Issue 60, Spring 2015 - Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

ISSUE 60 | SPRING 2015

The Cottage is coming An update from the Demonstration Garden

A forgotten legacy An acquisition shows the early days of Logan

Competition results The winning photography entries revealed

Contents Foreword

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In this issue... 4 Making progress: the Botanic Cottage is coming 4 | T H E B OTA N I C S 6 0 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

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Making progress: the Botanic Cottage is coming The story in a nutshell: - RBGE was on Leith Walk from 1763 until 1823. - At the entrance stood the Head Gardener’s house, designed by John Adam and James Craig. – We know it today as the Botanic Cottage. - On the upper ﬂoor of the house was a classroom where, during the Scottish Enlightenme nt, Professor John Hope taught botany. - When the Garden moved to Inverleith, the house was left behind. - After being used as a private home and ofﬁces, it was abandoned in the early 2000s, and threatened with demolition. - Saved by a community campaign, RBGE took on the cottage, raised funds from generous individuals, trusts and foundations , and began rebuilding in September 2014.

Anyone who has visited the Edinburgh Demonstration Garden in recent months will have seen the progress being made on the rebuilding of the Botanic Cottage. The project sees the last surviving building from the long-lost Leith Walk incarnation of RBGE being reconstructed as a new hub for community and education use in the Garden. We will move into the cottage in the autumn of 2015, enabling people to start using this unique building as soon as possible, and this will be followed by its official opening in spring 2016.

Who is doing the building? The Botanic Cottage is being rebuilt by Maxi Construction, a firm with extensive experience in a wide range of complex projects. They are working with specialist stonemasons and other craftspeople in ensuring the cottage is built to high standards, in keeping with how it was originally built in the 18th century. Hot lime mortar is being produced by experts at the Scottish Lime Centre and transported to the Botanics so that we are being as accurate as possible in terms of the materials and methods used to reconstruct the stone walls. Opportunities for apprentices to visit and work on the project have been arranged, so a new generation can learn the traditional skills which are so important in maintaining historic buildings.

ogy dig, 2014 archaeol of the summer ons of the cottage An aerial view the foundati image. visible, and with trenches upper centre-right of the in the

n, Simpso wn James n & Bro Young pso of Sim talks to s from cts, tice Archite Appren ndation Heritage ce’s Fou munity the Prinding Com wing , sho for Buil y day ls being rain eria . on a the mat cottage them for the used

Volunteers working on the summer dig.

A different kind of digging

Work began the histo on rebuilding ric in Nove stone walls mber 2014 .

In the summer of 2014, RBGE Friends, volunteers, staff and members of the public descended on the last surviving part of what was once the Leith Walk Botanic Garden, and helped archaeologists to uncover the foundations of the Botanic Cottage in a special dig. Led by a team of professionals from Addyman Archaeology, the volunteers worked over eight days to carefully remove layers of soil and debris to reveal hidden features of the cottage. Meanwhile, several trenches were dug on other parts of the site so that the archaeologists could assess whether any features of the lost garden had survived. From drains and paths to a well, and even fragments of an old building, a wealth of discoveries were made, prompting a new and even more extensive dig to be undertaken of the whole site in early 2015, with findings still to be confirmed at the time of going to print. Find out more about the discoveries from both digs in a special talk by the archaeologists at a Friends Coffee Morning on 24 March 2015.

complete. The cottage as it will look when the beech hedge. of the Botanic Cottage the central arch in Front and rear elevations Garden, in line with the Demonstration front will face into

7 The fungi of Lao PDR 6 | T H E B OTA N I C S 6 0 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

T H E B OTA N I C S 6 0 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 | 7

The fungi of Lao PDR

Garden features which were found on the summer

rear of from the lines are scraper The boot ge – the tread the metal the cotta the top, and when it is near ced visible will be repla cottage. rebuilt scraper in the reinstalled

dig included a submerged barrel of lime and a well.

Gathering memories

Uncovered Sarah Adam by RBGE volunteer the area son, it turne d out originally in front of the cottathat had where ge the buildcurved cobbl estones ing met Leith Walk.

ng A button featuri coat of arms. the royal

A featuringmoulded clay pipe a deta to be early iled face, 19th centu likely ry.

Exciting developments in the Demonstration Garden The rebuilding of the Botanic Cottage has provided us with an opportunity to enhance the Demonstration Garden, creating new features for the public to enjoy, undertaking essential landscaping work and developing more plots to enable community and education groups to get ‘hands on’ with plants. RBGE students in Horticulture with Plantsmanship are creating an avenue of cordoned apple trees, using Scottish heritage varieties, leading from the beech hedge to the front door of the cottage, where the Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) hedges

previously stood. This will provide a beautiful new feature for the Garden as well as a teaching resource for pruning techniques and highlighting apple varieties. Ground levels are very uneven in the Demonstration Garden, and work is being undertaken to balance these out. New plots, altered paths and other features will also come to fruition over the year ahead. Whilst this work will inevitably cause some short-term inconvenience for regular visitors, in the long term it will create an even more welcoming and stimulating part of the Garden.

As part of the project to rebuild the cottage, we are gathering stories of people who have memories connected with it. We recently recorded some oral histories, including one from a man called Douglas Bayne who lived in the cottage with his family in the 1960s. He recalled how they lived on the upper floor whilst the downstairs was used as an open store area for the building merchant's which occupied the adjacent site, and the front yard was the workshop of a monumental mason. Douglas said that one night a stranger knocked on their front door and asked if they knew that their house had a connection with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – they didn’t, but when they asked the man for more information, he said that that was all he knew, and left . The family tried to research the building but found no records, as when they lived there the cottage was known as Haddington House rather than anything connected with its botanical past. Since Douglas found out a few years ago about the plan to move the cottage and learned more about its fascinating history, he has taken a keen interest in the project. Parts of the oral histories which were recorded play in the little blue information shed close to the cottage building site in the Demonstration Garden. If you have memories of the Botanic Cottage when it stood on Leith Walk, please contact Sutherland Forsyth at [email protected]

Above: A colourful Amanita species for sale at a local market.

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ast year, I began work on a three-year project, funded by the Darwin Initiative, to introduce the subject of mycology to Lao PDR. The main aims of the project are to increase the level of academic and local fungal knowledge in the country through training courses and case studies of particular topics, including the sustainability of high-value wild mushroom harvesting and fungal poisonings. In addition, a molecular laboratory will be established at the National University of Laos, with further funding for a student to attend the MSc course in Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants and Fungi at RBGE. From 2004 to 2007 I led a project to draw up a checklist of the vascular plants of Lao PDR, Darwin project 13007, which I wrote about in the Botanics issue 27. While working in the field in Lao for that project it became clear to me that many other groups of organisms needed attention. At that time there was no Lao specialist in algae, ferns, fungi, lichens or mosses, despite the Convention on

Mark Newman, RBGE Taxonomist, details a Darwin Initiativefunded project in Southeast Asia. Biological Diversity obliging signatories, such as Lao PDR, to list their species. There is also evidence that a significant number of people die each year in Lao from eating poisonous fungi, although the scale of the problem and the fungi involved are largely unknown. I teamed up with Dr Andy Taylor, a fungal ecologist at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, and after a visit to Lao in 2012, funded by a Darwin Initiative Scoping Award, Andy submitted a Main Proposal in August 2013. Our main Lao partner is the Biotechnology and Ecology Institute of the Ministry of Science and Technology, which has a number of divisions, including the Herbier National du Laos. It also has the authority to allow foreign researchers to work in the country. One of the great strengths of this project is the number of active contributors each of whom adds their expertise and sometimes financial help. In Lao, Mr Ole Pedersen is the Chief Technical Adviser to the Agrobiodiversity Project, a major partner in the fungi project and keen amateur

Below: Wild fungi on sale at a local market near Vientiane.

Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Above: (left to right) Neville Kilkenny, Paul Newton, Manfred Binder, Andy Taylor and Mark Newman at the Mahosot Hospital in Vientiane. Professor Newton is keen to use mycological expertise to help him diagnose mushroom poisonings.

mycologist. We have been able to use fungi Ole has collected over a number of years in Lao, identifying and cataloguing them as part of the project. We have also linked up with the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Research Unit to work specifically on the poisonous fungi. Two visits were made to Lao in 2014. Andy went alone in April, and Dr Thomas Laessøe, Dr Manfred Binder, Mr Neville Kilkenny and I accompanied him when he returned in November. Whilst in Vientiane, Andy and I visited the Deputy Head of Mission, Ms Alexandra Needham, at the newly reopened British Embassy. It will be impossible to make a comprehensive list of the fungi of Lao in only three years, so the team will focus on those known as ectomycorrhizal fungi, which grow in association with the roots of many tree species, with my job being to identify the trees involved. The trees cannot grow at all without these fungi so, although they may seem small, they are a vital part of the ecosystem and one which must be understood better so that Lao PDR can maintain its rich forests.

8 Helen McDouall of Logan: the forgotten gardener 8 | T H E B OTA N I C S 6 0 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5


Helen McDouall of Logan: the forgotten gardener

RBGE Archive Volunteer Helen Bennett takes a look at a new accession.

Above left: Helen McDouall tending the borders at Hensol in July 1933. Above right: The McDouall family (Helen is on the ladder) gathering ‘May Duke’ cherries on their estate at Genoch in August 1910.

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he role of the McDouall family in creating the structural and planting basis of what is now Logan Botanic Garden is well recognised. Much of the exotic character of the Garden is attributed to brothers Kenneth (1870–1945) and Douglas (1872–1942) McDouall, gifted and knowledgeable gardeners who travelled to collect new material and obtained seeds from the plant hunters of their day. Their passion for gardening had been inherited from their mother, Agnes, who was renowned for her interest in flowering trees and shrubs and the cultivation of roses and lilies. What is rarely mentioned is that Agnes also passed on this passion to her daughter Helen (1873–1959). Thanks to the kindness of Martin Henderson,

the son of Helen’s god-daughter, four photograph albums compiled by Helen between the 1890s and 1945 have recently been lent to the RBGE Archive for copying. In addition, Mr Henderson has generously gifted a collection of unmounted photographs of plantings at Logan, rescued by Helen when the estate left family ownership in 1945. From this pictorial record it is evident that Helen McDouall was a knowledgeable plantswoman who made extensive improvements and

introductions at Hensol, her marital home, and took an active and continuing interest in the work of her brothers in developing the garden at Logan. Helen Ethel McDouall, known as ‘Wee’ because of her diminutive stature, was the third and last child of Agnes and James McDouall, whose family had long owned the Logan estate in Galloway. She grew up at Logan House and lived there until her wedding in July 1919

Right: Lilium auratum platyphylum in the kitchen garden at Hensol 1930. Far right: Kenneth McDouall with a natural hybrid Meconopsis grandis x baileyi grown at Logan about 1938.

to Richard J. Cuninghame (1871– 1925), after which she moved to his estate of Hensol in Kirkcudbrightshire; this remained Helen’s home for the rest of her life. Having no children of her own, Helen bequeathed the house and its contents, including the albums and photographs of Logan, to her goddaughter Catherine Mary Henderson when she died in 1959. for alpines and island Filled with photographs taken by rockery beds. Close-ups document Helen, contributed by relatives and the progress of particular named friends, and some commercial prints, plantings, including choice alpines such the albums record travels in the UK as Nomocharis and Meconopsis, and, and abroad, house parties, celebrations among more usual garden plants, a new and the domestic life of an active and variety, Aquilegia ‘Hensol Harebell’. well-connected country family. Early Further from the house, the walled photographs frequently show them kitchen garden provided shelter for engaged in outdoor pursuits, often the tall oriental lilies beloved by Helen’s with Logan House and estate as the mother. Towering background. The McDouall brothers Lilium auratum But of the family’s gardening were reputedly so platyphylum there are only devoted to Logan that was apparently occasional hints: particularly at home, they rarely left home. images of visitors sometimes reaching admiring or sketching the flower a height of three metres. Throughout, borders; Helen, with other members Helen’s appears to have been the of her family, gathering cherries from guiding hand. an espaliered tree in 1910; and, from Alongside the images of Hensol 1913, what may be the first surviving there is a parallel record of the garden view of the recently constructed main at Logan, to which the McDouall lily tank at Logan, with a range of brothers were reputedly so devoted glasshouses behind – the glass from that they rarely left home. Photographs which was later removed to leave in the albums are supplemented with the Central Wall, supporting tender the contents of the box of prints and climbers, still a feature of the Garden. negatives, labelled in Helen’s hand It is only after her move away from “Photos of Logan garden and grounds Logan that Helen’s horticultural interests about 1926 to 35. Some very rare become evident and gardens and plants plants”. By the 1920s, thanks to the become a significant theme in the writings of Kenneth McDouall and albums. These show that within months his head gardener Robert Finlay, and of arriving at Hensol, a large tree and a articles by visitors in garden periodicals, porch were removed from the front of Logan’s reputation was already the house and beds cleared, preparatory established as a special place where to the creation of a formal garden. tender exotics and more familiar garden Among other developments, a palm was species were all grown in the open to planted, as were borders edging a path an exceptional standard. The box of leading to the elaborate late-17thphotographs, most apparently taken century sundial. Beyond this emerged by Douglas McDouall, adds another an open gravelled garden, with troughs dimension to the published images,

as many are informal record shots of the growth of individual specimens, often with Kenneth standing beside them to provide a sense of scale. Several prints capture the early days of the peat terraces, a McDouall innovation which successfully supported the cultivation of dwarf high-alpine Rhododendron raised from seed collected by Forrest and Farrer in China, along with lilies, Meconopsis and Primula. Images from around 1927 provide a survey of plantings in the Walled Garden, with many features familiar to present-day visitors, such as Castle Terrace, the southern hemisphere tree ferns and cordylines, and rows of Chusan palms. Images from ten years later focus on the flourishing collection of mature Himalayan Rhododendron grown in the woodland, while others capture the early growth of more recent introductions such as the tree lobelias from Central Africa. Finally, some four dozen transparencies provide previously unknown colour images of the plantings towards the end of the McDoualls’ tenure, the latest being an Australian silver leaf growing in rough ground behind Logan House in 1942. The identification and cataloguing of the several hundred rescued photographs remains work in progress. But it is already apparent that, thanks to Helen McDouall’s love of plants, these, together with the copies of her albums, offer a rich new Library resource to provide fresh insights into the emergence of today’s Logan Botanic Garden.

