Short film
Before the Palm House restoration work could begin, hundreds of plants had to be carefully removed for safekeeping and tended by our Horticulturists in other Glasshouses on-site.
Now, as the renovation work in the Palm Houses nears completion, it’s time to prepare our plants for the journey back home.
Find out more from our Horticulturists Kevin and Marc and learn about two of the key plants we will be showcasing once the Palm Houses reopen.
| Time | Description |
| [Kevin Bannon, Glasshouse Horticulturist] There's a huge amount of diversity in this house right now. There's palms, conifers, ferns, begonias, epiphytic plants, basically everything you can think of in terms of understory. All the plants in this house just now are here because originally they were in the palm house. And then later on, we removed a lot of plants from the Fern House. | |
| Plants were brought in here, given new pots, fresh mix to help them grow while renovations went on in the palm house. Not everything that was in there will go back. Initially, we're planting up with the idea that it'll be less dense at the start, so we can properly highlight what goes in. | |
| A plant in particular that'll be a primary plant to go back into the palm houses would be the Trachycarpus princeps that grows on cliff faces in Yunnan province in China. This one in particular was originally collected in 1998 and brought back to the gardens from China as a small seedling, so it's possibly the largest in cultivation in the UK. | |
| [Mark Gilbert, Glasshouse Horticulturist] The house is starting to get quite crowded, and we need space to move things about to facilitate getting the larger plants back out again for the palm house. All the ones that aren't going into the palm house are gonna be going into the former fern house, which we've renovated to be used as a decant space in the interim. | |
| So this behind me, this is Cyathea medullaris, or the black tree fern. It's gonna be going back into the palm houses, and taking quite a prominent place where the sabal palm used to be planted. We've chosen to put that plant there 'cause it's a very striking and ornamental plant. And also, the palm house is one of the few glass houses we have which actually provides the space it needs to grow and thrive. Hopefully over time, it'll be recognised as a central part of the planting. | |
| The replanting of the palm house gives us a great opportunity to assess the plants that we have, and change plantings out for things that we may have not previously had on display. Or to highlight the important conservation work that we do by utilising the rare endangered species that we grow here. |
The restoration of the Palm Houses is an ambitious but truly vital undertaking and every gift we receive will be invaluable in enabling us to accomplish this project.
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