By Andy Winfield

The Garden is changing year on year, saplings are becoming trees and borders now fill out showing maturity. One of the changes is visitor numbers to the Garden which have risen steadily, and as a result our facilities were becoming inadequate, such as the loos.

What is a forward thinking 21st Century Botanic Garden to do when the they need new toilets? We were in no doubt that we had to think of an alternative that is safe and sustainable.

Toilets are all about waste, drinking water is used to flush them and research suggests that the average person uses 45 litres of water each day just from flushing a toilet; if we could find a way of restricting this we could save thousands of litres in the Garden. (more…)

By Andy Winfield

For Bristol, this is extreme weather; usually we hardly go a week without rain, it’s been over a month. The plants in the Garden are taking it all in different ways; the aromatic Mediterranean plants look at home and are producing wonderful fragrant oils whose scents drift up as you brush past them.  Tree ferns on the other hand need their trunks watered daily to stop them from drying out; native to wet forests they have adapted roots on their trunks to soak up all the rain. (more…)

By Andy Winfield

This week the Botanic Garden volunteers were awarded the highest accolade for volunteering in the land, the Queen’s Award for Volunteer Services; aka the MBE for volunteer groups. As a member of staff here I’m very chuffed for them because I know that without them the Garden would be a very different place.