10 Watching 12 Events and Exhibitions Measuring the clouds Urban Bees 14 A postcard from Vietnam 15 Garden design course – designing the future 16 Photography Competition results 17 Members’ Events 18 Membership and Fundraising When you leave… Save Scotland’s Plants Appeal update Plant Sale 2015 The Hope Tree Growing support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery 19 Friends of RBGE 2015 onwards Gardening Scotland 2015 Australian Association of Friends of Botanic Gardens Thanks to the Friends

In this edition you have the opportunity to catch up with our progress in rebuilding the amazing Botanic Cottage, which is now emerging from its foundations in the Edinburgh Demonstration Garden. This 18th-century building will simultaneously become our newest and oldest building. Not only will it provide a tremendous insight into RBGE’s illustrious heritage, but it will become a hub for engagement and education, much as it was 250 years ago when it stood at our previous site on Leith Walk. We are currently on course to complete the project this autumn – please do come and see the building develop over the next few months. Strong links between the past and present are all around us at RBGE. Our national collections, embracing our Living Collection, Herbarium, Library, botanical art and Archive, continue to grow, with much effort going into ensuring that they remain up-to-date and relevant for contemporary and future research, conservation and education programmes. In this age of DNA sequencing and habitat and species recovery projects, the significance of our collections is hard to over-state. I am confident that the great Professor John Hope, botanist, physician, figure of the Enlightenment and fourth Regius Keeper, would have been thrilled to observe how we have built on his pioneering botanical work, developing RBGE over the centuries into one of the world’s most esteemed centres for botany and horticulture, and a cherished visitor destination. I am also confident that he

would be familiar with the impressive passion, expertise and innovation that pervades at RBGE, providing the driving force behind our success. A selection of our recent activity is featured in this edition – ranging from lichen discoveries in Scotland and mycology training in Lao PDR, to urban bees in the UK and plant collecting in Vietnam. The abstract paintings of Raoul De Keyser, our Spring Exhibition in Inverleith House, are the subject of Paul Nesbitt’s article on page 12, and don’t miss the listing of special Friends’ Events. Many thanks to all of those who donated to our Save Scotland’s Plants Appeal. We have, to date, raised a very encouraging £19,000, and I am hoping that with a little bit of extra effort we could raise an extremely useful total of £25,000!

Simon Milne MBE, Regius Keeper

Cover image: ‘Like Feathers’ by Jean Li, a finalist in the New Shoots Category of International Garden Photographer of the Year, competition 8. Go to www.igpoty.com for more information about International Garden Photographer of the Year. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a Non Departmental Public Body (NDPB) sponsored and supported through Grant-in-Aid by the Scottish Government’s Environment and Forestry Directorate (ENFOR). The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a Charity registered in Scotland (number SC007983). Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR Tel: 0131 552 7171 | Fax: 0131 248 2901 | Web: www.rbge.org.uk Enquiries regarding circulation of the Botanics should be addressed to Alice Young. Editor Alice Young | Email: [email protected] Designer Caroline Muir | Email: [email protected] Opinions expressed within the Botanics are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. All information correct at time of going to press. Printed by Meigle Colour Printers Limited, Galashiels.

When you have finished with this magazine please recycle it

News


Twenty years of Glorious Gardens The Glorious Gardens of Argyll and Bute celebrate 20 years by staging the inaugural Festival of Rhododendrons throughout April and May 2015. Starting from Easter weekend, the Festival will see each member garden hold at least one event. These will include guided walks, illustrated talks, exhibitions, art and craft events and special openings of areas not generally viewed by the public. The full diary of events is available from the website www.gardens-of-argyll.co.uk Benmore, Dawyck and Logan will be taking part and we hope that this

Lichen discovery

will be the first of many Festivals of Rhododendrons and that the event will extend to other areas and eventually be Scotland-wide in future years.

RBGE Lichen Biodiversity Scientist Rebecca Yahr has uncovered two tiny lichens clinging unnoticed in one of the country’s most heavily documented mountain regions. One, Bellemerea alpina, hadn’t been seen in Britain for more than 30 years, despite attempts by expert lichenologists. The second, Sporastatia testudinea, is also rare, with only two previous records of the species in Scotland. Together, these finds highlight the need for individuals and partnerships to develop their research around the country. As Rebecca says, “In light of what we discovered, there is new impetus to find what else has been missed”.

OBE for David Rae A 36-year career of inspirational leadership in the world of horticulture has been recognised with an OBE in the New Year Honours for David Rae, who retired as Director of Horticulture and Learning in October. The award is a fitting tribute to mark the end of a remarkable year for David who, last spring, became the first horticulturist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

New Trustees

Year of Food & Drink

RBGE welcomes new Trustees Professor Ian Wall and Professor Beverley Glover. Professor Wall founded the Edinburgh International Science Festival and was also a founder of the International Centre for Mathematical Science. He is also currently Chair of the Scottish Poetry Library and serves on the boards of a number of charities. Professor Glover is Director of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden at the University of Cambridge which she joined in 1996 following a PhD at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Her main area of interest is evolution and development of floral features which attract pollinating animals. We are very happy to welcome them both.

This year, RBGE is set to grasp the opportunities that the Year of Food & Drink Scotland 2015 brings, with a host of related events. Highlights will include the next Botanics Late evening event in May, called ‘The Still and the Hive’, which will celebrate whisky and honey during what has been designated Scotland’s ‘Whisky Month’. We are also hosting Cake Fest Edinburgh on Midsummer’s Eve in June, with cake-makers from communities across Scotland creating an immense ‘cake map’ of the Scottish capital. Our Edible Gardening Project will host all sorts of activities celebrating homegrown Scottish produce. In addition, we are celebrating our three VisitScotland ‘Taste Our Best’ awards in the restaurants and cafés at Edinburgh, Dawyck and

Logan. The Year of Food & Drink Scotland 2015 is led by VisitScotland to raise awareness of Scotland’s quality food and drink produce.


Making progress: the Botanic Cottage is coming Anyone who has visited the Edinburgh Demonstration Garden in recent months will have seen the progress being made on the rebuilding of the Botanic Cottage. The project sees the last surviving building from the long-lost Leith Walk incarnation of RBGE being reconstructed as a new hub for community and education use in the Garden. We will move into the cottage in the autumn of 2015, enabling people to start using this unique building as soon as possible, and this will be followed by its official opening in spring 2016.

The story in a nutsh ell: - RBGE was on Le ith Walk from 1763 until 1823. - At the entrance sto od the Head Gardener’s house, designed by John Adam and James Craig. – We know it to da y as the Botanic Cottage. - On the upper flo or of the house wa s a classro om wher e, during the Scottish Enlig hte nment, Professor John Hope taug ht botany. - When the Garden moved to Inverleith , the house was lef t behind. - After being used as a private home and offices, it wa s abandoned in the early 2000 s, and threatened with demo lition. - Saved by a comm unity campaign, RBGE to ok on th e cottage, raised funds from gene rous individuals, trusts and founda tions, and began rebuild ing in Sept ember 2014.

Work b ega the his n on rebuild toric s ing tone w in Nov alls ember 2014. wn Architects. Image: Simpson & Bro

ge complete. The cotta it will lo ok when as e. dg ge he tta h Co ec ic be tan l arch in the vations of the Bo line with the centra in , en Front and rear ele rd Ga n tio the Demonstra front will face into

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Who is doing the building? The Botanic Cottage is being rebuilt by Maxi Construction, a firm with extensive experience in a wide range of complex projects. They are working with specialist stonemasons and other craftspeople in ensuring the cottage is built to high standards, in keeping with how it was originally built in the 18th century. Hot lime mortar is being produced by experts at the Scottish Lime Centre and transported to the Botanics so that we are being as accurate as possible in terms of the materials and methods used to reconstruct the stone walls. Opportunities for apprentices to visit and work on the project have been arranged, so a new generation can learn the traditional skills which are so important in maintaining historic buildings.

, aeo logy d ig er 2014 arch e m ag m tt su co e e th th f ew o ations of d un fo An aerial vi e th visible, and e image. w ith trenches upper centre-rig ht of th e in th

, pson s Sim Brown e m a J g n & Youn mpso of Si s, talks to s f rom tect tice Archi e Appren ndation g u a Herit rince’s Fo mmunity the P ld ing Co how ing ui , s for B ainy day ls being r ia r a e t n o ge. e ma h t cotta m e e h t h t for used Vo lunteers wo rking on the su mmer dig.

