Hello from the Gardens

The gardening team at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Glasshouses would like to say a big “Hi” to all of our members and visitors after such a long time away.

Here is a quick update on what has been happening at the Gardens while the doors to the public have been closed…

When we shut on March 23, all of our pending deliveries of horticultural materials and 4,000 summer bedding plants were cancelled by our suppliers and we had just two members of the gardening staff coming in every day to keep the display glasshouses, plants sales and our plant nursery alive. This is a tough job anyway, but especially when it was one of the sunniest and driest springs on record.

I’m pleased to report that all of the gardeners returned on June 9 and we’ve had the mammoth task of catching up on the “missed spring” of horticultural tasks and are trying to do almost three months of work in a week.

We’ve had to a lot of weeding and path sweeping, so please accept our apologies if, when you come and visit us, that our standards aren’t quite as high as usual.

The Gardens themselves have looked lush and floriferous during the spring: daffodils, magnolias and rhododendrons have been particular highlights.

We’re now in the position to start getting ready to open our doors for the summer to visitors for our busiest period of the year – and we couldn’t be more excited about welcoming people back. We hope you all enjoy the new Alan King Alpine Garden, the improvements we’ve made to our Japanese Garden and Fern Garden and also the wonderful scent in our Rose Garden.

Thank you to those who have continued to support the Gardens during our closure by donating to our Just Giving fund, which is helping us to continue our work in caring for our famous plant collection and undertaking much-needed projects.

If you would like to support us in this you can do so here.