It was not only a work of ingenuity for masterfully combining the technology of clock making with the art of garden design, but also for the engineering it took to install the clock on a forty degree incline. The Princes Street Gardens’ floral clock featured a twelve-foot dial and hands created from long, shallow troughs of sheet metal planted with flowers. ![]() When the clock began operating in 1903, it had only an hour hand a minute hand was added the following year. The design for one of the earliest floral clocks, at Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, is credited to Parks Superintendent John McHattie who arranged to have clockmakers Ritchie & Son install the necessary mechanical parts. Some worked like sundials, dependent on the sun to mark time, while others were fully functioning timepieces. Not to be confused with botanist Carl Linnaeus’ flower clock which laid out a variety of flowers in a clock-like design according to the hour of the day they opened and closed, the floral clocks referred to here were large-scale timepieces placed amongst richly colored and contrasting carpet plants in elaborate patterns. Floral clocks started appearing in outdoor public spaces at the turn of the twentieth century.
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