Horticulture: The Lodge Grounds

‘The Lodge’ is North Berwick's 11-hectare public park in the centre of the town, formerly the gardens and parkland of the B-listed Lodge. It had a £1 million historically accurate restoration in 2008. From the start, our volunteers played a major part in the restoration and worked closely with East Lothian Council, creating a series of gardens within a garden. It now boasts an Edwardian rockery, a fernery, a sub-tropical bed, an arid bed, a stumpery, an orchard, a collection of rare trees and a Japanese bed. In spring there is an uplifting daffodil display and in summer a sub-tropical bed is planted with exotic species. A carpet bed is planted by ELC gardeners. The 2024 theme marks the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Sites to visit within The Lodge are:

The Edwardian Rockery: reconstructed by our volunteers, it consists of a series of compartments planted with different species. We believe this may be the only surviving example in the country based on the McNab rock garden in RBGE demolished in 1914.

The Fernery: a shady area with twenty-two different types of fern, mostly selected cultivars of British native ferns.

The Arid Bed: a collection of plants that can cope with dry and semi-desert conditions including cacti.

The Sub-Tropical Bed: planted in summer with exotic species including bananas, most of which are overwintered in the ELC nursery.

The Japanese bed: commemorating the end of WWII, with plants popular in Japan such as hostas, azaleas and bamboos.

The Stumpery: created with logs from a nearby beach and planted with hellebores, ferns and primulas.

Daffodil display: in spring more than thirty different varieties of narcissus from each of the thirteen Daffodil Society divisions are displayed. Click to see more daffodils

The Carpet Bed: planted by ELC gardeners. The theme is changed annually. The 2024 theme marks 200 years of the RNLI.

The Rare Trees: examples of threatened conifers from Chile, Morocco and elsewhere planted as part of the International Conifer Conservation Programme and Arran whitebeams as part of the Scottish Native Plant initiative at RBGE.