Our next lecture on 15th June, will be by Alan Clements, creator of the Cascades meditation garden near Matlock. It will explore our interest in gardening and the deeper satisfaction that we can get from creating our own special natural sacred space.

Our volunteers continue to contribute much to the upkeep of the Gardens. The specialist propagation team volunteered for 222 hours during May, while those working in the Gardens provided another 266 hours.

The next pop-up sale, hosted by Irene May, will take place at 232 Millhouses Lane S11 9JA  on Saturday 19th June between 2 and 4 pm. 
Tea and cake will also be on offer between 2.15 and 4.30, with the chance to look at her garden, all for £5 a head.


Thanks to Nicola Thorpe, Project Development Officer, for sharing with us the final plans for the Education and Engagement Project at the Botanical Gardens. In her lecture this morning, she explained about the programme delivery strands, new volunteering and training opportunities, and some of the partnerships that will help grow and sustain education at Sheffield Botanical Gardens.

Thanks to everyone who came along to the pop-up plants sale in Broomhall on Sunday. It was a treat to meet so many people in person again, and to send so many of our plants off to new homes. We raised lots of funds for the Gardens. As a result, our first batch of plants grown on for the online shop is now sold out.

Our next lecture will be 'Planning an Education Future for the Gardens' by Nicola Thorpe, who’ll be explaining the ideas she’s developed for activities & events in the Gardens, if our National Lottery Heritage Fund application is successful. Come along on Tuesday 25th May at 10.30am and learn about the themes, opportunities and partnerships that are included in the bid.

We’ll be selling a range of gorgeous garden plants, including some from our online shop and unusual species from our plant lists, next Sunday (23rd May) from 2pm till 4pm at 4 Park Lane, S10 2DU. There's free street parking nearby, and we can take payments by cash or card.

We’re thrilled that our colleagues at the Sheffield Botanical Gardens Florilegium Society have a new book coming out. Published by the Crowood Press, the book is called A Florilegium: Sheffield’s Hidden Garden and should be available from early July.

We are pleased to have become one of 20 members of the Friends of Botanic Gardens Forum. This was set up in 2019 as an association to bring Friends groups around the UK into contact with each other, to share experiences and knowledge. The organisation has already been helpful to us when we were researching the ways in which other botanic gardens run their education programmes.

The latest edition of our monthly newsletter News Shoots is now available in the password-protected Friends Area of the website. It is being distributed to Friends by email, and print copies will shortly be on the way to members without email addresses.

Thanks to Pilar Medrano Dell for her thought-provoking lecture this morning talking about ways of planting historic gardens, from complete restorations of original designs through to more contemporary horticultural styles. She illustrated her lecture with examples including Rousham, Wrest Park, Trentham and the Kensington Roof Gardens.

Our volunteers are delighted to be back in the Gardens after the enforced absence during lockdown. Teams have been busy since 29th March, when they were allowed back, and completed just over 500 hours in the period to the end of April - about half on specialist propagation work and the other half on garden tasks and producing plants for our online shop.

Our next online talk, on 11 May at 10.30am, is by environmental horticulturalist Pilar Medrano Dell. She’ll explore issues around restoring historic gardens back to their original inception or to a more contemporary take, using examples from her own work, including the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, English Heritage Wrest Park, and the Kensington Roof Gardens.

The Friends have a new Facebook page, which will feature details of the plants we currently have for sale, as well as snippets of other news about our lecture programme, tours and of course the occasional photo of the Gardens.

We enjoyed a wonderful talk this morning by Katy Merrington, the Cultural Gardener at the Hepworth Wakefield. She told us about the creation and development of this beautiful new public space by Tom Stuart-Smith, and gave us some inspiring ideas for creating year-round interest through perennial plantings.