The flowers of Dianthus superbus var. longicalycinus are delicate in composition, resembling silk threads. The plant is a short lived perennial sending flower stalks up to 180mm. These…
Summer 2019 seems to have been following a pattern, for August 2019, like July, was a month when both sunshine (201.7 hours, 179% of average) and rainfall (140.8…
The disadvantage of Tulbaghia violacea is the ever present smell of onions lingering around the planting. This gets worse in wet weather, the force of raindrops bruising the…
July 2019 has been described as the warmest globally on record. It was also a warm month at the Botanics, due in part to an intense heatwave in…
The real detail of Inula hookeri is the unfurling flower bud. A late flowering gem of Himalayan vegetation it resembles a swirl of frosted ice with the yellow…
The kirkyard at Fortingall in Perthshire has, for several centuries, been a magnet for tourists with an arboricultural bent – for the sake of its ancient yew. This…
Situated beneath the Memorial to the members of staff at RBGE who gave their lives during the First World War is a smaller, but no less poignant memorial…
In a cloud forest on the Indonesian island of Seram an orchid was collected during an expedition led by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1986. The living…
The Gentians are flowering, the first apples have fallen and beneath the mass of foliage Nasturtium seed pods are to be found. All coinciding with the end of…
The current, unprecedented scale of fire in the Amazon, the largest area of tropical rainforest in the world, a biodiversity hotspot, and a crucial resource in the fight…
Some of us may be lucky, or in this case, unlucky enough to experience a life altering event that comes to define us whether we want it to…
In the past few years at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) we have experienced changing weather patterns that reflect how climate change will affect Scotland in the…
A new twist in the story of the Edinburgh potato (Solanum xedinense) could be the most interesting yet. Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) symptoms were found on many of…
Drimys andina is a compact evergreen shrub native to Chile and Argentina. It is currently producing clusters of white petalled flowers at the end of the current season’s…
A childhood dream; a nettle patch you can fall into and emerge unscathed from. Growing in the south facing glasshouse border is a planting of Boehmeria ticuspis var….
The shepherds crook bend on the flower stalk of Cirsium purpuratum ensure the densely packed mass of flower parts are dry and attractive to bees who have no…
Sometimes, an exhibition comes along that offers me a whole new appreciation of something that I normally take for granted. Inverleith House’s summer exhibition – Microsculpture – does…
Once seen this planting of Hydrangea will either make you want to fill your front garden with a similar planting or you will think – too blousy and…
Tropaeolum speciosum is often observed growing through woody plants and hedges at RBGE. Rarely though does it associate with its supportive partner as well as when seen growing…
The Edinburgh potato is a small piece of the Garden’s historical association with food crops and food security dating back to the time of our Regius Keeper Sir…