It is always a treat to see bright autumn colour, yet occasionally the reverse happens. The colour has drained from the foliage of Viburnum orientale to such an…
Last February, RBGE launched the Wee World of Lichens, a self-guided safari-style exploration of the frequently overlooked but fascinating world of the small. Now that the leaves are…
At the weekend I went to look at the new exhibition on coffee at the John Hope Gateway. The exhibition is borrowed from the Berlin Botanic Garden, but…
The story of Private John Mathieson Brown, who was killed on the 24th November 1917, takes us away from the Western Front in Belgium and France, and focusses…
The bright sunny days we have had are ideal for highlighting the soft shades of grey and silver in the garden. The foliage of Geranium traversii var. elegans,…
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…
Brian Lawrence ‘Bill’ Burtt (1913-2008) began his career as a taxonomist at Kew Gardens, before coming to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) in 1951. Throughout the course…
The Pumpkin patch in the demonstration garden has come to fruition. The large flat seeds were sown into containers in May. Through the season the trailing growth produced…
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…
Now two full years have passed since our Nature Play: Nature Conservation project to explore the idea of informal, child-led play within an area of native vegetation in…
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…
After RBGE’s initial involvement in land plant DNA barcode marker selection, culminating in a couple of 2009 papers that both utilized bryophyte barcoding data sets, we started a…
Over the past year, Glasgow based artist Simone Landwehr-Traxler has been studying some of the lichen specimens in the Herbarium at RBGE from the islands of Scotland. Her…
The RBGE Guild’s publications are invaluable to those researching RBGE’s 20th century history. Based on Kew Garden’s Guild which is still in existence, ours was established in 1913…
Walking past the woodland garden you cannot help but notice the planting of Lobelia tupa. Strong, sturdy plants in excess of two metres tall. These evergreen herbaceous plants…