Birmingham Botanic gardens?

[charlie]

Anyone been? I am there Sunday week doing a plant sale and wondered if there were any must see plants or bits of garden (I always hope to be too busy to spend all day looking around!)

[AndyC]

I went about six or seven years ago after an Akamba meet. The outside space was well planted but with nothing our of the ordinary. The conservatory/glass house had some interesting plants in it especially a flowering Doryanthes palmeri and a giant Aristolochia. I rescued a few seeds from the Doryanthes and still have a couple of the resulting plants, still small enough to fit in a four litre pot :roll:

[DaveP]

Not been for very many years, but I was on one of the committees there for a while and used to spend a lot of time in and around the gardens. There used to be a magnificent Eucalyptus globulus down by the old tennis courts and the borders outside the temperate house were always stuffed with interesting things. At the time, the curator was relatively adventurous and tried to ensure there was sufficient stock to risk outside. There were always interesting plants for sale and I had a 'swap arrangement' enabling me to prop up their plants provided I re-supplied FOC if the gardens lost a particular plant. It was quite a good arrangement and despite me losing a lot of stock over the 81/82 winter, I managed to help them out with several of their total losses. That was back in the early 80's and I've not been back since I sold up and moved south.