Tag: Weekly HighlightsPage 27 of 32

A Monocarpic Campanula

Campanula thyrsoides is a monocarpic species that is well worth cultivating for the flower dome that is clothed in individual creamy white flowers. From a distance the spike…

Strawberry fields forever

A visit to the Demonstration Garden will reveal a mass of strawberry flowers. Fragaria ‘Pink Panda’ is a carpet of pink bloom. This vigorous herbaceous member of Rosaceae…

Compost tea

Much loved by bees, Symphytum officinale spreads throughout Europe and S.W. Asia. Preferring moist soil in shaded conditions, the plants will colonise as a rampant long lived herbaceous…

Caught on the breeze like a prayer flag

Meconopsis punicea is guaranteed to attract interest with its tissue-thin petals of bright red showing each and every crease as they grow. The head is supported on a…

Star quality

This month sees Corokia cotoneaster covered in small yellow star shaped flowers. In bud, they are cardboard brown, expanding to allow the five linear petals to spread flat…

One of many reasons to visit Logan Botanic Garden

With a long weekend approaching, take a tent or book yourself some accommodation on the Mull of Galloway. Logan Botanic Garden grows a wealth of more unusual plants….

Two hybrid lilacs that differ in stature

These deciduous shrubs come into their own during May, covered in evocatively scented terminal panicles. Both of these hybrids have purple flowers and are shades similar, in fact…

A celebration of the genus Rhododendron

The International Rhododendron Conference is taking place from 7 – 11 May 2008 at the Garden. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh grows and has long been involved with…

Climbing skyward this May weekend

Holboellia latifolia is a fellow member of the family Lardizabalaceae along with the previously described Akebia trifoliata. The plant driving itself upwards into the light on the Chinese…

Floral structure to delight students of botany

Akebia trifoliata a deciduous woody climber native to China and Japan. Found growing in full sun in moist heavy loam in a valley bottom of the Kamagone River…

An early flowering perennial

Underestimated and undervalued, Doronicum ‘Miss Mason’, this early flowering, early leafing perennial is worth a place in all gardens. Reliable is its middle name, not a year will…

A worthy champion

On the Pyrus lawn to the south west corner of the garden is Pyrus korshinskyi. Registered in the Tree Register of the British Isles as a champion tree,…

Clematis armandii

Clematis armandii is an evergreen climber is found growing at altitudes from 100 – 2400 metres in forests and along forest margins in its native China. Gripping, for…

Spines from the southern hemisphere

If there was ever a plant to deter all comers this is it. The leaves of Berberis darwinii are clothed in lethal spines. Anyone who has cultivated around…

Two twiggy shrubs

The deciduous woody shrub Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana is a member of the Hamamelidaceae family and hails from the Himalayas. Plants are found growing in the north-west frontier province of…

Ercilla volubilis

Ercilla volubilis collected in Chile during 1996 by the ICE team, a collaboration between the Royal Botanic Garden and the Instituto de Investigaciones Ecologicas Chiloe. It was observed…

Pillars and palms, the very best of Victoriana

Come in, look up, and appreciate the leafy canopy of the palms and the Victorian ironwork of the Temperate Palm House. April the first is the day 150…

Woodland floor to hedgerow; a selection of the best British natives for Easter

Primula vulgaris and its close relative the Cowslip, P. veris, are well known spring indicators. Spreading by seed and the scratching activity of mammals which inadvertently split clumps…

Little and large

Rhododendron praevurnum is a huge evergreen species reaching 4 metres across and 3 metres high and is characterised by the distinctive blotch of wine-red colour on the inner…

The colour of spring – Forsythia

This is a plant everyone is aware of – in the gardens of suburbia, filling borders in country gardens, competing well in mixed hedgerows, this bright yellow unruly…