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 we held a workshop for students about how you can get a little more from supermarket food and scraps; this provoked so much interest from staff and volunteers that I decided to write a blog detailing the workshop.

The aim of a shop is to sell things, and preferably to come back and rebuy those things again and again; while we can’t avoid supermarkets to buy our food, we can win a few little victories. For example, take herb pots. Has anyone ever managed to keep a pot of basil for more than two weeks before it dies? I certainly haven’t, and the reason is that they are designed to die on our windowsills. Each stalk in the pot is a separate plant and once these plants begin to get bigger the small pots can’t possibly sustain them, so they starve. Instead, why not divide the pot and then pot up a few individual plants to grow on; this could give you up to a dozen basil plants that will last you ten times longer than two weeks; This goes for most of the herb pots and is also effective by dividing them into smaller clumps. (more…)

By Sezin Topaloglu: BSc Marketing 2nd year

As a part of my 2nd year Marketing degree at the University of Bristol, I am excited to say that I’ve completed my social media placement at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden. It has been an incredibly comprehensive and invaluable experience, significantly enhancing my social media skills and deepening my knowledge of plants. Throughout this placement, I engaged in a variety of tasks that allowed me to develop a strong understanding of content creation and social media strategy. (more…)