Getting nice around ours. I hadn’t noticed how late that particular Magnolia is before. All the others have lost their flowers already.

We take quality control very seriously at The Linn, and can confirm that the new wall has been thoroughly inspected by the committee.

The Linn Botanic Garden - 2026 Preview YouTube video by The Linn Botanic Garden

Want to know what we’ve got planned for this year? I made a wee video to tell you:

youtu.be/auxXir-WNek?...

Hey folks, due to serious issues with the rebuild of The Linn Villa, we have diggers and scaffold everywhere again and the garden isn’t safe to open to visitors.

We’re looking to try and find a weekend that works for an open day, but for now that’s all that we can realistically manage I am afraid.

Spiky Bed’s looking nice at the moment.

Americans must have realised they could never truly be Top Nation the minute they allowed ranch dressing to come into existence.

We planted these last year for a dear friend who committed suicide. It’s really nice to see them up and looking so nice. Love you, pal.

I’m calling this composition ‘A Penguin Through Magnolia’.

This garden really needs loads more Magnolia trees.

One of the nicest things about UK bog-standard amenity planting is the tons and tons of plain old supermarket daffs we get every year. Fascinating and obscure botanical specimens are one thing, but I love simple run-of-the-mill daffodils in Spring.

Dissertation in. All 75 bloody pages of it

Happy 'Remind your nearest American it's Paddy not fucking Patty's Day' Day

Scottish Gardens Tourism Conference | Discover Scottish Gardens About the event: Discover Scottish Gardens has been promoting gardens and related businesses to visit for nearly ten years with its popular printed map, website, marketing and PR/media opportunities f...

I'm giving a talk on the history and renovation of The Linn at this event at Cambo House on the 19th March, if anyone fancies coming along. discoverscottishgardens.org/scottish-gar...

Arranging a 50th birthday surprise for someone who pathologically hates surprises is treading a very fine line between delight and a slow painful death.

The Linn Cleanup Team at Benmore Botanic Garden YouTube video by The Linn Botanic Garden

We’ve spent the last ten days out Benmore Botanic Garden helping them clean up some of the devastation caused by Storm Eowyn. It’s been really satisfying work and really nice to help them out.

youtu.be/cd-J0n9TGX4?...

A little more info from one of our tree surgeons on the cleanup job we’ve been helping our pals at Benmore Botanic Garden with:

www.instagram.com/reel/DGLzc-R...

Monkey Puzzle Puzzle: Opportunities From the Storm Damage at Benmore. YouTube video by The Linn Botanic Garden

We’ve been out helping the team at Benmore Botanic Garden deal with the devastation caused by Storm Eowyn, and I took the opportunity of some toppled Monkey Puzzle trees to do some investigation of the trunk sections and root plates to see if I could learn anything new.

youtu.be/1GNXK3GNe20?...

Didn’t realise a slow slide down the divisions as you get older applied to fans too, but here we are.

My mum is from Manchester so I was raised a United fan. I’ve been a season ticket holder at Hibs for ten years, because we lived just down the road from the stadium in Leith. And now we’ve moved out west our local team is Dumbarton. Mind you, one of my best pals is a Montrose fan, so he’s happy.

In the heart of Tory Scotland, too!

Whilst this is a lovely thing to read, just for full disclosure, the Marxism may not be all that dedicated, well-informed, or profound. It may, if we’re being entirely honest with ourselves, be slightly more related to my instinct to wind up Tories by being a smart-arse.

Monkey Puzzle Puzzle - Kilmum Arboretum Visit YouTube video by The Linn Botanic Garden

A wee dissertation update as I head out to Kilmun Arboretum to see if any of their Monkey Puzzle trees are showing similar symptoms to those at Benmore…

youtu.be/qCsAOTmS7ug?...

Well folks, good it most certainly was not, but the infrastructure is intact and fortunately most of the stuff that came down didn’t take much else with it. I suppose it gives us the chance to replant with trees of known, recorded provenance.

The Monkey Puzzle Puzzle: an Introduction to my Honours Dissertation YouTube video by The Linn Botanic Garden

A quick intro to my honours dissertation: trying to find out why the Monkey Puzzle trees in Benmore Botanic Garden are so sick.

youtu.be/x4FjPmtgugU?...

My wife doesn’t know it yet, but she’s just hit the ‘you’re spending the rest of the night listening to The Tragically Hip’ barrier and this evening is only going downhill for her. I am very sorry, but not quite sorry enough.

Just watched the Star Wars Original Trilogy with The Boy, and he suggested watching the prequels. Made me think that actually the sequel trilogy has somehow achieved the hitherto-unimaginable feat of actually making those films look almost bearable by comparison.

Some nice ‘low winter sun’ pics as we prepare for the new year…

Still going to be same old rubbish as usual though. The actual content isn’t going to improve I’m afraid.

Starting to regret not getting glasses sorted or a numerical keypad for the computer at this point. Hashtag data entry, science, etc…