Category: HorticulturePage 56 of 59

Latest blog stories connected with horticulture at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

A plantsman’s office…

Pete Brownless, nursery supervisor for almost two decades, is also the author of the Greenfingers column in our quarterly magazine The Botanics. Pete has been writing this column…

Winter Jasmine

Jasminum nudiflorum is the ideal plant to appreciate from the warmth of your home and a pleasure to encounter when garden visiting at this dreich time of year….

Highlights: 31.12.07

Grass cutting commenced on 1st February after a very mild, wet winter. Irrigation was much needed for the Rhododendron collection as growth flushed in the spring and flowering…

Highlights: 21.12.07

Mistletoe, (Viscum album), has a place in British social history. The custom of kissing beneath the Mistletoe dates from a long forgotten fertility rite, possibly linked to the…

Highlights: 17.12.07

A plant of seasonal interest, Ilex aquifolium has a wide geographical distribution ranging through South West Europe, North Africa, to South West Asia. Cultivated in Britain for centuries….

Highlights: 11.12.07

Awarded a preliminary commendation from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1957, followed by an Award of Garden Merit and a First Class Certificate, Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ is…

Student plots; cultivated and composted

As part of the first year of the HND Plantsmanship course the students are given a plot to cultivate; to sow and grow through 2010, producing a selection…

Highlights: 6.12.07

Look at the seed of Euptelia polyandra, the distinctive hook in the samara gives it the appearance of a bottle opener. A native to Japan, growing in the…

Highlights: 4.12.07

A woody member of the family Violaceae, Melicytus angustifolius has beautifully coloured berries. Partially white and partially grey, they have the appearance of the Chinese Yin and Yang…

Highlights: 30.11.07

  This week, succumb to the warmth of the Lowland Tropics and seek out the stunning Hoya imperialis. Native to Malaysia and Indonesia, this tropical gem produces the…

Highlights: 26.11.07

From Ecuador to Argentina, Colletia spinosissima will defeat any grazing predator with the angled vicious green spines. These plants are often found as single specimens in grazed land,…

Highlights: 23.11.07

Much needed at this cool, damp, darkening time of the year. A reminder of warm climes in the Southern Hemisphere. Cordyline australis is established in the beds south…

Highlights: 19.11.07

A plant that will revel in deep gloom conditions that would be deemed not suited to plant growth by many horticulturalists is Fatsia japonica. It will put on…

Highlights: 16.11.07

Fuchsia arborescens. A native to Central America with lush foliage. The leaves are arranged in a whorl, three at each node. Each carefully positioned around the stem from…

Highlights: 12.11.07

Growing on the Chinese hillside is a fast growing woody plant. Collected as part of the Lijiang Project Expedition in China and introduced to the garden in 2003…

Highlights: 9.11.07

Take a walk behind the glasshouses to appreciate a late flowering wild collected Hoheria from North Island New Zealand. Naturally a variable species which has resulted in several…

Highlights: 5.11.07

Not to be missed while walking around the Garden are two spectacular treats providing autumn colour: In the lower woodland is Carya cordiformis, native to E.N. America. It…

Highlights: 2.11.07

These two xerophytic members of the Bromeliaceae withstand neglect as long as they are in direct sunlight. Both native to Chile, central and southern respectively where they colonise…

Highlights: 31.10.07

A ghostly apparition for Halloween. Growing to the north of the access steps to the front range patio is Corokia cotoneaster a native to New Zealand. The mass…

Highlights: 29.10.07

The Dawn Redwood; living up to its name this morning. View Metasequoia glyptostroboides as the sun is rising and casting rays on the autumnal tints of pink and…