Scotland has some of the world’s finest tree collections, their diversity reflecting the role many individual landowners have played over the centuries, collecting and planting trees from across…
The International Conifer Conservation Programme was established at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1991. Since then it has worked to conserve threatened conifers across the globe through…
If you follow the paths through the glasshouses until you can go no further then look up, you will see thick, green stems many meters long, and flowers…
We have recently databased and imaged selected genera of British Algae held in the herbarium as part of a project run by the Natural History Museum, London. The…
A new RBGE publication documents, and pays belated tribute, to a pair of intrepid and enterprising botanists. The latest in a series of studies by Henry Noltie on…
Do you want to escape the cold and rain for some African warmth this weekend? You can join a walking storytelling promenade performance in the Glasshouses this Saturday…
A beautiful mandala was created in the garden yesterday from leaves, fruits and flowers. Celebrating the bounty of autumn, this transient piece of art is on the grassy slope…
Holyrood Park is home to a great variety of plants. Among them are some that are relative rarities and these are carefully monitored by the Historic Scotland Ranger…
Apples are a feast for the senses. The variety of size and colour is incredible. Small varieties have fruits little bigger than a golf ball while the aptly…
As part of the Scottish Plants Project we are trying to understand the propagation requirements of 170 of Scotlands’s most threatened or vulnerable species. We are well on…
By domesticating wild plants to create our familiar crops we have selected desirable traits like disease resistance, yield and flavour. The Really Wild Veg project has been examining…
Wild plants are not only part of our landscape, they are integral to our culture and history. Plantlife’s unique project celebrates our fascination with wild plants in the form of…
This year is the 150th birthday of the magnificent avenue of redwoods at Benmore. The story behind how this species reached Britain involves a race to bring back…
The story of dead bumblebees at the Botanics that had apparently been killed by the toxic effect of nectar from silver lime (Tilia tomentosa) http://stories.rbge.org.uk/?p=5319 has taken a new…
I had the good fortune last week to be involved in field work in the Scottish Highlands, along with RBGE arborist Paul Mullany and Natsha de Vere from…
Grow! by Pop Up! Edinburgh is our latest art exhibit which is showcasing unique pieces of glass artwork from 13 various artists. The idea of Pop Up! Edinburgh…
The Sabal Palm (Sabal bermudana) is frequently mentioned as being the oldest plant in our collection at about 200 years old. A couple of years ago while researching…
‘Really Wild Veg’ is a vegetable growing trial run by the Edible Gardening Project and four other community gardens – Girvan Community Garden, Good for Ewe, Whitmuir Organics…
I finally got round to visiting the two largest herbarium collections in the UK, The Natural History Museum London (NHM) and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, to work on…