Tag: Royal Botanic Garden EdinburghPage 6 of 20

Seed heads

The seed pods of Clematis terniflora have split open and are releasing their seed. The plumose styles appear as a mass of white feathers covering the tangled growth….

A perennial daisy

The space around one of the alpine troughs is awash with a multitude of small daisy like flowers. From minute green button buds white ray florets quickly turn…

But will there be Chestnuts to roast?

The iconic Sweet Chestnut on the NW corner of the Rock Garden has sustained damage to the canopy over the years. The westerly storm force winds have ripped…

The Urban Kingfisher

One of our wildlife recorders, Lucy Cooke, gives you tips on how to spot kingfishers in the city centre!

In the bowels of the plant

Astelia chathamica is a vigorous bold clump of sword shaped leaves. A native to New Zealand, more specifically, the Chatham Islands. Our well established plant is fruiting prolifically….

Mellow yellow

What better way to light up the area beneath a deciduous canopy, in this case, Salix x sepulcralis ‘Chrysocoma’ . Sunlight filtering through the canopy and playing tricks…

Summer Roses

The much loved rose is by nature a flower of soft colours ranging from pale creams and lemons to peaches, pinks and deeper reds and crimson. For centuries…

Folded foliage and weighty limbs

Following the prolonged dry period, the rain that we are experiencing now is a welcome shock to plants. The Paeonia lutea reacted to the additional weight of this…

Visit by Master Hai Tao to RBGE

RBGE welcomed Buddhist Master Hai Tao and his entourage on a warm, drizzly day in Edinburgh last week. His visit was primarily to see and officially bless the…

Two Clematis

In an open aspect to the south of the rock garden two Clematis are flowering. Clematis ternifolia, a vigorous grower with lightly scented white star like flowers bearing…

Botanical campanology

Campanula incurva found growing in the rock garden and producing a mass of large inflated upturned bell shaped white flowers, the texture resembling parchment paper, all from a…

The hot end of the border

The herbaceous border has a group of plants throwing out hot colours. Revelling in the long hot, dry days, this is peak Monarda season. Complementing the Monarda ‘Jacob…

Lanky by name, Lanky in growth

A fine sight, walking past the rock garden and looking up at the rock mounds populated with the spreading Lilium lankongense. The spread through the area is via…

Gazania from Africa

On the alpine wall with no appreciable rain forecast is a bright yellow composite. Baking in the heat and loving the root run through the free draining alpine…

Following Storm Hector

A casualty of Storm Hector was the loss of our mature Medlar, Mespilus germanica. The large canopy was like a sail gusting in the full force of the…

The Big Botanics BioBlitz and the 1000th Species

A damselfly basking in the sun photographed Philip Gillespie. One of the ways the garden has already celebrated nature and biodiversity this year was to hold the Big…

Diminutive and demonstrative

On the alpine wall baking in the June heat is Jasminum parkeri. With the familiar Jasmine shaped flowers this is a ground hugging evergreen shrub native to northern…

Straggly with style

Two herbaceous perennials that originate in North America are in flower at the garden. The Aquilegia was collected as seed in British Columbia growing in full sun on…

A very fine tree

Pterostyrax hispida is a choice tree native to shaded edges of forests in China and Japan. Growing at RBGE in the F beds it is now in full…

Fragrant flowers

Intense and heavily sweet, the fragrance from the coral white flowers hanging hidden within the climbing canopy of Schisandra grandiflora is overpowering. In bud the dangling spheres are…