A different kind of digging

In the summer of 2014, RBGE Friends, volunteers, staff and members of the public descended on the last surviving part of what was once the Leith Walk Botanic Garden, and helped archaeologists to uncov er the foundations of the Botanic Cottage in a special dig. Led by a team of professionals from Addyman Archaeolog y, the volunteers worked over eight days to carefully remove layers of soil and debris to reveal hidden features of the cottage. Meanwhile, several trenches were dug on other parts of the site so that the archaeologists could assess whether any features of the lost garde n had survived. From drains and paths to a well, and even fragments of an old building, a wealth of discoveries were made, prompting a new and even more extensive dig to be undertaken of the whole site in early 2015, with findings still to be confirmed at the time of going to print. Find out more about the discoveries from both digs in a special talk by the archaeologists at a Friends Coffee Morning on 24 March 2015.


Garden featur es which were foun d on the summer dig included a we ll and a submerge d barrel of lime.

r of the rea re m o r f per es a ot scra ead lin The bo age – the tr d the metal n tt the co ar the top, a n it is e ed whe age. n c a e l p e r tt visibl e o b built c r w ill scrape led in the re l reinsta

Gathering memories

Uncove Sarah A red by RBGE da v the are mson, it turn o lunteer origina a in f ront o ed out that f the c lly had ott where the buil cur ved cobble age d ing m s et Leit tones h Walk .

aturing A button fe ms. t a co of ar the royal

A featuri moulded clay ng a d pipe to be ea etailed face, lik rly 19th centur y ely .

Exciting developments in the Demonstration Garden The rebuilding of the Botanic Cottage has provided us with an opportunity to enhance the Demonstration Garden, creating new features for the public to enjoy, undertaking essential landscaping work and developing more plots to enable community and education groups to get ‘hands on’ with plants. RBGE students in Horticulture with Plantsmanship are creating an avenue of cordoned apple trees, using Scottish heritage varieties, leading from the beech hedge to the front door of the cottage, where the Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) hedges

previously stood. This will provide a beautiful new feature for the Garden as well as a teaching resource for pruning techniques and highlighting apple varieties. Ground levels are very uneven in the Demonstration Garden, and work is being undertaken to balance these out. New plots, altered paths and other features will also come to fruition over the year ahead. Whilst this work will inevitably cause some short-term inconvenience for regular visitors, in the long term it will create an even more welcoming and stimulating part of the Garden.

As part of the project to rebuild the cottage, we are gathering stories of people who have memories connected with it. We recently recorded some oral histories, including one from a man called Douglas Bayne who lived in the cottage with his family in the 1960s. He recalled how they lived on the upper floor whilst the downstairs was used as an open store area for the building merchant’s which occupied the adjacent site, and the front yard was the workshop of a monumental mason. Douglas said that one night a stranger knocked on their front door and asked if they knew that their house had a connection with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – they didn’t, but when they asked the man for more information, he said that that was all he knew, and left. The family tried to research the building but found no records, as when they lived there the cottage was known as Haddington House rather than anything connected with its botanical past. Since Douglas found out a few years ago about the plan to move the cottage and learned more about its fascinating history, he has taken a keen interest in the project. Parts of the oral histories which were recorded play in the little blue information shed close to the cottage building site in the Demonstration Garden. If you have memories of the Botanic Cottage when it stood on Leith Walk, please contact Sutherland Forsyth at [email protected] Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.


The fungi of Lao PDR Above: A colourful Amanita species for sale at a local market.

L

ast year, I began work on a three-year project, funded by the Darwin Initiative, to introduce the subject of mycology to Lao PDR. The main aims of the project are to increase the level of academic and local fungal knowledge in the country through training courses and case studies of particular topics, including the sustainability of high-value wild mushroom harvesting and fungal poisonings. In addition, a molecular laboratory will be established at the National University of Laos, with further funding for a student to attend the MSc course in Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants and Fungi at RBGE. From 2004 to 2007 I led a project to draw up a checklist of the vascular plants of Lao PDR, Darwin project 13007, which I wrote about in the Botanics issue 27. While working in the field in Lao for that project it became clear to me that many other groups of organisms needed attention. At that time there was no Lao specialist in algae, ferns, fungi, lichens or mosses, despite the Convention on

Mark Newman, RBGE Taxonomist, details a Darwin Initiativefunded project in Southeast Asia. Biological Diversity obliging signatories, such as Lao PDR, to list their species. There is also evidence that a significant number of people die each year in Lao from eating poisonous fungi, although the scale of the problem and the fungi involved are largely unknown. I teamed up with Dr Andy Taylor, a fungal ecologist at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, and after a visit to Lao in 2012, funded by a Darwin Initiative Scoping Award, Andy submitted a Main Proposal in August 2013. Our main Lao partner is the Biotechnology and Ecology Institute of the Ministry of Science and Technology, which has a number of divisions, including the Herbier National du Laos. It also has the authority to allow foreign researchers to work in the country. One of the great strengths of this project is the number of active contributors each of whom adds their expertise and sometimes financial help. In Lao, Mr Ole Pedersen is the Chief Technical Adviser to the Agrobiodiversity Project, a major partner in the fungi project and keen amateur

Below: Wild fungi on sale at a local market near Vientiane.

Above: (left to right) Neville Kilkenny, Paul Newton, Manfred Binder, Andy Taylor and Mark Newman at the Mahosot Hospital in Vientiane. Professor Newton is keen to use mycological expertise to help him diagnose mushroom poisonings.

mycologist. We have been able to use fungi Ole has collected over a number of years in Lao, identifying and cataloguing them as part of the project. We have also linked up with the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Research Unit to work specifically on the poisonous fungi. Two visits were made to Lao in 2014. Andy went alone in April, and Dr Thomas Laessøe, Dr Manfred Binder, Mr Neville Kilkenny and I accompanied him when he returned in November. Whilst in Vientiane, Andy and I visited the Deputy Head of Mission, Ms Alexandra Needham, at the newly reopened British Embassy. It will be impossible to make a comprehensive list of the fungi of Lao in only three years, so the team will focus on those known as ectomycorrhizal fungi, which grow in association with the roots of many tree species, with my job being to identify the trees involved. The trees cannot grow at all without these fungi so, although they may seem small, they are a vital part of the ecosystem and one which must be understood better so that Lao PDR can maintain its rich forests.


Helen McDouall of Logan: the forgotten gardener

RBGE Archive Volunteer Helen Bennett takes a look at a new accession.

Above left: Helen McDouall tending the borders at Hensol in July 1933. Above right: The McDouall family (Helen is on the ladder) gathering ‘May Duke’ cherries on their estate at Genoch in August 1910.

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he role of the McDouall family in creating the structural and planting basis of what is now Logan Botanic Garden is well recognised. Much of the exotic character of the Garden is attributed to brothers Kenneth (1870–1945) and Douglas (1872–1942) McDouall, gifted and knowledgeable gardeners who travelled to collect new material and obtained seeds from the plant hunters of their day. Their passion for gardening had been inherited from their mother, Agnes, who was renowned for her interest in flowering trees and shrubs and the cultivation of roses and lilies. What is rarely mentioned is that Agnes also passed on this passion to her daughter Helen (1873–1959). Thanks to the kindness of Martin Henderson,

the son of Helen’s god-daughter, four photograph albums compiled by Helen between the 1890s and 1945 have recently been lent to the RBGE Archive for copying. In addition, Mr Henderson has generously gifted a collection of unmounted photographs of plantings at Logan, rescued by Helen when the estate left family ownership in 1945. From this pictorial record it is evident that Helen McDouall was a knowledgeable plantswoman who made extensive improvements and

introductions at Hensol, her marital home, and took an active and continuing interest in the work of her brothers in developing the garden at Logan. Helen Ethel McDouall, known as ‘Wee’ because of her diminutive stature, was the third and last child of Agnes and James McDouall, whose family had long owned the Logan estate in Galloway. She grew up at Logan House and lived there until her wedding in July 1919


