Green shoots: How the Botanics is picking up the pieces after Storm Eowyn
Historical trees were torn down but new life and big ideas are springing up
They have been painstakingly picking shards of splintered glass out of the soil and carefully wrapping delicate plants in fleece.
Up ladders, others are carefully replacing around 200 shattered panels in the giant glasshouses in a bid to block out winter chills.
Elsewhere in the Botanics, their colleagues are still assessing the full scale of the extensive damage suffered across the grounds.
It is all part of the huge clear-up operation at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (RBGE) in the wake of Storm Éowyn, which across the country killed two people and wreaked havoc on 24 January.
The tempest was the strongest Atlantic storm in more than a decade, the Met Office has confirmed.
The violent weather, with winds reaching more than 100mph in some places, felled 15 trees and left 27 others damaged at RBGE’s headquarters in the capital. It also caused extensive damage to glasshouses, with around 200 panes smashed overall.
Botanical fatalities included the garden’s tallest tree – a majestic 29m-tall Himalayan cedar which was planted in 1859 by the then Prince of Wales, who would later become King Edward VII, during a visit with his mother Queen Victoria.
‘Nothing will be wasted’
Despite the devastation, however, there has been some good news for the RBGE team.
The iconic Victorian palm houses, the ones we visitors tend to think of when we talk about the Botanics’ glasshouses, survived Storm Éowyn intact. They have recently undergone a major restoration programme as part of the £100 million Edinburgh Biomes project.
Aboriculture specialist William Hinchcliffe, deputy curator at RBGE, has been quantifying the damage and planning the next steps.
He says Éowyn ranks among the top three most devastating storms to hit the Edinburgh garden in the past century, up there with “very bad” events in 2012 and 1969.
As well as the losses, many of the remaining specimens – some of them very old or ecologically important – have been damaged or left more vulnerable, requiring special care and strategic planning to give them the best chances of survival.
The RBGE team is also excited that there are plans being developed to give new life to the fallen trees, with the remnants to be handed over for “meaningful” projects.
Hinchcliffe said: “We’re looking to utilise any of the wood from these trees that have been growing in the garden for over 100 years, to make sure they are not wasted.
“At the moment we're just taking stock of the wood, but we’ll make sure the pieces go out to various community initiatives for creative endeavours, and maybe even to some commercial streams. We’ll make sure the wood is used in a really meaningful way.”
And there are lots of folk queuing up to get a chunk.
“We’ve been really overwhelmed and touched by the number and the sorts of people who have already been in contact, expressing their sympathies with us, but also saying how much they would love to work with us to make something from the wood from these trees – from wood-turners looking for small bits and sculptors looking for really big sections, to sawmills and furniture-makers.
“So we just need to take stock of those requests and make it all happen. Watch this space.”

Ever-changing gardens
Hinchcliffe is gutted at the recent losses, but remains optimistic about the future for RBGE and other botanical gardens, which play a crucial role in preserving species – despite the perilous state of the environment, with dramatic loss of biodiversity worldwide and increasing extreme weather caused by climate change.
Botanical gardens are “very dynamic” by nature, he says, and that is the key to their survival and ability to safeguarding important plant life.
“Collections are ever-changing,” he said. “There will always be losses of trees and plants, through storms, disease, age and other stressors. But with active curation there should be new material coming in all the time.
“There’s quite a quite a flow of material in and out of a garden. Plants are being lost but they are also being replaced.
“We need to keep actively curating the collection to develop it, and we need to make sure it remains relevant. So the species we grow will change over time to suit future climate scenarios.”
And he says the fact the newly restored palm houses, which house some of the world’s rarest and most threatened plants, weathered the latest gales so well demonstrates the need for the ongoing upgrade works.
RBGE was first established as a physic garden in 1670, to supply fresh plants for medicinal prescriptions and teach botany to student doctors. Its original home was a small plot – about the size of a tennis court – near the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
It was relocated twice over the next 150 years, first to a site now occupied by Waverley Station and then to Leith Walk, before flitting to its current home at Inverleith Row in 1820. It took more than three years to shift all the living material – including large mature trees – with the first public visitors welcomed through the gates in spring 1824.
RBGE is a charity and non-departmental public body, governed by a board of trustees who are appointed by Scottish ministers and led by a regius keeper – currently Simon Milne, only the 16th ever, who has held the role since 2014.
It is sponsored and supported through grant-in-aid from the Scottish Government, with other income generated through memberships, educational courses, gift shop sales, events and donations.
The organisation’s ongoing mission is “to explore, conserve and explain the world of plants”, with important research and conservation work taking place at home and abroad – in more than 35 countries worldwide.
As well as the living collection, the Inverleith headquarters also boasts an extensive herbarium containing important samples and a large specialist library and archive made up of more than one million items – everything from books, journals and original artworks to letters, seed catalogues, maps and much more.
Going up in the palm houses
Edinburgh Biomes, which includes the glasshouse restoration and the creation of a new green heating station, is one of RBGE’s biggest ever projects. Originally due to be finished in 2027, the timeline, and costs, have stretched – by a year and £10 million, mainly due the Covid pandemic.
The oldest surviving plant in the living collection is more than 200 years old – a palm tree that was collected in Bermuda around 1790 and which survived the big move from Leith Walk to Inverleith. It can usually be seen in the tropical palm house, but has been temporarily relocated along with its neighbours during the refurb.
If all goes to plan, the specimens will all be back in place before too long and the historical Victorian glasshouses can reopen – it is hoped this will happen fairly soon, before the full Edinburgh Biomes project is completed in 2028.
And when the doors open, there will be a thrilling new experience on offer – visitors will be able to view the vegetation from on high for the first time in decades.
“We have essentially restored all of the ironwork, reglazed everything and restored all of the sandstone. The next phase is to restore the internal landscaping.
“But one of the really exciting things is that we have reinstated the galleries, so people will be able to go up the spiral staircase to the top of the Palm House, which they haven’t been able to do for many years.
“A lot of care and attention has gone into the restoration. It’s looking really beautiful and we’re getting ready to start to plant it out again.”
RBGE has three other sites in Scotland, all of which were badly affected by Storm Éowyn. Worst hit was Benmore, in Argyll, where up to 300 trees are thought to have succumbed. Dawyck, in the Borders, and Logan, in Dumfries and Galloway, each lost around 50 or 60.
The scale of the destruction has prompted a major fund-raising appeal to help pay for reparations, which are expected to cost around £100,000. Such is the level of support and love for the gardens from around the globe, more than £5,000 was raised in the first day and jumped above £40,000 by the end of the week.
Regius keeper Simon Milne said: “The storm has had a devastating impact, both in terms of financial cost and the loss of some of the cherished National Botanical Collection.
“All four of our gardens, located within the red weather zone, have suffered damage – particularly Benmore and Edinburgh. While the glasshouses and buildings can be repaired, subject to resourcing, it is especially heartbreaking to lose treasured trees like the cedar in the Edinburgh garden, which stood tall for over a century before I was even born.”
He added: “Once the long and painstaking process of clearing fallen and damaged trees is complete, we will turn our focus to replanting. It is important that future generations will continue to experience the beauty and legacy of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.”
To donate to the Storm Damage or Save the Glasshouses appeals, visit the RBGE website