News

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NOVEMBER 2021

Since June our activities have gradually returned to something like normal. The tower has been opened by our volunteers from late June until the end of September. We have had around 600 visitors and have raised about £500 in donations. We have had two guided walks around the Hill, and had a special event at the Tower to mark the 250th anniversary of Sir Walter Scott’s birth. Bob Murray and his band, Noisy Shoes, provided musical entertainment with some of Scott’s songs and music of the period. We also had two recitations of his poems. On the weekend of 25-26th September we opened for Doors Open Days and welcomed many visitors.

We hope to continue our events, talks and guided walks on the hill in 2022. Thanks to all our volunteers who made these activities possible! We are looking at ways of collecting subscription and donations on line as many visitors no longer carry cash, and hope to have a better system operating by next spring. The Forest Kindergarten has started to operate near the Walled Garden giving nursery children an outdoor forest experience, following on from the success of the Forest School programme. Fox Covert Primary School will be using the Garden for a display of their Children’s Rights project. You can see that the Hill is being well used by the local community organisations as well as walkers, dog walkers, runners, etc. Remember that the Hill’s woodland and the Walled Garden are lovely in Autumn, so please visit on a sunny day!

Red
- Sep 25, 2018

Autumn

Well Autumn is well and truly settling in. It's a lovely time to visit the Hill at the moment, with colours slowly changing and views across the city and firth beginning to reveal themselves as leaves fall.

Love the colours but unsure what causes this stunning seasonal change?

The bright rich greens of summer are caused by the leaves main function of making food for the trees. They do this by producing sugar from carbon dioxide and water, using chlorophyll (which creates the green colour) and light. When the light reduces and the temperature begins to drop with the changing season, the trees begin to stop their chlorophyll production and get ready for the sun and food deprived days of winter. This reduces the green colour and instead, other hidden pigments are revealed: carotene makes leaves turn yellow, while anthocyanins (which you can really see in maples for example) make the leaves go red.

If you are going to go 'leaf peeping' (yes, it's a thing!), keep an eye out for the horse chestnuts and beech trees, which generally lead the way, followed by silver birch, and then ash and oak. All of which are in plentiful supply on our lovely Hill.