Right: Lilium auratum platyphylum in the kitchen garden at Hensol 1930. Far right: Kenneth McDouall with a natural hybrid Meconopsis grandis x baileyi grown at Logan about 1938.

to Richard J. Cuninghame (1871– 1925), after which she moved to his estate of Hensol in Kirkcudbrightshire; this remained Helen’s home for the rest of her life. Having no children of her own, Helen bequeathed the house and its contents, including the albums and photographs of Logan, to her goddaughter Catherine Mary Henderson when she died in 1959. Filled with photographs taken by for alpines and island Helen, contributed by relatives and rockery beds. Close-ups document friends, and some commercial prints, the progress of particular named the albums record travels in the UK plantings, including choice alpines such and abroad, house parties, celebrations as Nomocharis and Meconopsis, and, and the domestic life of an active and among more usual garden plants, a new well-connected country family. Early variety, Aquilegia ‘Hensol Harebell’. photographs frequently show them Further from the house, the walled engaged in outdoor pursuits, often kitchen garden provided shelter for with Logan House and estate as the the tall oriental lilies beloved by Helen’s background. mother. Towering But of the The McDouall brothers Lilium auratum family’sgardening platyphylum were reputedly so there are only was apparently devoted to Logan that particularly at occasional hints: images home, sometimes they rarely left home. of visitors reaching a height admiring or sketching the flower borders; of three metres. Throughout, Helen’s Helen, with other members of her family, appears to have been the guiding hand. gathering cherries from an espaliered Alongside the images of Hensol tree in 1910; and, from 1913, what may there is a parallel record of the garden be the first surviving view of the recently at Logan, to which the McDouall constructed main lily tank at Logan, with brothers were reputedly so devoted a range of glasshouses behind – the that they rarely left home. Photographs glass from which was later removed to in the albums are supplemented with leave the Central Wall, supporting tender the contents of the box of prints and climbers, still a feature of the Garden. negatives, labelled in Helen’s hand It is only after her move away from “Photos of Logan garden and grounds Logan that Helen’s horticultural interests about 1926 to 35. Some very rare become evident and gardens and plants plants”. By the 1920s, thanks to the become a significant theme in the writings of Kenneth McDouall and albums. These show that within months his head gardener Robert Finlay, and of arriving at Hensol, a large tree and a articles by visitors in garden periodicals, porch were removed from the front of Logan’s reputation was already the house and beds cleared, preparatory established as a special place where to the creation of a formal garden. tender exotics and more familiar garden Among other developments, a palm was species were all grown in the open to planted, as were borders edging a path an exceptional standard. The box of leading to the elaborate late-17thphotographs, most apparently taken century sundial. Beyond this emerged by Douglas McDouall, adds another an open gravelled garden, with troughs dimension to the published images,

as many are informal record shots of the growth of individual specimens, often with Kenneth standing beside them to provide a sense of scale. Several prints capture the early days of the peat terraces, a McDouall innovation which successfully supported the cultivation of dwarf high-alpine Rhododendron raised from seed collected by Forrest and Farrer in China, along with lilies, Meconopsis and Primula. Images from around 1927 provide a survey of plantings in the Walled Garden, with many features familiar to present-day visitors, such as Castle Terrace, the southern hemisphere tree ferns and cordylines, and rows of Chusan palms. Images from ten years later focus on the flourishing collection of mature Himalayan Rhododendron grown in the woodland, while others capture the early growth of more recent introductions such as the tree lobelias from Central Africa. Finally, some four dozen transparencies provide previously unknown colour images of the plantings towards the end of the McDoualls’ tenure, the latest being an Australian silver leaf growing in rough ground behind Logan House in 1942. The identification and cataloguing of the several hundred rescued photographs remains work in progress. But it is already apparent that, thanks to Helen McDouall’s love of plants, these, together with the copies of her albums, offer a rich new Library resource to provide fresh insights into the emergence of today’s Logan Botanic Garden.

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Watching Katharine Craik, writer and lead researcher, Watching, Oxford Brookes University

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hat kinds of plants might you have grown in your garden in the 17th century if you were in need of a cure for insomnia or ‘watching’? The chances are you’d have relied on homespun remedies – perhaps some lettuce to make into a suppertime broth, or violets and roses to blend into a comforting cordial.

Your herb garden might have contained rosemary, dill, sage or chicory, all regarded as reliable cures for sleeplessness. Or you might have cultivated aniseed to wrap into fragrant pouches to keep near your pillow. More hardy insomniacs would have known that prunes were the best postprandial laxative, capable of thoroughly cleansing the body as preparation for a good night’s sleep. Those struggling to stay awake, on the other hand, might have taken care to expose themselves regularly to the pungent fumes of garlic and onions. Thanks to the work of James Sutherland, first Regius Keeper of RBGE, whose

encyclopedic Hortus Medicus Edinburgensis was published in 1683, we can be sure that all these plants were growing in the early years of the Physic Garden outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse which later developed into RBGE. At a time when botany and medicine were inseparable, the Garden was already providing medical practitioners in Edinburgh with regular supplies of plants, including many recommended for the treatment of sleep disorders. Sleep science was a rapidly growing discipline in the 17th century when sleep was regarded – then as now – as one of the core factors for maintaining good health and for leading a fulfilled life. So it was that the foremost physic garden in Scotland cultivated not only domestic plants for treating sleep disorders but also more exotic experimental remedies such as those containing melons, almonds and nightshade.

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RBGE will form the dramatic backdrop years ago that the lives of plants – this spring for Watching, a new opera for like those of humans – are governed children about sleeping, which has grown by circadian rhythms. These rhythms out of research into the overlapping determine the movements of leaves and histories of sleep science and horticulture. flowers in accordance with light sources Funded by an Arts Award from the in the environment. The human body Wellcome Trust, Watching is a groundclock works along similar principles; breaking collaboration between historians, we are designed to be active during sleep scientists, musicians and primary daylight and to rest during hours of schools. The aim of the creative team, darkness. Our dependence upon artificial based at Oxford Brookes University and light sources, however, tends to disrupt the University of Edinburgh, is to bring this natural rhythm – and our increased music and theatre of international quality dependence upon light-emitting screens to the Garden while improving public only exacerbates the problem. understanding of The work of Seventeenth-century the importance our scientific of good sleep. physicians drew intuitive collaborators Seventeenthhas recently connections between century physicians confirmed that plants with unusual drew intuitive healthy sleep is connections sleep cycles and people closely connected between plants to good memory with disturbed sleep. with unusual and improved sleep cycles and people with disturbed educational outcomes. However, fewer sleep, recommending treatments based and fewer children are achieving the on ‘sleepy’ plants for insomniacs and recommended amount of sleep, due ‘wakeful’ plants for sleepyheads. The to changes in the working, eating and story of Watching therefore centres on bedtime patterns of families, earlier the mysterious properties of Hibiscus school start times and the use of trionum, also known as the Venice mallow, electronic devices in children’s bedrooms. flower-for-an-hour or goodnight-atThe Watching project uses the history of noon, a plant which wakes up for only RBGE as a unique route into uncovering one hour to capture the sun’s rays before some of the questions which underpin settling back down to sleep. modern research into sleep disorders, Our current understanding of the human while at the same time giving local sleep cycle originated in the work of children the opportunity to experience scientists who observed over two hundred music and drama of exceptional quality. Opposite and below: James Sutherland’s Hortus Medicus Edinburgensis of 1683 was a guide to plants and their uses, based on those grown at the Trinity Hospital incarnation of RBGE, where Waverley station now stands.

Above: Inspired by horticulture and the science of sleep, Watching is a new opera for children.

