Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), which will celebrate its 350th anniversary in 2020, is one of the world’s leading Botanic Gardens. Established in 1760 as a medicinal plant or “physic” garden at Holyrood, the Garden moved twice within Edinburgh until in 1820 it arrived at its present site in Inverleith.
Today, within the 70 acres of the Garden and Living Collection, visitors can see over 13,500 plant species and over 128,000 plants from more than 150 countries, including one of the largest collections of Chinese plants outside China. Garden highlights include the world-famous Rock Garden, Chinese Hillside, Woodland Garden, Queen Mother’s Memorial Garden and Herbaceous Border.
Just a mile from the centre of Edinburgh, the Garden is a delight throughout the seasons. In winter, visitors can escape from the cold and discover ten different climatic zones within the Glasshouses, from steamy tropics to arid desert. The Glasshouses are home to 3,000 exotic plants from across the globe including the largest cultivated collection of Vireya rhododendrons in the world.
An important aspect of RBGE’s work is furthering the appreciation and understanding of the natural world through a programme of public and community engagement. The Garden hosts regular events and exhibitions, and has a far-reaching education offering from PhD and MSc courses to one day workshops and schools’ curriculum studies.
Christmas at the Botanics, the Garden’s one-mile illuminated trail, now running until 29 December, is a major annual event which engages new audiences. The one-mile trail weaves through the Botanics, using the Garden’s natural landscape and historic buildings as a backdrop for awe-inspiring visual effects. This year will showcase new installations such as ‘Voyage’, a display of 300 floating origami boats on the Pond and the Laser Garden, which comes to life with dancing laser beams and theatrical fog.
Website: rbge.org.uk
Telephone: 0131 248 2909
Opening times: Open daily from 10am (except 25 Dec and 1 Jan). Closes at 4pm in November, December and January, 5pm in February and October, and 6pm March to September.
Admission costs: Admission to the Garden is free but charges to Glasshouses apply - £7 adult, £6 concessions, under 16s free. Ticket costs apply for Christmas at the Botanics.
Garden of the Week is in association with Discover Scottish Gardens. For more information, advice and day-out ideas, visit discoverscottishgardens.org
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here