Short film
Go behind the scenes of the restored Palm Houses with Deputy Curator Sadie Barber, as she reveals iconic architectural details and shows how the new planting design will help bring these special buildings to life.
Along the way, she’ll introduce some of the truly remarkable specimens now being planted in the Palm Houses.
| Time | Description |
| Anyone who knows us may remember there used to be a partition here. We've removed that partition, and that's awarded us just this phenomenal bright, shining space. The horticulture team here are bringing our original vision for this house to life. | |
| We are going for some lovely tall palms, tall tree ferns, really making the most of the height of the space, and then a layered effect so that you get some real interest sort of in the midzone, and then down on the ground for the underground planting. | |
| This is Dicksonia blumei. It was the very last fern to come out of our former fernery, and the very first plant to come in here. This is our Sabal mexicana sitting here waiting patiently to be planted because underneath this plant, we're going to be putting a time capsule, which ties in very nicely because this plant is intrinsically related to this house. Its parent was the very last plant to come out of here, and it was the oldest plant in the house before it was restored. | |
| I think ferns are some of the unsung heroes of the plant world, and one of my favorites that's been planted in here is the Cibotium regale. That is the king tree fern of Mexico. If you take a closer look, you get to see the gorgeous golden brown hairs over the croziers, and they protect the plant from insects when they're young. What also happens with these, indigenous people use those hairs to stuff pillows, so not only a gorgeous plant, but also a very useful one. | |
| There's still a lot of work to do, not least putting down a brand-new sandstone floor. And then also, we've only got 100 of the 600 plants in the house at the moment. So all of those middle layer and understory plants are still to come. | |
| We're thrilled with the progress so far, but we're even more excited about welcoming you back into this incredible space. |