In four twilight performances, audiences will be led on a magical musical promenade through the Glasshouses of the Edinburgh Garden, ending in the landmark Tropical Palm House. Watching tells the story of a sleepless night, taking its inspiration from the strange and often mysterious connections between the sleep cycles of plants and people. It has been devised under the creative leadership of Dee Isaacs whose previous sell-out productions at RBGE include The Conference of Birds (2012) and The Quicken Tree (2010). This will be Dee’s seventh production, the fruit of a longstanding collaboration between RBGE and the University of Edinburgh’s Music in the Community. Each project aims to make music more accessible across communities, to offer training opportunities for students and to bring new audiences into the Gardens. The performances of Watching will be led by a professional cast directed by leading Scottish actor and poet Gerda Stevenson. The production is designed by Gillian Argo who has spent six seasons at Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens as the designer for Bard in the Botanics. After the performances, students will continue to work in local primary schools for nine months in order to develop children’s skills – and to create a vital legacy of enthusiasm in the creative arts. You can find out more about Watching and associated public and media events, together with links to advice about good sleep, on the project website www.watching.eca.ed.ac.uk Watching runs from 18 to 21 March and we look forward to seeing you there!


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Measuring the clouds

bstract thought is one of the key traits of modern human behaviour; having developed, it is believed, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, it underpins our understanding of the natural world – from our planet’s origins to the workings of a cell and even language itself. In art, abstraction was one of the key developments of the 20th century, and the Garden has presented exhibitions by some of its greatest exponents, from Philip Guston and Joan Mitchell to Robert Ryman and Cy Twombly, complementing our scientific and horticultural work and attracting new audiences. The work of such great American painters was introduced for the first time to Scotland, and in some cases to the UK, through these exhibitions, and at Inverleith House this spring visitors will be able to view major works by one of the great European abstract painters of modern times, the Belgian artist Raoul De Keyser (1930–2012). De Keyser was born in the small quiet town of Deinze on the river Leie in East Flanders, close to Ghent, where he raised his family and worked all his life. Largely self-taught, De Keyser first achieved widespread European and American public recognition following his participation in Documenta IX in Kassel, Germany in 1992; this was organised by organised by Chloe Reith, Exhibitions the Belgian curator Jan Hoet, founding Officer, in close collaboration with the director of the contemporary art artist’s family. Its 45 works span most museum SMAK in Ghent, from which of De Keyser’s 50-year career and it some of the works in the exhibition includes a are on loan. significant De Keyser was De Keyser’s works are group of the subject of a abstractions based upon paintings major European made during touring direct observation of the last two exhibition his surroundings – such years of the shown at as the monkey puzzle artist’s life, London’s Whitechapel tree growing outside his from 2010 to 2012. Gallery in studio window. Typically 2004 (his only modest in previous UK scale and painted in oil or acrylic on exhibition) and also participated in the canvas or board, De Keyser’s works 2007 Venice Biennale. are abstractions based upon direct This is De Keyser’s first exhibition observation of his surroundings – such in Scotland and his first posthumous as the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria exhibition in the UK, and it has been

Inverleith House Curator Paul Nesbitt introduces the paintings of Raoul De Keyser.

Above: ‘Fire’, 2010. Pencil, watercolour, acrylic on wood. Courtesy of Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.

araucana) growing outside his studio window, the line of a path or a set of clouds – features likely to be encountered by visitors to RBGE at any of its four sites. De Keyser’s great ability as an artist was to convey his experience of the commonplace through abstraction and a compelling economy of means. As part of the public engagement programme that accompanies this exhibition, there are behind-the-scenes tours of the Herbarium and the Garden’s Living Collections, in addition to talks about the exhibition itself. Raoul De Keyser: Paintings 1967– 2012. 14 February–12 April. Open Tues–Sun, 10am to 5.30pm (4.30pm in February). Admission free.


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ew research on urban bees has inspired a programme of events and exhibitions at RBGE for the first half of 2015. In city parks, gardens and wastelands bees are flourishing; this is in stark contrast to the disastrous decline in pollinators that is taking place in the countryside. What is more, the abundance of urban bees can be encouraged by management that ensures the provision of an all-year-round supply of nectar and pollen from trees, wild flowers and cultivated plants. Everybody can play a part in this bee resurgence, including councils who are ‘relaxing’ mowing regimes to create longer grass with wild flowers; and gardeners and allotment holders who plant ‘bee-friendly’ plants to provide essential foraging for bees. A highlight of our programme is Urban Bees, an exhibition in the John Hope Gateway developed by l’Université de Lyon to showcase an EU Life-funded research project on urban bees. Aimed at a family audience, it includes huge 3D model bees and interactive areas. The exhibition has already travelled to several European centres and attracted much interest. Dr Bernard Vaissière, Director of the Institute for Agronomy (INRA), will visit RBGE on 9 March to talk about the research behind the exhibition. A remarkable discovery has been that bee diversity increases on a transect running from the countryside into a city. Dr Vaissière will be introduced by Professor Graham Stone of Edinburgh University, who has been investigating Below: Pupils at Davidson’s Mains Primary School recording pollinators and flowers for the Urban Pollinators Project.

Above: Bombus bohemicus, the gipsy cuckoo bee.

Urban Bees

We probably associate bees with country meadows or rural hedgerows but in this topsy-turvy world there may be more bees living in urban areas than in intensively managed farmland. ways of increasing the value of urban landscapes for pollinators. The Urban Pollinators Project took place in 12 cities across the UK and involved thousands of hours and walking hundreds of transects to record pollinator insects over three seasons. Sixty sites in four cities were planted with a mix of native and other plants attractive to pollinators, although Professor Stone explains that it is not about producing a spectacular show but rather making sure that suitable food is available for foraging insects throughout the year. The City of Edinburgh has allocated space for these experiments to take place Below: Sampling cow parsley in Edinburgh for the Urban Pollinators Project.

and provided volunteers from the Friends of the Edinburgh Parks to help manage insect-friendly meadows. David Jamieson, Head of Edinburgh’s Parks and Green Spaces, has been keen to point out that relaxing the mowing regime in the city’s parks is about wildlife conservation and not cost saving, although he admits it can also be a cost-effective way of managing his limited resources. RBGE limits the use of insecticides and manages the collections to encourage a diversity of wildlife. Our resident beewatchers have recently recorded two species that are expanding their ranges. Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) are a recent arrival to Scotland, first recorded in the Garden in 2014, and wool carder bees (Anthidium manicatum) have also taken up residence in the Garden. Urban Bees runs 7 February to 7 June. Amy Shelton: Bee Works | Florilegium is in the Gateway Gallery from 7 March to 5 July. Dr Vaissière will be talking in the Lecture Theatre on 9 March from 11.00am to 12.30pm and at café scientifique in the John Hope Gateway from 7.30pm. Bee and honey-related events take place during Edinburgh International Science Festival on 10 and 11 April. See the What’s On guide or www.rbge.org.uk/bees for details.


Lien the Hoang Vietnam in m I’ i, n H r in Northe Mountains week planteon a thre xpedition. The e g in t amazing: collec nery are , e c s d n a dron flora Rhododen s forests of d giant schefflera n a s a ly li r o a s ne magn idual leave with indiv am! Tomorrow we I as tall as Si Pan, the tallest n a h P b m at over cli Indochina in in a t n u mo etres. 3,100 m ines, Curator, a Richard B ic Garden n a t o Logan B

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ecies ea sp hing g n a r d tc A Hy n eye-ca . a e with lue centr b

Collecting seed of Rehderodendron macrocarpum

’m leading a botanical expedition in Northern Vietnam with a group of botanists from Canada, the United States and England. The trip has been organised in partnership with the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources in Hanoi. Our guide Dzu has extensive knowledge of the areas we are visiting and has been very helpful in securing our collecting permits. You would never consider that plants from Northern Vietnam could grow outdoors in Scotland – that is until you have trekked to the highest peaks! The main aims of this trip are to collect living material from a wide range of plant species, principally in the form of seed, located in the Hoang Lien mountain range, and to carry out research on the identification and species distribution of the genus Magnolia. The resulting plants will be grown at RBGE, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Longwood Gardens in the USA and the David C. Lam Asian Garden at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Col during lecting R hodod our e Phan ascent to ndron see the s Si Pa d n (3, u 143 mmit of m).

