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Many botanic garden staff would like to have the opportunity to learn about ‘best practice’ methodologies from others. We are therefore gathering together examples of policies developed by botanic gardens in various areas of their work. Please contact us if you can help.Continue reading...

BGCI is exploring the possibility of developing a twinning programme to help botanic gardens make mutually beneficial partnerships. Find out more about our proposed programme and take the surveyContinue reading...

Many botanic garden staff would like to have the opportunity to learn about ‘best practice’ methodologies from others. We are therefore gathering together examples of policies developed by botanic gardens in various areas of their work. Please contact us if you can help.Continue reading...

BGCI's education congress held in Missouri Botanical Gardens was hugely successful. The congress report represents this and details all the key themes and thoughts collected throughout the duration of the event.Continue reading...

BGCI is delighted to welcome Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden as its latest Patron memberContinue reading...

What can you really do with a balcony garden? People claim you can grow edibles up there, lugging bags of compost back from Homebase on a bicycle and then up three flights of stairs, but surely that’s exaggeration? And what about those probable liars who reckon they can make a whole salad from...

Gardeners look forward to the arrival of snowdrops in late winter more eagerly than any other event in the garden. But in many ways the sudden presence of colchicums and amaryllis now, at the cigarette end of summer, is even more dramatic. Partly it's because both of them push their flowers...

BGCI education is currently in the process of creating a new series of courses on public engagement and would greatly appreciate your input.Continue reading...

After the back-to-school feeling has faded, here come the new off-to-university lot, waving goodbye to their parents without a look back, leaving weepy mums and dads to drive off alone for a misery-soaked motorway service station coffee.Continue reading...

All through August I listened for the ker-chunk, ker-chunk noise that means that the hay is being baled on our top field. But it hasn't happened. Why? Hay meadows are supposed to be one of our most precious habitats. How many hands have been wrung over their disappearance? How many times have...

BGCI is participating in the 14th World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa this week promoting how our programmes and botanic gardens are contributing to forest conservation.Continue reading...

On my shelf of most-treasured gardening books is one called How to Enjoy Your Weeds. As "how to" books go, this is right up there. It's got a pale green cover in truly 1970s aqua with an assorted set of pretty wildflowers, but author Audrey Hatfield's main emphasis, once you get inside, is on...

Four field mushrooms erupted suddenly on the lawn in front of the wooden hut where I work. The suddenness is characteristic of mushrooms. It's as though some creature that usually lies quiet underground suddenly takes to blowing soft white bubble gum. Fortunately I was able to watch them...

With the arrival of September the annual BGEN conference is not far away. The conference will be held from the 4th-6th of November at The National Arboretum in Westonbirt. Tickets are currently available to purchase, and if you book before the 11th September special early bird prices are...

From 6-7 August 2015, a group of experts met at the Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden to review BGCI’s plant conservation projects in in China.Continue reading...

Gardening is an escapism of sorts. By doing it, we make a cloak to throw around ourselves, a screen that softens the impact of the harsher world beyond. Left to herself, nature always tries to do this. Think of the postwar bombsites of London, colonised so quickly by willowherb. Or of the...

Sara Redstone, from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, reviews Jan Piet Kaas book: Pests in NW European Greenhouse; an illustrated guide.Continue reading...

When should you plant lilies? In the autumn, at the same time as the daffodils and tulips? Or in the spring, with dahlias and nerines? The irritating answer is: "It depends which lilies." If you like martagons, which are relatively early into flower, then you need to plant in September or...

Sara Redstone, from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, reviews Jan Piet Kaas book: Pests in NW European Greenhouse; an illustrated guide.Continue reading...

The 'Queen of Preserves', Thane Prince comes to Francine Raymond's rescue, and shares some advice on what to do with an excess of homegrown fruitContinue reading...