Marking the Bard’s birthday at Scots garden centre

A garden centre is celebrating Burns Night with a day-long celebration of Scotland’s National Bard.

And they’ve even tried their hand at writing a verse of poetry Rabbie Burns style!

Staff at Cardwell Garden Centre, near Gourock are going all out to mark the birth of Robert Burns with a festival of all things Scottish paying homage to the world’s most famous poet.

The centre’s Patio Restaurant will be decorated in tartan and a special Burns Day menu will include haggis, neeps and tatties, Scotch broth, stovies, mince and tatties and home-made shortbread.

Customers will be entertained by traditional Scottish music and Burns songs being played over the restaurant’s PA system during the day.

There will also be a display card placed on every table with the words of Burns’ famous poem recited at every Burns Supper – Address to the Haggis.

There will also be special displays of lucky white heather plants, red rose bushes and thistles along with Burns and Scottish themed books and CDs.

While Cardwell Garden Centre is near Gourock the neighbouring town of Greenock has close links to Burns and Burns Suppers.
Greenock Burns Club is known worldwide as The Mother Club as it was the first Burns Club to be instituted in 1801.

And Robert Burns fell in love with Mary Campbell – better known as Highland Mary – who came from Greenock, in the early part of 1876. Burns wrote about Highland Mary in his poems and songs and from his writings it is thought he and Mary were planning to emigrate to the West Indies together.

But their love affair was short lived as Mary died from typhus fever later that year and she was buried in Greenock.

Cardwell’s retail general manager, Paul Carmichael said: ‘We’re going all out to celebrate the birth of our National Bard with our Burns Day event.

‘We’re inviting everyone to come along to sample some of our tasty traditional Scottish fare from lunchtime onwards on Friday.

‘Even our resident would-be poet has come up with his own verse of rhyme to celebrate Robert Burns. It goes like this, but I think we’ll just stick to the Bard himself in future…’

Oor Rabbie may be deid a lang, lang time

But we’ll ne’er forget his life and his rhyme

We’ll celebrate the world’s maist famous bard

At the gairden centre in Hielan’ Mary’s backyard