Courier Country’s gardens are perfect outdoor playgrounds

Enjoy fresh air as outdoor estates and castles launch new attractions

With the October school holidays just around the corner, autumn is the perfect time of year to enjoy a family day out and explore nature.

Discover Scottish Gardens is a network of gardens, plant nurseries and related businesses which have come together to promote the diversity of the country’s green spaces to visitors.

Among its members is Blair Castle in Pitlochry, which has a woodland adventure playground where children can have fun and explore.

Grown-ups can also take in Hercules’ Garden, a nine-acre walled garden recently restored to its original Georgian design.

Named after the life-size statue of Hercules which overlooks the site, it incorporates landscaped ponds, a folly, a Chinese bridge and an orchard of more than 100 fruit trees.

The castle is also running Deer Detectives between October 8-28, where children can take part in a deer hunt, as well as colouring in pictures and hanging their completed artwork in the indoor birch trees.

Meanwhile, down the road at Scone Palace, visitors can lose themselves in the Murray Star Maze – a mix of copper and green beech trees which give a tartan effect.

And, once you’ve found your way out of the maze, Brian Cunningham, head gardener at Scone Palace, suggests a few outdoor activities for children: “Collect as many colourful leaves as possible and see if you can name them.

“Or why not collect some twigs to make a grid then use conkers and their spiky shells to play a game of noughts and crosses?”

There’s lots going on at Cambo Estate in Fife too.

Catherine Erskine of the estate is also chair of Discover Scottish Gardens.

She said Cambo will be hosting a free

Discover the mythical glingbobs and tootfilts

drop-in Big Draw in the Woods day on October 12. Artists will invite families to explore the trees as inspiration for giant drawings with home-made charcoal and 3D drawings with willow, sticks, leaves and berries, all from the woods around the estate.

“We also have a range of seasonal spotting guides and a great family trail to discover the mythical glingbobs and tootfilts – creatures who live by the burn in Cambo Den,” Catherine adds.

There’s no end to the fun to be had in Courier Country this autumn.