Postcard from Vietnam This is my first visit to Vietnam and I’ve been amazed by the variety of landscapes and vegetation we’ve seen during our journey from Hanoi to Sapa. Every conceivable piece of ground is cultivated to grow crops, from paddy fields to steep terraced slopes of cannas and cardamom. In fact, pristine virgin forest is rapidly disappearing due to logging, cardamom cultivation and grazing by animals. In many cases only the higher-elevation forests still exist and access to these is difficult. Tomorrow we will set off for the Phan Si Pan mountain, the highest peak in Indochina. The flora in this area will soon be under increased pressure because of a new chairlift, currently under construction. This has reinforced the importance to me of carrying out botanical surveys, as some of the species in this area have not yet been officially named. We appear to have got

our timing spot-on to collect seeds, with over 400 collections from plants such as Rehderodendron, Polyspora and Magnolia. Yesterday we reached the top of the mountain at Lao Chai Commune after a 23-km ride on the back of a motorbike. The journey through bamboo forests and magnolia groves was truly exhilarating, although we saw evidence of the frightening landslides that have recently taken place. We have seen numerous leeches, enormous blue-striped worms and venomous-looking snakes, but thankfully we are all still in good health! The food takes a bit of getting used to – noodles and rice are the staples, with porcupine, goat, turtle and frogs’ legs thrown in for variety. I’m not sure which is my favourite yet! I’d better go and help as we have lots of seeds to dry and collection notes to record prior to another amazing plate of food.


Education Projects Officer Suzanne Harris introduces our first Garden Design students.

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ake five enthusiastic students, a passionate RHS gold medallist tutor and a wide range of experts as a supporting cast and what you get is the exciting new RBGE Diploma in Garden Design. Our first batch of students is heading towards the end of their two years of part-time study. The pinnacle of all their hard work will be an RBGE Student Show Garden at Gardening Scotland on 29–31 May 2015. The new Diploma was developed from an earlier version of the course and now includes more practical elements and a show garden. As Greg Kenicer, RBGE Head of Education, explains, “We were very keen to develop this course as we wanted our students to have that practical experience of designing and building a stunning garden for public show.” The course covers everything students need to know to become professional garden designers and is focused on the work of everyday garden design as well as exploring creativity, training in specific techniques and giving opportunities to train under specialists with a wealth of experience to share. We also wanted to have top class garden designers in the mix

Designing the Future Above: Second year students (left to right): Rachel Bailey, Susanna Harley, Carol Perry, Eamonn Wall, Cicely Leeuwenberg.

and were very pleased when we managed to secure Pip Probert of Outer Spaces Design to help develop the course and deliver the main bulk of the teaching. Pip herself won a gold medal at RHS Tatton Park this year and a silver gilt earlier in the year at RHS Malvern so is well-placed to support the students on their journey. As Pip says, “Working with the students throughout the last year and a half has been an honour. Each student is eager to progress and puts a huge amount of effort into their learning and also their time spent onsite at the Edinburgh Garden. Working as a team to organise and create the Show Garden will be their biggest

challenge yet, one that I know they will successfully rise to.” Our five students recently had to give a final presentation of their Show Garden design to a panel of judges including Pip, Greg Kenicer, Peter Dowle (garden and planting designer, landscaper and nurseryman) and John Cunningham (RHS judge and planting expert). The panel were very impressed with the students’ standard of work and selected two finalists. These were then presented to RBGE’s Regius Keeper Simon Milne and Edinburgh Curator David Knott. The final design that has been selected was produced by Susanna Harley, who began her studies at the Botanics with the RHS Level 2 course in 2012. I asked Susanna about her reaction to the news. “I am absolutely thrilled that my design was chosen. It will definitely be a team garden and is a huge opportunity for all of us. If I hadn’t done this course I wouldn’t have had the confidence to start my new business which has completely allowed me to change my career.” We can’t tell you anything more about the winning design at this stage as it has to remain top secret until all is revealed at Gardening Scotland! So if you are there make sure to pop along and say hello. Left: Runner-up design by Cicely Leeuwenberg.


Photography The 2014 RBGE Friends Photography Competition drew to a successful close in November, with a prizegiving ceremony at the John Hope Gateway and the opening of the exhibition of winners and shortlisted entries, which ran until February. Once again the quality of submissions was extremely high and the Friends hope to build on another successful year when the competition returns in 2015, with categories expanded to include pictures taken throughout Scotland. For more information about the Photography Competition in 2015 please see our website: http://www.rbge.org.uk/whats-on/photo-comp

Plant Portrait and Overall Winner

David Purvis

Wildlife

Mark Beautyman


Members’ Events n Coffee Morning: Scotland’s vegetable ancestors Tuesday 10 March, 10.00am, John Hope Gateway, £5 Members only The Really Wild Veg project explores how domesticated crops differ from their wild ancestors.

n From wild to cultivation Thursday 12 March, 2.00pm, Benmore Botanic Courtyard Café, £4 Non-Members, £3 Members A talk by John Mitchell of RBGE on the management of the Alpine Collection, with emphasis on additions from the wild.

Garden View

Sarah-fiona Helme

n Evening Talk: Petticoats and plants – Scotland’s gardening women, 1800–1930 Thursday 19 March, 7.30pm, Lecture Theatre, 20a Inverleith Row, £6 Non-Members, £5 Members Join the Friends of RBGE and the Garden History Society of Scotland for their joint spring lecture.

Young Photographer

Felix Woods

n Coffee Morning: Archaeological discoveries from the Leith Walk Botanic Garden Tuesday 24 March, 10.00am, John Hope Gateway, £5 Members only Fascinating discoveries from the recent archaeology digs at the long lost Leith Walk Botanic Garden and Botanic Cottage.

n Coffee Morning: James Duncan – an enlightened Victorian Tuesday 14 April, 10.00am, John Hope Gateway, £5 Members only

Abstract

Mark Beautyman

A talk about industrialist, philanthropist and art collector James Duncan who did so much to develop the garden at Benmore.

n Friends of Logan AGM Tuesday 14 April, 2.00pm n Friends of Benmore AGM followed by talk from Regius Keeper Simon Milne Thursday 16 April, 2.00pm, Benmore Botanic Garden, Courtyard Gallery

Shortlisted

Alistair Baird

n Friends of Dawyck AGM Monday 20 April, 7.00pm, Dawyck Visitor Centre n Friends of RBGE AGM, followed by talk from Regius Keeper Simon Milne Thursday 23 April, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre, 20a Inverleith Row n Early morning birdwalk at RBGE Tuesday 5 May, 7.00am, John Hope Gateway, £8 Members only Hear the dawn chorus at the Botanics with a bird expert and a Garden Guide, followed by breakfast.

n Coffee Morning: the history of the Rock Garden Tuesday 12 May, 10.00am, John Hope Gateway, £5 Members only The origins, controversies and more recent development of this outstanding feature of the Edinburgh Garden.

n Coffee Morning: a spring walk to the Scottish Endangered Plants Tuesday 19 May, 10.00am, John Hope Gateway, £5 Members only Enjoy a spring walk to this new section of the Garden and hear about the conservation work behind it.

n Coffee Morning: Plant collecting in Tanzania Tuesday 9 June, 10.00am, John Hope Gateway, £5 Members only Louise Galloway will talk about her plant-collecting trip to the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania.

n Open Garden: Rocheid Garden Saturday 13 June, 10.30am – 12.30pm, 20 Inverleith Terrace, Edinburgh, EH3 5NS, £5 A young but rapidly maturing garden with an impressive diversity of native, exotic and rare plants, shrubs and trees.

