Tag: RBGEPage 3 of 18

Siân Bowen’s Leverhulme Research Fellowship Exhibition: After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants

After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing and Presencing Rare Plants marks the culmination of my four-year collaboration with the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). Having held my first solo exhibition in Scotland at Inverleith House at RBGE in 1995, it is wonderful to be able to exhibit here once again. In 2017, I was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to carry out the project. The Leverhulme Trust is known for supporting experimental proposals with an emphasis on outward facing journeys. The journey that the award facilitated has certainly been extraordinary – opening up possibilities to work with botanists, ecologists, historical researchers, cultural geographers, taxonomists and curators. It has allowed encounters with rare plants in darkened herbaria and light-filled South Indian forests and swamps; epistemologies used to ‘reveal’ specimens and sensory differences between plants’ live and preserved states.

Old woody blooms in spring

The majority of Primulas are rosette or clump growing herbaceous plants. Primula marginata differs. Take a look at the plant growing in the trough within the alpine area….

Spring ready

Travelling around Edinburgh the grass has a lushness usually associated with the month of March. Plant growth is advanced for this time of the year. This January has…

Crocus damage

The garden becomes a feeding ground for the Grey Squirrel population as they discover the young shoots of emerging Crocus. The appetite is however for the brown corm…

Plant and grow a hedge

Winter storms and ageing fence posts and panels are not good companions. This is the time to replace your garden fence and what better way than to plant…

White stemmed Rubus

These images are of one of the white stemmed brambles that since leaf fall are now more obvious in the border. The white indumentum over ruddy brown stems…

A fine ground covering plant

Now well established in the Copse is the evergreen Vinca difformis. Straggly bootlace shoots are sent out over ground at a rate of knots. Occasionally rooting down at…

Compost and the need to nourish the soil

Much of the work to be done in the garden at this time of year produces quantities of pruning’s and other green resource material. Note the use of…

Bright and cheerful

Jasminum nudiflorum; 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. The…

Review of the year – 2019

2018 ended with temperatures in double figures, not as isolated incidents but repeated daily. Before dusk fell, the bells announcing the ice cream van touting for trade were…

Respecting the edges

By this time of year all the herbaceous plants have died back and reduced to yellow/brown remnants of their former glory. Take the opportunity to rake any remains…

….and hedge bases

Winter months are a good time to catch up with hedge cutting. Always start at the base, a clean line with the first pass of the hedge trimmer…

84 Year old Cherry felled in last nights winds at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Last night (5/12/19) the forecast high winds caused us to cancel our Christmas light show. The highest gust recorded in the garden was 43mph. This was enough to…

Hedge tops

December arrives and leaf fall should be complete. Now is the time to clear the decaying remains from the lawns and corners of the garden. An area often…

Bird food

With the last of the dark green foliage just hanging onto the stem the twiggy outline of Euonymus europaeus is enhanced by the cluster of red seed capsules…

#NationalTreeWeek @TheBotanics 2019 What are we planting this year?

National Tree Week marks the traditional start of the winter tree planting season. We are celebrating from the 23rd November to the 1st December. “National Tree Week is…

Silver sensation

A plant of 1960’s suburbia. With the housing boom in the 1960’s the Pampas grass became a popular feature of British gardens. The images are of a cultivar…

Himalayan herbage

Miscanthus nepalensis has grown well from seed collected in 2016 from plants growing in Nepalese coniferous forest.  A group on the corner of the Front Range glasshouse has…

Ageing radiance

Hosta is a genus of herbaceous plants that once frost occurs in the autumn rapidly lose their colour and structure. The first image, taken mid-October shows leaves past…

Bleached, yellow, red – the range of autumn leaf colour

Bleached white through shades of yellow to the darker red; the range of colour deciduous tree canopies evolve into. There is a timely article, discussing the changes leaves…