Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh has launched a Storm Damage Recovery Fund to help pay for hundreds of pounds worth of storm damage after Storm Eowyn wreaked havoc at its four sites across Scotland on Friday.
Up to 200 trees in the four gardens sustained damage in the storm, with 15 trees entirely uprooted in Edinburgh alone, including the city's tallest tree, a Himalayan cedar. Meanwhile, the Edinburgh gardens' glasshouses also sustained damage.
Up to 200 trees in the four gardens sustained damage in the storm, with 15 trees entirely uprooted in Edinburgh alone, including the city's tallest tree, a Himalayan cedar. Meanwhile, the Edinburgh gardens' glasshouses also sustained damage.
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00:00I'm Jane Bradley assistant editor of the Scotsman and I'm here at the Royal
00:04Botanic Gardens Edinburgh with Regis keeper Simon Milne. The gardens suffered
00:09severe storm damage in the storm Eowyn on Friday including the loss of this
00:15tree behind us which is the Himalayan cedar which was planted in 1859. Hi Simon.
00:20Hello. Could you just tell us a little bit about the impact of the storm on the
00:24gardens? Yeah it was it was disastrous in some respects. We've had huge damage to
00:31our tree collection also damaged the glass houses which makes the plants
00:36inside the glass houses vulnerable as well. So we've lost at least 15 trees in
00:42the Edinburgh garden with probably another 25 to 30 damaged as well and
00:47they'll need to be assessed and across all four gardens and the number of
00:50trees that have come down or damaged is probably at least 150. So a big impact
00:57on Scotland's national botanic collection and these trees are very
01:01special and yeah we're all heartbroken at the loss of wonderful specimens. We
01:08exist here for for conservation for research for education and when we start
01:12to lose parts of the collection then those are impacted as well. Yeah and
01:16obviously the the impact on the collection and the cost of the
01:19collection is huge but there's a huge financial cost attached to this as well
01:22isn't there? Yeah there will be and it's too early to make that assessment yet but it'll
01:26be in the hundreds of thousands particularly taking consideration the
01:29damage to buildings over in our Benmore garden, glass house completely destroyed,
01:34polytunnel gone, roofs ripped apart. So yes there's going to be a big financial
01:40cost of this. So it's a cost to the national collection and it's a
01:46cost to the finances. And to help with the costs we've launched a storm damage
01:52recovery fund which can be accessed online through our website and we're
01:57hoping that not just the local community but everybody that loves plants, loves
02:02the natural world will help us restore this amazing collection for future
02:07generations. Thank you very much Simon and you can read more about the impact
02:12of storm urine on the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and all around Scotland
02:16at Scotsman.com so please have a look at our social media on Facebook, Twitter and
02:23also if you're out and about buy a newspaper.