Progress Report : Summer 2002

The wall has sprung up under the hands of John Dimant. Something like 53 tons of sandstone have gone into its construction.

The new patio has advanced under the combined efforts of a City Skills team.

The garden path MW Groundworks, in coordination with the Greenbelt Trust has driven a rotavator over the ground and laid a winding path from near the gate to a terminus area where wheelchairs can be turned round. The path helps to define the places where different types of plant are grown, like shrubs, grasses and flowers. At intervals are wooden perches at the side to provide resting places for weary gardeners and those who want to admire their work.

The ponds John Dimant and Errol have built up the raised beds and started to install the water feature for which Jean Smith has received the Give It A Go award. Power for the water feature has been laid on by the Thistle maintainance team, who have also provided an outside faucet for the garden hose.

The Shrubbery has been planted by a team from British Conservation Trust volunteers.

The Heron("Oscar") is planned to be the centrepiece for the water feature, to be fashioned out of a block of wood by Justine Blair and Jean Smith, the chief recipient of the Give it A Go Award for the development of the ponds, ornamentation and planting. Oscar started life as a couple of pieces of Scottish hardwood glued together and is now taking shape as the body of a heron, destined to keep its beady eye on the ornamental carp in the ponds. A separate piece is to be fashioned into a beak which will be stuck on later.

The Sundial has now been affixed to its Plinth. It is inscribed with the winning legend from Frank Smith:         "The garden is here to colour your life"

Other Garden furniture - several rustic benches, some of them quite monumental, two wooden planters on legs to allow wheelchair users to get close in and a pair of metal gates and magnificent gate post with a lively, organic form, painted dark green by Frank Smith and Lorna Gilbertson. Georgina and Duncan of the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop are responsible for these unique pieces of wood and metal. The half dozen wooden perches have also been painted green to blend in with the landscape a bit better, so that the place looks less like a graveyard. The benches and planters have been secured to the ground to prevent them tipping, and to deter thieves, and MW Groundworks have installed the posts and hung the gates.

The Gardens Several groups of volunteers, including children from St Francis School in Craigmillar, have put in place most of the plants as specified on the plan devised by our horticulturalist, Claire Reaney, from Inveresk Lodge Gardens. One sunny afernoon, people from the garden group planted herbs and flowers in some of the raised beds. More plants are to be delivered shortly, to populate the planters and other areas and some plants have already been donated by the Thistle community, among them a Bleeding Hearts and a climbing hydrangea. The young cherry tree is coming on, there are potatoes, peas and lettuce in the vegetable patch and rows of flowers and shrubs are coming into bloom. In fact, the garden is now well enough established to need a maintenance plan (en train) and at some stage we hope to produce a display with photogrqaphs to act as a map of the whole thing. There are a lot of Latin names there to exercise the tongue.