Project updates: Edinburgh Biomes
Follow the progress of the most significant development project in the history of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Film series | Restoring the Palm Houses
Watch more | Edinburgh Biomes film series
Save the Palm Houses
| Time | Description |
| [Arit Anderson, Garden Designer, TV Presenter] Please support the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's Palm House Appeal. Your help is needed to save the Palm Houses. First opened nearly 200 years ago, they are in urgent need of restoration. Rusting ironwork, ineffective glass, and crumbling stonework are putting the Palm Houses future and the plants they conserve at risk. Restoration will protect almost 400 species of plants housed within these magnificent buildings. | |
| [William Hinchliffe, Arboricultural Consultant] The Palm House is a really beautiful building. You can pick it out from different points in the city. You can find it from the Castle Esplanade or the top of Arthur's Seat. It's one of those features that really helps you navigate to where the garden is within the city. | |
| [Duncan Young, Senior Horiculturist] When I was younger, I would quite often come here and visit with my parents, and it was always a standout building, and that's what inspired me to become a horticulturist here. | |
| [Elinor Leslie, Comunity Gardener] This is magical. To be able to see all these plants from all over the world. And I think inspirational as well in ways that it can really show all of us how fragile our climate is. | |
| [David Knott, Curator of the Living Collection] We can't grow all the plants that are threatened in the wild, but growing a small selection of them in the Palm Houses allows us to tell some of the amazing stories of plants and their importance to humankind. | |
| [Eve Armstrong, Education Outreach Officer] The Palm Houses can help us to address the challenges of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss because they help people to understand plants, and animals, and habitats around the world. We can only protect what we care about, and by experiencing it here in Edinburgh, we can care about habitats around the wo | |
| [Greg Kenicer, Head of Graduate Education] The Palm Houses are a complete inspiration to our students. They are a great place to learn about that huge array of plants that we look after here in the garden, to find out about how to look after them, about how to study them and understand them as plants, and really get to know about their diversity. | |
| [Kevin Bannon, Horticulturist] One plant in particular that represents the importance of the glass houses would be the Trachycarpus princeps. It's possibly the largest one in cultivation. It was one of the last palms to leave and be in the Palm House. Especially it's important that, you know, we keep these mature plants. The Palm Houses give these plants the height, space, and freedom to grow. | |
| [Tiina Sarkinen, Biodiversity Scientist] The Palm Houses here at RBGE really enable us to look at large plants. So plants are one of the largest organisms living on this planet. In Scotland, the only way to see them is in these magical and majestical houses. | |
| [All staff] - We need your help. Please join us in this crucial project. To save the Palm Houses. And turn our vision into reality. Please donate to our restoration appeal today. Your gift will ensure that this precious plant collection. Can continue to thrive for years to come. Your donation will make a big difference. | |
| [Arit Anderson] Please donate today to help save the Palm Houses, support the research work that goes on inside them, and protect the plant life for future generations to come. |