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Newtongrange is a planned colliery village on the South Esk, the model mining town of Lothian Coal Company's Lady Victoria Colliery, now home to the National Mining Museum Scotland. The regular planned streets and miners' rows of Newtongrange give the town an unusual architectural character, and the National Mining Museum grounds carry mature amenity trees and garden planting. The South Esk runs through the valley immediately west of the town, its bankside carrying hawthorn, elder and willowherb; the arable farmland east of Newtongrange carries oilseed rape and white clover in season. The low moorland fringe above Gorebridge to the south is accessible for late-summer heather.

Oilseed rape on the Midlothian arable plain between Dalkeith, Pathhead and the East Lothian boundary provides a powerful April-May flow that is one of the most reliable in the Lothians. White clover on the improved pastures of the Esk valley floor and the amenity grasslands of the Midlothian towns is the main mid-summer crop from June through July. Sycamore is the dominant May flow tree throughout the council area, with the best sources in the North Esk gorge woodlands at Roslin Glen and Lasswade. Hawthorn on the valley hedgerows and the Midlothian lane margins provides a complementary May blossom flow. Himalayan balsam is establishing in the lower Esk corridors near Dalkeith. Bramble is dense on former colliery and mining reclamation sites throughout the area. The Pentland Hills above Penicuik and the Moorfoot Hills above Gorebridge carry heather and bilberry from late July — modest but accessible upland heather ground within the council area. Ivy closes the foraging year on Dalkeith Palace estate walls and the older stone buildings of the Esk valley villages in October.