Fourteen miles south of Stranraer, down the long finger of the Rhins, the Gulf Stream keeps frost off a pocket of land so reliably that the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh uses it to grow things that would die anywhere else in Scotland — outdoors, in the ground, with no glass over them.
The result is genuinely startling. You come down an ordinary Galloway lane, walk through a gate, and find yourself among Australian tree ferns, Chilean and New Zealand palms, eucalyptus, cabbage palms and gunnera the size of small cars. It does not look like Scotland at all.
What to see
- The walled garden — the heart of it, with the tender South American and South African planting.
- The Gunnera Bog — the photograph everyone takes, and rightly.
- The Tasmanian creek and the tree fern collection.
- The Conservatory, an elegant Victorian-style glasshouse holding the plants too tender even for here.
- The woodland garden and the terrace, with views out over the Rhins.
Logan holds national collections and does serious conservation work on plants threatened in the wild, so a good deal of what you are looking at is rarer than it appears.
Practical notes
The garden is seasonal: it opens daily from 1 March and closes for the winter, with snowdrop weekends in February. In season it is generally open 10am to 5pm, with the Potting Shed café from 10.30. Adult entry has been around £9.45 with children under 15 free, but check current prices before travelling, and note that access to the café has at times been restricted to garden visitors only during the main season.
There is a shop and a discovery centre. Most paths are firm and the main garden is largely level, though there are slopes in the woodland areas.
Getting there
This is the far south-west, and there is no quick way: figure on a good two hours from Girvan each way, via Stranraer and down the B7065. It belongs on a full day rather than a half — see the Stranraer and the Rhins day trip, which pairs it with Portpatrick for lunch and the Mull of Galloway at the end. Port Logan and its fish pond are five minutes away.
