front corners all to take account of perspective.

It is made up of over 1000 delta series pansies that should flower right through until the autumn. The varieties we have used are blue blotch and pure white, this is our little contribution to the Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebrations. It should look really good by the middle of June, all this rain we have had in the last few days is really helping, because at first we were having to water it by hand and we didn't want to continue doing that for very long.