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April is a busy time for the volunteers and community groups that work on the Edible Gardening Project at the Botanics. As the weather improves and the soil…
Born on the 31st March 1853, the son of John Hutton Balfour who was Regius Keeper at RBGE between 1845 and 1879, Isaac Bayley Balfour grew up up in very close contact…
Despite the cold weather colour is coming into the garden. This is Rhododendron X praecox growing by Imverleith House. The photo above was taken on an iPhone and…
I’m heading to a new part of town to find my next air quality monitoring station and to spice up the journey I take a route suggested by…
Today as part of my survey on lichens as indicators of air quality we head out of the city to the foot of the Pentlands, well almost. Bush…
This week bags of coffee beans have been arriving by post in preparation for the Coffee with a Shot of Science event on 4 April, part of…
The journey begins. 8am. I’ve just cycled north to south through the bustling traffic heavy centre of Edinburgh. I arrive, lock up my bike, pull out a clip…
I recieved a request from a member of the Scottish Rock Garden Club from the Czech Republic interested in seeing an image of a plant we have growing…
From this time of year onwards Scottish gardens are coloured with Rhododendrons in flower. At RBGE Rhododendron meddianum var. atrokermesinum is flowering in the lower woodland garden. Native…
Last night saw the final performance of Watching, a collaborative project between musicians, historians, sleep scientists and primary schools which began in January 2014. The Garden provided the…
February 2015 was chilly for the most part with temperatures mostly not rising above 7 degrees C, and with a light snowfall near the beginning of the month….
I spent an hour today in a discussion with a group of MSc Gastronomy students from Queen Margaret University considering whether there is a distinctive Scottish cuisine. More…
Ribes sanguineum ‘Albidum’ is an easily grown and propagated deciduous shrub that never fails to flower. The racemes of flowers develop as the new growth expands. These racemes…
The Scots plant collector George Forrest (1873-1932) is now known as a talented photographer, though he didn’t necessarily enjoy the process of using a cumbersome glass plate camera,…
Not just a new species, but a new section, Begonia section Oligandrae, which is endemic to the highlands of New Guinea and comprises five species. This section provides…
Pauline Maclean, an RBGE Volunteer, writes: “… By now you must be aware of the fact that I am no writer. As a practical worker I am a…
George Forrest was a prolific plant hunter; it’s estimated that here in the herbarium there are around 31,000 pressed plant specimens collected by Forrest and his team of…
Plant Collector George Forrest (1873-1932) introduced over 300 new rhododendron species to Britain but one in particular dwarfed all of these, Rhododendron protistum, which is represented in our…