EDINBURGH

Juicy, fruity, abundant and highly textural, the tipping point of late summer into early autumn is one of the best times of the year for flower harvesting and arranging. Picking beans, tomatoes and nasturtium will always take me back to Scotland, to Pyrus and Elliott’s where we shot ‘Food & Flowers’ - one of my favourite chapters of our book, Naturalistic Flowers: A Year of Plants, Places and People. Today I’m continuing the outtake sharing because I love so many of the photographs Jess captured for this story that didn’t ultimately make it into the book but are too delicious not to consume, somehow. This shoot was all about combining edibles with ornamentals - raspberry briars with amaranth, apples with roses, peas and Borlotti beans with towering fennel, marigolds and cheeky, diminutive Viola. Bon appétit!

The rose tunnel at Pyrus Botanicals

Harvesting branches of raspberry

Pondering peas with Fiona Inglis at Pyrus Botanicals

Julia’s rose

Loading in at Elliott’s on Sciennes Road

Notes on lunch

My welcome arrangement for the studio window

Jess has a range of brilliant cookbooks

Exquisite Viola from the Pyrus walled garden

Jess Elliott Dennison tearing fruit for a doughnut peach and basil salad

Sanguisorba shadows

Florist and grower Marion Blythe Sandwith with Digitalis parviflora ‘Milk Chocolate’

Dishevelled late summer beauty - a tangle of mullein and hollyhocks at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Mugwort, fennel, California poppies and fading spires