Category: glasshouses

What is a Botanic Garden?

Posted on by andy.winfield
Tropical zone pool
Tropical zone pool

When I’m out and about outside work, and people ask what I do, and I tell them I work in a Botanic Garden, the most common next question is, what IS a Botanic Garden? I answer my stock response, a museum with living exhibits, but this reply just scratches the surface of what a Botanic Garden really is in the 21st century.

The more accurate answer to this question is that a Botanic Garden is many things, we are at our core a living museum, a curated collection of significant species; but surrounding this core are layers that create a life and vibrancy, each as important as each other. (more…)

Four months without you.

Posted on by andy.winfield

It’s been four months without you, the visitors, students, University staff and members of the Garden; four months maintaining a Garden without volunteers, just each other and wildlife for company. Without doubt we’ve all missed you. Missed when the sun shines and people are walking around, some pointing some ambling with their hands behind their backs (also my own chosen method of garden viewing), some sitting with eyes closed feeling the warmth and listening to the chatter of birds around them.  On days like this we feel a sense of Gardening for a purpose, when visitors have had an hour away from their usual existence in the company of plants, or taken away new facts and knowledge about the plant world that they’ll forget until that pub quiz, or time has run away from them and its suddenly four o’clock; these all make our work worthwhile. The Garden was built for people to view and without people here it feels a little eerie. (more…)

Sowing Victoria

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Nicola Temple

A photo taken a couple of years ago – I
have a grasp on my son as he leans
over into the tropical pool to get a
good look. Victoria cruziana is in flower
as is the lotus above us.
Photo credit: Shelby Temple

For me, one of the highlights at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden is the giant waterlily (Victoria cruziana) that lives in the pond in the tropical glass house. Its enormous leaves, which can reach 2 metres in diameter, are studded with spines on the underside and always provide ample wow factor for visiting children (my own included). (more…)

Seed sowing at the Botanic Garden

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Helen Roberts

Last month I met up with Penny Harms, Glasshouse Co-ordinator at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden to explore the many different plants they grow from seed. At the end of May the garden staff were nearing the end of a mammoth seed sowing frenzy in preparation for the summer ahead, but Penny explained that seed is continuously sown throughout the year depending on a particular plant’s germination requirements. (more…)