Auchgourish Botanic Garden

Scotland’s Millennium Botanic Garden

Items of Interest

Gardening Scotland 2008

 

Gardening Scotland is Scotland’s national celebration of gardening and outdoor living. The show took place on Friday 30th, Saturday 31st May and Sunday 1st June 2008 at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, near Edinburgh.  Despite only having four weeks advance notice following the invitation to produce a botanical plant display Auchgourish Botanic Gardens exhibited for the first time this year winning a Bronze Medal in the Hardy Plants category. See below for display

Highland Cattle

 

At Auchgourish Botanic Garden we have a small ‘fold’ * of the world famous iconic shaggy Highland cattle people around the world associate with Scotland. The original colour of these primitive hardy cattle was Black however after the Celts migrated north with their cattle, as with many other mammals including humans, the hair and skin colour started to change and brown cattle appeared, this colour is referred to a ‘dun’ and in time a few rare instances of cattle appeared as red coated, the colour most often familiar to visitors as seen for example on postcards. 

 

It is to Queen Victoria in the 19^th century we can credit for the popularising of the red colour as she preferred this to the others and of course, if the Queen wanted red Highland cattle then everybody aspired to have red ones too. The rarest colour of all are the white Highland cattle, which amongst the pre-Christian Celtic peoples were always regarded a sacred, as too were the white Deer. The only difference however was that while the white deer were, and invariably still are, albinos, the white Highland and other breeds of cattle are true blonds. These animals were considered so sacred that they were never killed or hunted accept on the death of a high status person such as a Chief, Princess or High Druid. The animals were believed to have the souls of the dead in them so on their death these souls would accompany, the person’s soul to Tir nan Og, the Celtic heaven, known in translation from Gaelic as the ‘Land of the Ever Young’, or perpetual youth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The white cattle do not have pink eyes as do the albino deer and these colour adaptations are thought to reflect adaptations to solar radiation as people and animals migrated north; e.g. grey & white wolves, brown & polar bears, black & fair haired people.

 

It might be of interest to know that the term ‘black mail’ originated from when one clan would hint to a neighbouring clan that they knew a third clan was minded to raid their black cattle, however, for a small fee they would ensure this did not happen.

 

Later on, following the Scottish King James VI inheriting the English crown in the 17^th century these clan based police were around a hundred years later, after the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, formalised into what was known in Gaelic as ‘Am Freichan Dubh’ which in translation is more readily known to people in English as the ‘Black Watch’, an eventually famous regiment of Highland infantry in the British Army. In due course other countries to which Scots emigrated such as South Africa and Australia, as well as Canada, incorporated their own Black Watch Regiments, indeed Canada still retains an army a regiment known as the Black Watch of Canada.

 

Here in the gardens we keep a small fold of Highland cattle including all the colours, from Black through Dun to Red and White. The most recent addition in May is a tiny red bull called Rocky.

 

* The term ‘Fold’ is the correct term for what in other breeds of cattle would be referred to as a ‘Herd’

 

Contact is easiest either by use of email or mobile phone, the land line is not permanently manned, we are out and about in the fresh air!

Land Line phone: 01479 831 464; Mobile phone: 07746 122775; Fax: 01479 831 672

Botanic Gardens Conservation International

 

Commencing from June 2008 Auchgourish Botanic Garden has become a registered participant in the International Agenda for Botanic Gardens in Conservation, whose agenda is to promoted and managed, albeit in a modest way through this botanic garden’s membership of BGCI – Botanic Gardens Conservation International worldwide implementation in support of plant conservation, environmental awareness and sustainable development.

 

Some of the principal Genera worked with here at ABG include the following

TREES :  Alnus - Alder; Betula - Birch; Malus - Crab Apple; Pyrus - Wild Pear;

BULBOUS:   Lilium – Lilies; Iris – rhyzomatic species;

HERBACEOUS:  Paeone – Paeonies;