Category: Garden WildlifePage 16 of 68

Overnight Freeze

The overnight freeze left a myriad of ice crystals covering the garden this morning. The coldest day yet this year at -3.1 °C. These during and after images of…

Plant destroyers in action

Visitors to the gardens will be familiar with the foot baths at all entrances. These foot baths are just one of the measures we take to protect our…

Review of the year 2017

January 1st 2017 arrived with a light overnight frost and bright sunshine. The mild weather continued and with it the fragrance from the open flowers of Sarcococca, Hamamelis and Viburnum…

Tree rings, a log of the trees life

The Arboretum team recently had to take down a group of 5 Scots Pine trees behind the Schools Education Building in the Garden. The Schools Education Building also known as…

Bright berries

A light, open growing deciduous shrubby Honeysuckle, Lonicera deflexicalyx bears its fruit in pairs at the leaf axles or nodes, along the stem. These small berries are a…

The Sweet Chestnut project (The Afterlife of a Tree)

Building on the biodiversity the garden supports  Regular visitors to the garden will have noticed a mature Sweet Chestnut in the later stages of its life with only a…

Two late Nerines

For a late season blast of vibrant colour a patch of Nerine bowdenii ‘Pink Triumph ‘ is flourishing in a sheltered spot to the SE of the tropical…

November 2017 Garden Wildlife Report

                      November 2017 was a real ‘autumn’ month, with lovely golden colours and plenty of frosty mornings as…

A second flush

The mild weather has thrown up spikes of late season flowers. This herbaceous Delphinium beesianum has flowers sitting aside the dry brown seed pods of the summer flush….

Podcast: Dodgy Joints at Fifty?

You may have noticed that the Front Range of the glasshouses has been closed to the public at odd times over the last few weeks. While the spectacle…

How do the Botanics make you feel?

During the recent Project Soothe exhibition at the Botanics participants were asked to mark on a map of the garden places that Soothed them, Excited them or made…

Acer davidii ‘George Forrest’

History of the cultivar This cultivar was described in 1959 by James Keenan, a former member of staff at the Botanics. He described this cultivated form of A….

A treelet

One can only surmise that the description of Neoshirakia japonica in the Flora of China as “a treelet to 8 metres tall” refers to its diminished stature as…

October 2017 Garden Wildlife Report

October 2017 was another mild month with some stormy weather that closed the Garden on a couple of occasions.  It was warmer than average, with below-average rainfall (53.2…

You have now been Soothed

The dust has finally settled from the Project Soothe Exhibition and we have had a chance to catch our breath and take stock. The exhibition was a resounding success…

Nepalese Ambassador visits the Botanics

His Excellency Dr Durga Bahadur Subedi, Nepalese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, led a delegation from the Embassy in London to Scotland this weekend, visiting Edinburgh, Aberdeen and…

Not a sea nymph

The Nerine bowdenii and Nerine sarniensis are lasting well. An unusual cultivar N. ‘Quest ‘(a named hybrid of sarniensis) is growing in a clay pot in the glasshouses…

A plant with potential

A young plant of Nyssa sylvatica planted on the pond lawn is colouring well. A native to Eastern North America where it adds considerably to the swathes of…

Meet the orchid centenarians

As part doing a stocktake of the tropical and temperate orchids in the Living Collection I was impressed to see accession numbers that indicated we had plants well…

September 2017 Garden Wildlife Report

September 2017 continued this summer’s patchy weather, with an unsettled first half. The third week was much calmer and warmer, almost a mini Indian summer, with the temperature…