Woodside No. 1

Explorer Tom The Rose Garden inside Cruickshank Botanic Garden is a small Old Aberdeen escape, and Tom has arrived expecting every flower to bow as he passes. Find it among the beds near St Machar Drive, within the university's garden entered from The Chanonry; the official map marks its Rose Garden and herbal area separately from the Sunken Garden. The roses, mercifully, ignore his entrance. Cruickshank is a botanical garden rather than a single decorative bed, so the rose area makes more sense as part of a slow circuit. Lawns, ponds, an arboretum and herbaceous borders give you changing shapes and colours on the way. The garden covers about eleven acres and has labelled plants to examine if you like names as much as perfume. Tom prefers naming everything 'Magnificent Tom', which is why the labels belong to someone else. Go when the roses are in flower for their strongest showing, but leave space to wander beyond them. The Friends' map identifies a herbal area alongside the roses and a separate Scottish meadow, offering a neat reminder that this is a living collection with several moods. Paths cross open and planted ground; parts of the rose garden, along with the sunken garden, are not wheelchair accessible. That is worth knowing before promising anyone a completely level circuit. Use the main gate on The Chanonry in Old Aberdeen and check the Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden for the current daily opening hours and any holiday closure. Keep dogs on leads and children with an adult, as the garden map requests. Then let the roses have the last word; Tom has already used more than his share.