Further details can be found at www.rbge.org.uk/whats-on/members-events and in the monthly Members’ e-newsletter. If you’d like to receive this, email us at [email protected]


When you leave… Have you ever wanted to stay late in the Gardens on a summer evening? Or wished you had a little more time to learn about a certain plant or tree? We know it’s hard to leave our Gardens behind. But when it’s time to do so, there’s one thing you can do to make sure RBGE remains. As a registered Scottish charity, RBGE needs donations to sustain and grow its vital work. One of the most important ways you can help is by taking the time now to leave a gift to RBGE in your will. Writing a will ensures peace of mind for you and your family, and you can be safe in the knowledge that the people and places you care for most will continue to be looked after far into the future.

Our four Gardens have given pleasure and knowledge to generations of people before us, and we want them to continue to do so. A gift in your will of any amount – big or small – is your way to make sure the things you love and value remain important after you are gone. Restoring valuable botanical books; finding rare conifers in South America; conserving native Scottish plant species; educating new horticulturists – all of these are things RBGE is able to do thanks to supporters taking the time to remember the Garden in their wills.

Appeal update Our latest fundraising appeal is different from its predecessors. Rather than seeking funds for capital projects in our Gardens, the Save Scotland’s Plants Appeal supports our behind-the-scenes work in conservation. At RBGE, we work hard to save Scotland’s endangered plant species under threat from habitat loss, invasive species and climate change. We have collected 150 of these increasingly rare plants to date and – with your help – we aim to have 75 per cent of these in offsite conservation collections by 2020. At the time of writing, this appeal has raised an amazing £18,918. Thank you to all who have donated. Your contributions help ensure the future of these endangered species. If you haven’t yet had a chance to contribute to this urgent work to save Scotland’s iconic landscapes and flora, please visit www.rbge.org.uk/savescotlands-plants or call 0131 552 7171.

RBGE has published a new leaflet, When you leave, with all the details needed to make arrangements with your solicitor to remember RBGE in your will. If you wish, you can also let us know about your legacy, so we can thank you in your lifetime and ensure your gift matches your wishes. All information is kept in strictest confidence. To find out more about leaving a gift in your will, please call 0131 248 2987, visit www.rbge.org.uk/remember or email [email protected]

Plant Sale 2015 Throughout the year on the first Tuesday morning of the month, between 15 and 20 volunteers gather in a corner of the RBGE Nursery. They are the dedicated ‘potters’ who, come wind, rain and, more acceptably, shine, can be found tending plants in preparation for the Edinburgh Friends RBGE Plant Sale – the Friends’ major fundraising event of the year. The sale takes place this year on Sunday 10 May from 2.00pm until 4.00pm at the Nursery off Inverleith Place. The sale is well known for the quality and variety of the plants on offer, and also for the delicious cakes that can be purchased at the baking stall. So put the date in your diary. Queues build up early and the best plants are snapped up very quickly! Another opportunity to purchase from an enviable collection of plants at great prices is the Plant Sale at Dawyck Botanic Garden the following Sunday, 17 May, from 10.00am to 3.00 pm.


Friends of the Botanics 2015 onwards

Above: Helen Pugh.

The Hope Tree

If you are planning an event at our Edinburgh Garden – a birthday gathering, a beautiful wedding or a funeral reception – the Hope Tree provides the ideal opportunity to mark the occasion with a lasting memorial. The dedications on the Hope Tree are not time limited, allowing your memories to stay on the Hope Tree in perpetuity. For more information please visit celebratelife.rbge.org.uk or call 0131 248 2855.

Growing support With an increased award of £200,000 for 2015, we have now benefited from five years of fantastic support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery. Thank you to players of People’s Postcode Lottery for this generous award, which brings the total funds we have received to £500,000, making a huge difference to RBGE.

The start of a new year is always a good time for reflection. Shiona Mackie has been Convenor of the Friends of RBGE for almost four years now, and describes it as a stimulating, exciting time, learning about RBGE, meeting staff and working with colleagues on the committee to organise fundraising events to fund small projects across the four Gardens. The committee is small and is constantly on the lookout for newcomers to bring fresh ideas and new energy to the group. If you are interested in volunteering with the group, assisting with our programme of events, please contact Shiona at [email protected]

Australian Association of Friends of Botanic Gardens The Friends of RBGE Convenor Shiona Mackie writes: “I learnt about the existence of an Association of Friends of Botanic Gardens last year whilst visiting relatives in Australia. On their website, I noted that other Friends’ associations could become affiliate members. Following consultations with the committees at Dawyck and Benmore, and the Directors of RBGE, agreement was reached to seek affiliate membership of the Association of Australian Friends of Botanic Gardens. Our application has been accepted, so we now join the Friends of Christchurch BG (New Zealand), Thurston Gardens (Fiji) and Kirstenbosch (South Africa) as an affiliate. If you are visiting Australia you will be able to consult their website to determine whether there are any local botanic gardens. To find out more visit www.friendsbotanicgardens.org

Gardening Scotland 2015

Another date for the diary is Gardening Scotland, the annual food and garden festival held at the Highland Show ground at Ingliston on the last weekend in May. For the past three years, the Friends of RBGE have run the two plant crèches and, in doing so, have not only promoted RBGE and its work but have also raised money for the Friends’ Small Project Fund through donations. Every year around 50–60 volunteers are needed to cover the three days of the show (this year Friday 29 May–Sunday 31 May). Volunteers find that the experience is well worthwhile – good fun with free admission to the show for the day. If you are interested please contact Shiona Mackie at [email protected]

Thanks to the Friends The Education Department are very grateful to the Friends for the funds which have allowed them to commission new wall and roof coverings for the RBGE yurt, a useful extra temporary classroom. The yurt will be ready in time for our annual Benmore Schools Week and will provide an extra classroom during the summer term at Edinburgh. It will also be used for events during the summer as an exciting space for the Science Festival, for storytelling and even as a café for evening events.


Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Friends Plant Sales Open daily (except 25 December and 1 January) Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Tel: 0131 552 7171 • Email: [email protected] Admission to the Garden is free; charge applies to the Glasshouses.

Benmore Botanic Garden

Edinburgh: Dawyck:

Sunday 10 May | 2–4pm Entry £3, Members FREE Sunday 17 May | 10am–3 pm Sunday 11 October | 10am–12.30pm FREE entry for all

Your opportunity to purchase from an enviable collection of plants at great prices.

www.rbge.org.uk All proceeds help support the work of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Registered Charity: SC007983

Open daily 1 March to 31 October Dunoon, Argyll, PA23 8QU Tel: 01369 706261 • Email: [email protected] Admission charge applies.

Logan Botanic Garden

Open Sundays only in February Open daily 15 March to 31 October Port Logan, Dumfries and Galloway, DG9 9ND Tel: 01776 860231 • Email: [email protected] Admission charge applies.

Dawyck Botanic Garden

Open daily 1 February to 30 November Stobo, Scottish Borders, EH45 9JU Tel: 01721 760254 • Email: [email protected] Admission charge applies.

Give the gift of Membership Treat family or friends to a year of inspirational garden visits with a unique gift of RBGE membership.

0131 552 5339 www.rbge.org.uk/membership The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a charity registered in Scotland (number SC007983).

For further information about the Gardens visit

www.rbge.org.uk For a What’s on guide, contact Alice Young Tel: 0131 248 2991 • Email: [email protected]

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