Zoo Gardens
Before being acquired by the society, the Corstorphine hill site was a nursery, once owned by Thomas Blaikie, who planted many of the great French parks such as ‘La Bagatelle’. It was on this site that two nurserymen raised the famous apple cultivars ‘John Downie’ and ‘James Grieve’. Today, the Zoo boasts one of the most diverse tree collections in the Lothians with some 120 species. The unique south facing aspect allows bananas to be grown outside. Increasingly, Zoo horticulture is seen as a discipline in its own right, with the focus on habitat creation within enclosures, food stuffs for the animals, and enrichment for both the animals and the visiting public.
Read more about this topic: Edinburgh Zoo
Famous quotes containing the words zoo and/or gardens:
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)