Give the National Trust for Scotland’s ROOTS pack as the perfect gift for gardeners this Christmas
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If you are searching for the ideal Christmas gift for gardeners that keeps on giving throughout the year, then look no further than the National Trust for Scotland’s ROOTS gardening themed subscription pack.
With gardening gifts, stories about Scotland’s plant life and tips from expert Trust gardeners, it will drop on their doorstep each month throughout the coming year.
If you’d rather reap the benefits of these green fingered gifts for yourself, why not get your own subscription to help your garden bloom. You’ll get Scottish seeds to grow at home, fascinating histories of Scottish plants which are protected and cared for by the Trust, plus ‘How to’ guides with gardening blogs from the Trust’s gardeners.
You will even receive an invitation to two exclusive ROOTS events in 2023, where you will have the chance to meet the Trust’s gardens team.
Help the Trust’s gardens to flourish and thrive
Whether you are buying ROOTS for yourself or as a gift for a loved one, every subscription will help the Trust to look after the 38 special gardens and designed landscapes in its care.
As the largest garden owner in Scotland and its biggest conservation charity, the Trust cares for a wealth of horticultural landmarks and cultivates over 100,000 native and exotic plants.
Your ROOTS subscription will help the charity continue to protect all of its gardens in many different ways. One of these is the PLANTS project - cataloguing all of the different types of plants across its properties. This project will help to keep track of rare and exotic flora and their ongoing conservation – which is essential in cases where species are under threat.
Two of the first properties to be catalogued are Inverewe Garden, which was founded by Osgood Mackenzie. Situated on a bare, rocky headland and nurtured by his daughter Mairi Sawyer to become an exotic paradise, it contains five of the Trust’s National Plant Collections.
National Plant Collections are collections of plants that are registered with Plant Heritage, a conservation charity whose aim is to conserve the diversity of garden plants. The National Trust for Scotland looks after National Collections of plants at several of its properties, at Inverewe the collections include Olearia, Aeonium, Aichryson & Monanthus species, cultivars & hybrids, Rhododendron subsection Barbata, Rhododendron subsection Glischra and Rhododendron subsection Maculifera.
By contrast, Broughton House Garden, located in the closely packed streets of Kirkcudbright, is a Japanese-influenced garden which was developed by artist E A Hornel and his sister Elizabeth at the beginning of the 20th century. The garden boasts some magnificent specimens such as the hardy orchid Dactylorhiza ‘Tizzy Hornell’, which was named after Elizabeth. Every garden has its own unique history and story to tell.
ROOTS also helps the Trust protect and celebrate the gardens in its care. This year Branklyn Garden in Perth is celebrating their centenary and your subscription helps the Trust continue to uphold the legacy of the garden's founders, John and Dorothy Renton. When they created their exceptional garden in Perth in 1922, their ambition was to fill the garden with rare and exotic flowers from across the world and some of the plants they cultivated are now rare in the wild, such as the Himalayan blue poppy, which you can still see today.
How ROOTS works
Have you ever visited one of the Trust’s gardens and wondered how you could recreate it at home? Or perhaps you’d like some expert advice in adding some splashes of colour to spruce up your outside space? Your ROOTS subscription pack will help to enhance your gardening skills and more, celebrating Scotland’s flora and helping both your garden and those in the Trust’s care to flourish.
For £6 a month, the National Trust for Scotland will send you a ROOTS pack every six weeks. Your subscription will include:
Gardening themed packs to help your garden bloom – and six times a year, will also contain a packet of Scottish seeds to grow at home
Planting guides written by expert Trust gardeners so your seeds will flourish
Stories and histories of the Scottish plants protected and cared for by the Trust
Regular emails with top tips and ‘How To’ guides, gardening blogs and articles from the Trust’s gardeners
An invitation to two exclusive ROOTS events a year with the Trust’s gardens team
To send ROOTS as a Christmas gift, make one annual payment of £72 and your subscription will include a gift certificate, so your loved one knows who their special gift came from.
Get your ROOTS subscription
For more information visit nts.org.uk/roots or to subscribe to ROOTS click here
