Portrait of gardener at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Thought to have been taken between 1910 and 1920. Photographer unknown.

Some might argue that the greatest asset of the four gardens of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh are our plants, but as the over-used saying goes: ‘An organisation is only as good as its people’. Indeed if it weren’t for our people, past and present, there would be no living collection.

The exhibition The Living Collection: The People Behind the Plants, which I have just sent on its merry way to Logan Botanic Garden (having had a showing here in Edinburgh last year), aims to show visitors some of those people. It was inspired by certain photographs that were included in our 2010 publication The Living Collection, written by Dr David Rae, Director of Horticulture. Some beautiful old photographic portraits (both individual and groups shots) were unearthed from our archives, and several new photographs of our current horticulturalists were also taken.

The exhibition opens at Logan Botanic Garden, Dumfries and Galloway this Saturday, 1 June, and runs until Monday 2 September.