Botanics palm house is steadily coming back to life

Rare and impressive plants, many endangered in their native habitats, are bringing an historic glasshouse “back to life” after the £20 million restoration project spanning the last five years.

Giant palms and tree ferns from around the world are among the large plants now returning to the newly restored Victorian palm houses at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), with hundreds of smaller specimens set to follow in the coming weeks.

More than 800 plants were carefully removed from the A-Listed 19th century structures in 2021 and placed in storage before scaffolding was constructed around the attraction.

More than 5,750 panes of glass were removed while stonemasons, conservation architects and engineers restored and refurbished the sandstone walls and cast iron frame, including arched windows, spiral staircases and aerial walkways.

The project has also involved the removal of a central partition dividing the two houses to create a single unified space gleaming with modern, toughened and laminated glass.

Nearly five years on, the restored historic structures – the tallest of their kind in Britain at 72 feet (21.95m) – are welcoming back some of the nation’s most important plant collections.

The new Temperate Palm House display will showcase palms and ferns, some up to eight metres tall. Some have had to be tilted skilfully horizontal to be transported from storage and into the refurbished building for replanting.

The largest specimens have now been planted, including a collection of ferns inspired by pteridomania – the Victorian craze for ferns..

Highlights include threatened tree ferns from the Juan Fernandez islands off Chile, where the 18th century Scots seafarer Alexander Selkirk, from Lower Largo in Fife, was stranded for four years before being rescued in 1709 – his story inspiring Daniel Defoe’s classic novel Robinson Crusoe.

Thyrsopteris elegans, which would have been familiar to the marooned Selkirk, is now native only to the remote archipelago, where they are under threat from invasive species.

The central specimen is the striking black tree fern Sphaeropteris medullaris, native to New Zealand and the South-West Pacific. Known for its inky trunk, fronds up to five metres long and eventual height of around 16 metres, it is also thought to have medicinal properties, used in Maori culture to heal burns, wounds and skin irritations.

Species planted in the glasshouse for the first time include Valdivia gayana – a small shrub from Chile, which bears large clusters of bright magenta flowers – thought to be the only examples in cultivation outside Chile, from a cave population now destroyed by the shade from invasive ivy.

Meanwhile, the Norfolk tree fern Sphaeropteris excelsa, reputed to be the largest of all tree ferns, could reach a height of 20 metres. The fast growing species will reach the newly restored palm house balcony in just ten to 15 years.

Plants still to be replanted include two mysterious Araucaria columnaris (Cook pine), specimens found to lean towards the equator wherever it is planted.

Another popular attraction will be the progeny of “Scotland’s oldest palm tree”, a Sabal mexicana, which was nurtured for nearly 230 years from the 1790s before it had to be dismantled to make way for the restoration project. However, its seedlings were cultivated so that visitors will be able to watch its progeny grow “for another 200 years”.

A time capsule will be buried with the sabal palm progeny for future generations of horticulturists to uncover.

Fiona Inches, Glasshouse Manager, said: “It was quite a feat back in 2021 to lift and move all the plants from the palm houses and find homes for them.

“It was a mammoth task – 800 plants – which took over six months, and we did worry about how the plants would cope and survive.

“It was incredibly emotional as you get to know the plants and get attached to the familiarity of them.

“It was a strange feeling to arrive to empty glasshouses before we handed the buildings over to construction and the restoration began, the scaffolding went up and the whole structure was covered in protective cling wrap for over four years.

“It’s been a very long process, but when the scaffolding came down we saw this gleaming white structure appear – it’s incredible. Every pane of glass has been replaced and every piece of metal taken back, repaired if necessary and repainted.

“The whole building just gleams, but seeing it empty just felt so wrong. Now the plants are coming back in and it feels like old friends are coming back.

“It’s lovely to see. It’s a real milestone because after almost five years the glasshouse is coming back to life.”

The structure is made up of two historic glasshouses. The Victorian Temperate Palm House, completed in 1858, is the tallest traditional palm house in Britain, while the even older Tropical Palm House was the largest of its kind in Britain when it was built in 1834.

In recent years, the structures were in desperate need of repair and restoration of their glass, iron and stonework.

Their £20 million restoration is part of the £90 million Edinburgh Biomes programme, the largest capital development project in the 355-year history of the RBGE.

Central to RBGE’s response to the global biodiversity crisis and climate emergency, the Biomes programme is scheduled for completion in 2028.

Visitors are expected to be able to return to the palm houses in the autumn, when they will be able to enjoy the stunning new design of plantings and interpretation in a unified space, now the biggest of its kind in Scotland.

Ms Inches added: “It will be nice to see visitors return later this year. We’ve missed that interaction in the glasshouses.”