News from the Quiet Garden

If you haven’t visited for a while you may not have seen our new trees! We had been unhappy about the loss of three trees ( all for good reasons) over the last few years and were determined to replace them. Eventually we settled on an apple-tree ( Charles Ross eater-cum-cooker) and a fig-tree, again with an eye to food as well as beauty, shade and climate resilience.The fig tree was planted against the south-facing wall and in a pot, on Sunday  29th May by Sheila, dear friend of Jean and Gilbert, son of Gilbert , helped by Nathan and David. The tree is dedicated to the Columban generation of 1949 who defied plans to close the Church, drawing on a parable of Jesus ( St.Luke   13 v 6-9), to give it another year! Here we are 73 years later….. So far so good as the photos testify.

Visitors are once-again dropping in for a sit-down for a few minutes amidst the bustle of a city-break or from city-centre life or work. Occasionally we hear next-door’s  Hostel-kitchen  in high spirits but that’s life. We have received some lovely comments in the Visitors’ Book such as

“Local lass found solitude while working. Great find”

“This garden (especially the plaques on the wall) is heaven.”

It depends on the availability of volunteers as to how often we can open but until the Festival its most afternoons.

Of course, in this very dry year here in East Scotland, we have had to water many times. We were kindly donated a hose a few years back but now we have made a small step towards climate-resilience by also installing a water-butt. Thanks must go here to Judith B who set to on drilling the requisite hole in the down-pipe, ending up with an industrial-strength drill piece which eventually got the job finished! Fortunately we’ve had a bit of rain and the butt is filling up nicely.

The other development in the Quiet Garden is an increasing amount of edibles. We tried a few potatoes and cherry tomatoes in pots last year with mixed success. Now we have three new planters (courtesy of the ever-helpful Mushroom Trust and made by the Grassmarket Community Project Workshop), we are growing salad leaves, mange-tout, chard and green beans. Of these the green beans are the pick of the bunch! We have been able to offer a small amount of fresh produce to Foodbank clients who pass through on Tuesdays and Fridays.

On Sundays after church, our church family wanders out on the terrace to enjoy our drinks and a blether in the sun. Its a real joy for us. Join us sometime!

Students Welcome Here

Whether you are a student from the UK or another part of the world, St C’s is a progressive, inclusive church where we prize hospitality as central to the gospel of Christ. We are a smallish gathered church that is open to the world, to life and to all who walk through our door.

Creation Season: Trees

Our focus for this September’s Creation Season is on trees, as we explore “Trees and Life”, “Trees and Knowledge”, Trees and Humanity”, “Trees and Healing” and “Trees and Justice”. The environment is a regular feature in the our worship, preaching and prayers through the rest of the year as well.

Iona Pilgrimage

In July, over twenty of the congregation enjoyed the return of our bi-annual week at Bishop’s House. Jenny Paton-Williams led reflections on the ancient Celtic prayers and poems of Carmina Gadelica. The food, weather, walking and blether were all excellent. Roll on 2024.

Quiet Time – calm, poetry and silence for Lent

Join us at 4pm every Monday in Lent for twenty minutes of reflective silence, with poetry and readings. Whatever your religious background or lack thereof, you are most welcome. 7, 14, 21, 28 March and 4 and 11 April.

St. Columba’s by the Castle Church, 14 Johnston Terrace, EH1 2PW

Wild Garden by Firelight

Join us as we celebrate creation and light in the cold dark days of winter

5.30 pm, Sunday 6th January 2022 (please note new date and time)
Johnston Terrace Wild Garden

Open to all

Please come dressed appropriately for being outside, and please share with anyone who
you think might be interested

Quiet Advent – reflections for the season

Every Monday in Advent at 3pm, we are offering an opportunity to enjoy calm, candlelight, silence, poetry and readings for 20 minutes. Everyone, whatever their spiritual journey, religious affiliation or lack thereof, is most welcome. You can light a candle at any time and stay for as long as you wish. We hope that this quiet time can offer you a way to de-stress from the busyness of the pre-festive period and help you discover a deeper connection with the season of Advent.

On finding a weary garden

It’s only the 7th August and our Quiet Garden is weary. I look around and it stirs up the same feelings as an end-of-season clothes sale, except here there are no crowds .

June , turning to July was glorious – we welcomed back visitors who enjoyed seeing irises and pink geraniums, smelt the burgeoning sage and rosemary, thyme and mint and heard sparrows and blue-tits fluttering around the feeders and leafy branches. We planted up our new boat feature , with fennel billowing like sails. We supported baby tomatoes, allowed the self seeded foxgloves to flower wherever they wanted and everything flourished as in the “bee loud glade.” Congregational fellowship after church was re-established and Nathan played with the pebbles in the water-feature. Lydia, researching Roof-top Ecology, was very pleased with her findings.

But there was a worm in Paradise as the large Rowan-tree was dangerously worn-out. We couldn’t risk large dead branches falling so we had to get the tree-surgeon in to fell it. Georg came and took the logs away and we are feeling the loss.

Following water-damage, we then had to organise scaffolding for roof and wall-repair. While the work is happening we can’t welcome visitors as there are poles and planks all over the place. And the foxgloves have gone over and the geraniums are wearing thin and the yellow alchemilla is turning brown. Most dramatically the Solomon’s Seal is completely stripped of its leaves, the victim of sawfly I believe.

Well a garden is where we can learn about what John Keats called Mutability – that life is always changing, sometimes on the wax and sometimes on the wane.
Trying to come to terms with this universal truth, I look around for signs of energy…. Reassuringly I find :

• a few poppies and rudbeckia very late and still to flower
• some potatoes to dig
• bees still busy around the catmint and lavender
• the new hyssop planted in the boat about to bloom
• the tree-stump area asking for a big, new idea!

Fortunately we now have the church itself open every afternoon of August so we can still offer a place of beauty to take some time out in. Seemingly, we live in an economy of God’s Provision, only requiring our willingness to go along with it.

Jenny P-W
Volunteer gardener and Lay-reader

Immrama – new Columba exhibition in Edinburgh

A new exhibition opens in Edinburgh on 6th August for the duration of the Fringe, telling a little of the story of Columba, and inviting you to reflect on your own journey – your voyage tale.

More information and opening times

Artwork by Paul Anders MacPhail, www.paulmacphail.photo