The Scottish Garden Podcast

A chat with Catrina Fenton, Head of the Heritage Seed Library at Garden Organic, a charity promoting organic growing and composting as well as citizen science and research.

It's also the home of the Heritage Seed Library and the national collection of heritage vegetables, conserving hundreds of varieties which are not widely available.

Listen up for an interesting discussion about why the Heritage Seed Library exists, the unusual varieties it’s saving and how we as growers can get involved and support their work.

Link: The Heritage Seed Library

How to become a Seed Guardian

A chat with Scott H Smith, Beechgrove's Head Gardener and Kate McLorey, Assistant Head Gardener at Floors Castle.

We discuss their individual routes into horticulture, why and how they changed their initial career paths, and where their gardening journey has taken them. This is an episode for anyone who's ever dreamed of switching career, or is wondering if horticulture will provide variety and opportunity in their working lives.

Links for this episode:

RHS info on careers in Horticulture 

The Chartered Institute of Horticulture - Grow Careers 

Floors Castle

Beechgrove

Work and Retrain as a Gardener scheme - WFGA

You can follow Kate on Instagram @myyearat_floors

You can follow Scott H Smith on LinkedIn 

A chat with Serena from Seeds of Hope Scotland, which supplies wildflower seeds to good causes.  It was developed during lockdown in 2020 and has grown into a social enterprise with a focus on biodiversity and mental health. 

We talk about how Seeds of Hope Scotland started up and how we can all garden and grow more sustainably. 

Seeds of Hope website, Facebook page, Instagram & Twitter.

Episode 16 of the Scottish Garden Podcast is a chat with Sallie Sillars, Head Gardener at Horatio’s Garden Scotland, which is located within the grounds of Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow.  The charity Horatio’s Garden works across the UK and creates beautiful, accessible gardens in NHS spinal injury centres.  

We discuss the planting and design of the garden in Glasgow, which was designed by James Alexander-Sinclair and opened in 2016.

Horatio's Garden Scotland website is here and they also have a Facebook page, Twitter feed and they're on Instagram and YouTube.

For details of how to get involved, donate or volunteer, visit this page.  

An episode for daffodil-lovers everywhere!  A chat with Caroline Thomson of Backhouse Rossie, location of Scotland’s Daffodil Festival and the National Collection of Backhouse daffodils. 

Caroline Thomson is a direct descendant of the Backhouse family and in our conversation we talk about the family history with daffodils, as well as their surprising links with science, and her efforts to rewild part of the estate. 

Full details about the online Daffodil Festival are on the website here and you can also follow Backhouse Rossie on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

You can also follow the Scottish Garden on Instagram and Twitter.

Episode 14 is a chat with MT O'Donnell, editor of the Scottish Gardening Magazine, a new,  free, digital, bi-monthly publication aimed directly at gardeners in Scotland. 

Our discussion is a celebration of Scottish gardening!  We talk about why MT created the magazine, its content and format.  We also discuss her gardening background and her love of local community gardening, as well as being an RHS Schools mentor - and the importance of encouraging new gardeners of all ages. 

You can find the Scottish Gardening Magazine at its website, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  

The guest for this episode is Brian Cunningham, one of the regular presenters on the BBC Scotland TV programme Beechgrove and Head Gardener at Scone Palace in Perth.

We discuss his career in horticulture, how he puts his stamp on the Scone Palace gardens, how he ended up on Beechgrove and we also talk about a brand new project - the Scottish Garden Show due to take place next May at Scone Palace. 

You can find Brian aka @gingergairdner on Instagram and Twitter or watch him on Beechgrove on BBC iPlayer. 

Beechgrove can also be found on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

The Scottish Garden Show is scheduled to take place on 29th, 30th and 31st of May at Scone Palace - you can find more details and updates on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.


Email the Scottish Garden Podcast: [email protected]

We're back after a break to bring you a conversation with Ray Cox, a photographer based in Perthshire and specialising in plants and gardening.  

His images are frequently published in newspapers and magazines like Scotland on Sunday, The English Garden, Scottish Gardener - and he also contributes to many gardening books.

We discuss the process of locating and capturing plants and gardens - and we also talk about how he got into the profession, as well as some of the demands garden photography and the vast amount of planning which goes into a shoot. 

You can see his work at www.rcoxgardenphotos.co.uk or follow him on Facebook or Instagram.

Contact the Scottish Garden Podcast by email or find updates on Twitter and Instagram. 

A conversation with Simon Milne, the Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.  We talk about its 350th anniversary celebrations, its history and wealth of plant material, education, community and the future - plans for restoring and renovating its historic glasshouses. 

The RBGE website has links to its Virtual Spring tours and those of its partner gardens.

RBGE can also be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

You can contact the Scottish Garden Podcast on [email protected] or message via Instagram or Twitter - both @scotgardenpod.

A conversation with Susie Walker-Munro, a founder member of the Tea Gardens of Scotland collective, producers of the first 100% Scottish-grown tea.

We discuss how the project began, how they grow and make their tea and their hopes for the future of Scottish tea. 

**Please note - because my conversations with guests are informal and usually recorded at their home or places of work, there can be some background noise - in this case, Susie's lovely dog!  There's also a little bit of a buzz in the recording.  Sorry this isn't up to the usual audio quality and I hope it won't put you off listening - it's a really interesting chat :)

The Tea Gardens of Scotland website has details of all of the gardens and growers, or visit  The Scottish Tea Factory for tea tasting and blending courses.

Here's a direct link to Kinnettles Tea Garden where Susie grows and you can buy Kinnettles Gold here. 

Social media links: Tea Gardens of Scotland on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can also follow @scotgardenpod on Twitter and Instagram!