Sitooterie Garden Journal 2

In the Sitooterie overlooking her Colony flat garden at Slateford, Mary Archibald started keeping a journal of the daily activity in early 2012. Rising early each morning, she witnessed the garden come alive with birds, insects and animals.

Mary has continued her journal every day, observing the growing plants and wildlife that visit the space. The 5 journals on Capital Collections span February 2012 to October 2015 but Mary continues to date to document the natural world on her doorstep.

The pages record Mary's daily musings and sketches on life in her garden and through them we also get to know the regular visitors and their habits, favourite foods and places. We read as the tadpoles grow into small frogs that love the rain and dance in puddles; giant sunflowers grow to be comfortable perches for chatting sparrows, or climbed by hungry squirrels; blackbirds sing and fight, forage and bathe and even on occasion, give chase to Sparrowhawks.

The diaries are a wonderful all-year round record of the flora and fauna in an Edinburgh urban garden and we're indebted to Mary Archibald for allowing us to share her journals online.

Browse all of Mary's journals:
Sitooterie Garden Journal - volume 1
Sitooterie Garden Journal - volume 3
Sitooterie Garden Journal - volume 4
Sitooterie Garden Journal - volume 5