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HERBS, HERBARIUMS AND HORTICULTURE
Kate visits the most diverse garden in the East Midlands and meets Dr Richard Gornall, Director of the University of Leicester Botanic Garden
I’VE KNOWN ABOUT the botanic garden in Leicester for many years but have never actually visited. Coming across an herbarium belonging to my mother-in-law during a recent house move, I wondered if it would be of any interest to the researchers there and thought it was the perfect excuse to go and see what the gardens had to offer
Leicester Botanic Garden houses a conservation seed bank focusing on the local ora of eicestershire and Rutland and takes part in an international seed exchange. Seed or gene banks are invaluable for research for disease resistance, preservation of crop diversity, and protection against climate change and natural disasters.
My herbarium is a collection of pressed plants from Italy, Germany and Northamptonshire collected in 1904. Unfortunately very few of the specimens were properly labelled; to be useful they need to be marked with the place and date of collection and the collector’s name. But some sheets did have the right information and Dr Richard Gornall, Director of the University of Leicester Botanic arden as pleased to take the off y hands e told e that ‘herbarium specimens are the best way to preserve the characteristics of a plant: you have a record of the morphology, anatomy, chemistry and even the DNA.’ he rst botanic garden dates back to isa taly in Botanic gardens were laboratories associated with the medical schools run from the monasteries. Medical knowledge depended very heavily on plant-based cures and extracts. These gardens were there to support the training of young doctors and to provide plant materials.
The University of Leicester owns this botanic garden and, as Richard explained, ‘it is essentially an academic institution for teaching and research. We provide teaching materials for undergraduates; we hold some undergraduate classes here like the rst year e olutionary biology practical e run plant identi cation classes and pro ide plant material for other classes held on campus including wheat to feed locusts in neurophysiology classes. We support research work for physics, geology, geography and archaeology and education students; in short, we serve the whole university facility.’
The original site of the Botanic Garden was adjacent to the Fielding Johnson building which was bequeathed by the Fielding Johnson family to found the university in 1921. The
garden remained there until 1947 when the university wished to expand and build new buildings on the site. The four houses and gardens that now comprise the 16-acre site in Oadby were bought by the university between 1947 and 1964.
Originally these gardens were open meadowland di ided into elds after the s enclosures ro three wealthy industrialists: William Stevens, William interton and rancis rice ac uired the land and built grand Edwardian homes there, Nether Close (now Hastings ouse iddle eade no eau ont all and he noll with the fourth house, Southmeade, constructed later as a retire ent ho e for r rice he uni ersity ac uired the houses and gardens in stages rst ere eau ont and astings ouse in Within ten years it had bought Southmeade meaning the gardens joined up to became one continuous space. In 1964 the uni ersity bought the noll and the site reached its full 16 acres. It is one of only two botanic gardens in the country that are currently free to visit. You can pay to have a guided tour of the houses or garden for just £5 per person if you book in advance. On the outskirts of Leicester, in Oadby, it is ery easy to nd ith the public entrance on lebe oad
‘Today the scope of botanic gardens has changed,’ ichard e plained o longer ust for teaching and research, people visit to see plants that grow all around the orld across the different seasons e get about isitors per year and they co e for all sorts of different reasons. They come to walk round for daily exercise; some come for an afternoon out; some come to see the plants and others co e ith their fa ilies to let the kids let off stea ’
There is huge emphasis on engaging with local schools ith about ainly pri ary school children per year co ing through the gates fro eicestershire utland and neighbouring counties e ha e a ide range of nearly activities covering most aspects of the curriculum focusing mainly on natural history or biology but we also have programmes relating to history, geography, maths, art and English. You can teach practically anything in the botanic garden and it’s all listed on the website.’ here is so uch to disco er per anent sculptures from local artists; a beautiful water garden with very hungry carp; a sunken garden with a brick pavement and d arf bo hedging that as lled in during orld ar o to use as a vegetable plot. It was rediscovered in the late s and restored here’s the sandstone garden dominated by a mature collection of Japanese maples; a li estone garden ith the tallest speci en of ristlecone Pine in the country. The Himalayan lawn, Chinese oodland ritillary la n herbaceous borders the uschia
garden, Fibonacci pavements, the list goes on. It’s not called the ‘most diverse garden in the East Midlands’ for nothing. Then there’s the glasshouses: the desert house, the alpine house, warm-temperate house and the tropical house with a cutting from the original Bodhi tree under which Buddha meditated.
The Attenborough Arboretum, also owned by the ni ersity is a ile a ay on a e acre site t houses a collection of hardy trees and shrubs that are native to the British Isles planted in the sequence of how they arrived here after the last ice age. Although as Richard pointed out, ‘there are some alien intruders as we inherited the land when it was a farm and they were already growing there.’
One of the challenges is having inherited four mature gardens some seventy years ago and converting them into one. Initially not a lot was done; much emphasis was placed on supplying the undergraduate courses and the gardens were just maintained. But since the 1970s botanic gardens all over the world have really upped their game and it has become clear they have an important message to deliver in terms of biodiversity, caring for the environment and conservation.
‘We needed to look at what we had,’ said Richard. ‘We had four mature gardens with mature trees, how were we going to convert that into one, with a message that people will learn from? You don’t want to cut down a mature tree just because it’s in the wrong place, so you have to live with it. You devise planting schemes that it either goes with, or you simply say this tree doesn’t really belong, but it’s here, so admire it!’
Richard trained as a botanist and came to Leicester in 1980 as curator of the herbarium and garden. He brought up his family here and knows every inch of the garden. He is now about to retire, leaving a rather hard act to follow I should imagine.
‘We are trying to update some of our planting schemes,’ he told e e ere onths in to a e year progra e but then Covid stalled the refurbishment. And we only have four gardeners to carry out the work.
‘We don’t have demonstration gardens but the plants are all labelled and we have interpretation panels which explain what a particular border or walk is all about. We have plants from all around the world and the focus on global biodiversity is very important; we stress that.’ o take full ad antage of hat’s on offer you can beco e a friend of the garden and have access to a range of talks and visits to other gardens and places of horticultural interest hich offer great inspiration riends help run the family open day each summer and a crocus Sunday in late ebruary here is also a plant identi cation ser ice here people can send in pictures of specimens they’re unsure about.
The University of Leicester Botanic Garden is open all year round except over Christmas and New Year. Visit www.le.ac.uk/botanicgarden for more information.
