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Elm blossom
If you have ever appreciated elms blooming then you are more observant than most. I don’t mean the splashes of bright green we see in April before most deciduous trees come into leaf. That is the...
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Last Ent set to repopulate Glen Affric
Sometimes individual trees attain what might be called celebrity status. They become widely known for some particular quality or association. This often relates to historical figures and events that...
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A tale of two elms
A new chapter in the 800 year relationship between the people of the Highland village of Beauly and a remarkable wych elm began on Monday 29 April 2024 with the planting of two young elms. In January...
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The elm hunters
Inchnadamph is on the shore of Loch Assynt, at the point where the burn known as the Traligill enters the loch. The hamlet consists of only a few houses and a small kirk surrounded by high hills and...
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In the firing line
Plants taking pot shots at passers by is obviously a fanciful idea. Nevertheless, there is a plant, known as the purple toothwort (Lathraea clandestina), that could be described as a botanical...
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Cow-wheat conundrum
One of the plants in the set of ten that make up the Scottish Plant Recovery project – small cow-wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum) – is a particular enigma due to its poorly understood interactions with...
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Cow-wheat curiosity: pollination
There’s nothing quite like a mystery for building a sense of curiosity. As part of my preparation for the Scottish Plant Recovery project fieldtrip to Norway in early August I was intrigued by the...
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Norwegian niches: oblong woodsia
Niche is a word that has multiple meanings. Someone might have ‘found their niche’ if they have a particularly suitable job, for example. In ecology the word is a jargon term for all the environmental...
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From Indonesia to Edinburgh – An orchids story
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 specimen made it safely back to Edinburgh...
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Size isn’t everything
The tatties produced by the ‘Edinburgh potato’ were recently revealed to the world on BBC Landward and it’s fair to say this potato is not destined to be appearing in the shops; it is rather small to...
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A botanical wild cat
The Scottish native wild apple (Malus sylvestris), like the Scottish wild cat, could be regarded as being under threat from interbreeding with its domesticated counterpart. In the cat’s case this...
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Spread hope and joy with #plantrainbow
The rainbow symbol is used to represent peace, hope, joy, inclusion and diversity. During the current public health crisis, created by the Covid-19 virus, it has also come to represent solidarity with...
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#plantrainbow – Primrose
The primrose, Primula vulgaris, is one of the most evocative and widely-known heralds of spring. If you are lucky enough to know a wild place where this beautiful native plant grows now is the time to...
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#plantrainbow – true blue
Remembering the colours of the rainbow in the correct sequence is a memory challenged easily solved with this little rhyme ‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’, giving us – Red, Orange, Yellow,...
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Connecting with plants
Greg Kenicer and Marjorie Lotfi Gill in conversation for Book Week Scotland To mark Book Week Scotland 2020, botanist and author Greg Kenicer from the Garden’s Education team chats to poet, performer...
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Eat your sea greens
Seaweed has been a traditional foraged food in coastal Scottish communities for as long as people have inhabited the coast. Despite being nutritious and abundant it became associated with scratching a...
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Blazing the apple trail
The Garden’s 2021 Harvest Festival includes a short self-guided trail on the origins and future of the apple linked to work on the Darwin Tree of Life project. As the trail will only be available on...
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Backing nature for climate at COP26
This month the world looks to Glasgow for signs of progress with tackling the climate emergency. Although the negotiations must focus on the transition to a low-carbon economy through issues such as...
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Giants, genomes and true grit
We assign human qualities to animals without a second thought. The wise owl and the cunning fox will produce a smile, even though we know this is just a way of making meaning and building emotional...
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Biodiversity at Little Sparta
The artist Ian Hamilton Finlay created a garden in the hills near Biggar that he called Little Sparta in response to the characterization of Edinburgh as the Athens of the north. On Friday 17 and...
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