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Kirklands Garden visit by RN Baird

My Kirklands slideshow depicts some of the wide variety of shapes and colours in this Saline garden in early June 2023. This garden was created by the present owners during the past 45 years. The stunning profusion of blooms at this time of year includes

many red acers, pink and white rhododendrons, blue meconopsis poppies, variegated green hostas, and numerous other beautiful plants.


All of my photographs were taken in only a very small, level area of the garden.

The surprise at the end of my slideshow is my photograph of the statues of Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnnie. I took that photograph during a previous visit to the gardens on 22 August 2010.

Robert Burns wrote his most famous poem, Tam O'Shanter in 1790.

Kirklands garden was the previous home of the statues of Robert Burns's characters Tam O' Shanter and his drinking buddy Souter Johnnie. Carved in the 18th century by Robert Forrest, these famous larger-than-life figures were exhibited at Calton Hill, Edinburgh in 1834, prior to being purchased by the Mercer family, who owned Kirklands House at that time. Forrest was a mason sculptor from Lanark and entirely self-taught. These figures of Tam and Johnnie were in the gardens of Kirklands House for over 180 years, until they were fairly recently acquired by Fife Council, and placed in the garden next to the new museum and library in Dunfermline.


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