Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - alpine house and news

[Maggi Young]

How about these views of the new RBGE alpine house - from above....

[Chris Johnson]

Doesn't the perspective make it look small.

Chris

[Maggi Young]

Yes! That's what struck us when we saw the photos. And somehow I was kind of surprised by the shape from above, too - which is a bit daft   

But  it  just proves how hopeless I am at identifying landmarks from a plane, while Ian is very good at it.......

[David Nicholson]

Architecture over fuctionality and practicality in my view, or am I sounding like Prince Charles?l

[fermi de Sousa]

... or am I sounding like Prince Charles?l

Is one?
 
cheers
fermi

[Matt T]

Architecture over fuctionality and practicality in my view, or am I sounding like Prince Charles?l

It would be neither functional nor practical here, David - near horizontal rain today. I was intrigued when I first saw the plans for this house, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it myself. By all accounts the plants inside it are growing well though, which is the important thing.

[Chris Johnson]

When I first saw it a couple of years ago I thought, how ugly.

Then I remembered recent 'discussions' with my architect over some of his design ideas verses functionality. We compromised. I have since altered some of the 'design' aspects which I must agree have not enhanced his design but, oh, so much more utility and comfort.

When I saw these aerial photographs yesterday, it reinforced my original though that it was ugly, but now I can also see it's design for the sake of it.

Art and architecture is so subjective and I'm sure there will be those who love it.

Chris

[Tim Ingram]

What struck me about this 'glasshouse' and the one at Kew is how incredibly different they are, and essentially how they are sculpture which says something about the Botanic Gardens if not necessarily something about the plants. At Kew the design has been made to draw cool air from chambers beneath the glasshouse; at Edinburgh seemingly to create turbulence and down-draughts from above and the plants look pretty good at both, but I think this has as much to do with the people growing them as the glasshouses themselves. But think about it - if you had a glasshouse like this in your own garden wouldn't you grow the plants wonderfully well and be inspired  . I would go for the tufa first (or that marvellous sinuous crevice garden) - rather like Roy Elliott's famous tufa cliff (or an earlier covered cliff that Dwight Ripley made) and then think about the sculptural aspects, unless of course the Heritage Lottery Fund decided to come along and get involved!

[Maggi Young]

I know we  in this forum are sometimes accused of being obsessed (so unfair that!)  with eating - and cake - but here is proof that having a pleasant get-together over tea and cake is not a new thing in these circles  - here is a film, via  Elpseth Haston of the RBGE,  of a fascinating film of  a Bot. Soc. Edinburgh tea party 1936 at the Botanics.....



"The Botanical Society of Edinburgh was founded by Dr John Hutton Balfour (who eventually became Regius Keeper at RBGE) and a group of like-minded men in February 1836. 100 years later, a day of events was hosted in Edinburgh on the 1st of July 1936 to celebrate its Centenary. One of these was a tea party, held in one of the RBGE laboratories surrounded by portraits, photographs and exhibits of people, events and objects significant to the Society's history. Regius Keeper William Wright Smith can be clearly seen holding a cigarette, as well as RBGE photographer Robert Moyes Adam (light suit, bow tie) and Professor Ferdinand Orpen Bower (white beard, sitting) talking to Arthur William Hill, the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Do you recognise anyone else?
The Society, now renamed the Botanical Society of Scotland is still going strong today, over 175 years after its foundation."

http://www.botanical-society-scotland...

Copyright: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

[ian mcdonald]

I wonder where the plants for the tufa wall were sourced, Jankaea for instance. Were they grown at the Garden.

[Maggi Young]

I expect the plants at the RBGE were either grown from seed or from cutting material donated from other botanic gardens.

[ian mcdonald]

I have some tufa blocks in my garden which came from an 1800 year old building. I,ve tried to find a supplier of Jankaea for many years without success. Haberlea grows in the wall OK.

[alanelliott]

I wonder where the plants for the tufa wall were sourced, Jankaea for instance. Were they grown at the Garden.

Ian (and Maggi)

The plants for the tufa were sourced from specialist nurseries and propagated material from the the exisiting botanics collections.
Many of the Gesners now in the tufa were from the research collection.

Both our current living accessions of Jankaea, infact all of them we've ever had, have come from other collections not from the wild. 
The 1999 accession was grown from seed and the 2000 accession was a donated plant. 

The below link is the publically available abridged info from the database.
http://elmer.rbge.org.uk/bgbase/livcol/bgbaselivcol.php?eti=Jankaea&countOnly=&cfg=bgbase%2Flivcol%2Fbgbaselivcol.cfg&acc__num=

[ian mcdonald]

Hello Alan, I wondered if the RBGE knew of someone who could supply Jankaea? I know this is a very difficult plant to source in cultivation. I have some pieces of tufa in my dry stone wall which came from a very ancient building but I have found it almost impossible to find growers of the plants I would like to try there. Is it possible to pass on the details of the specialist nurseries where the plants for the tufa wall came from or do they not supply to the public. Best wishes, ian.

[Maggi Young]

Congratulations to the RBGE staff for their successful efforts in keeping these plant going and propagating from them  since 1999 and 2000. 
Quite sad really to think that so many of the nurseries available then are no longer in existence - and the growers too.