Chelsea Physic Garden

The Chelsea Physic Garden is a botanical garden in London. He is after Oxford Botanic Garden is the second oldest botanical garden in England and the oldest botanical garden in London.

Location

The garden now includes 1.53 acres. It is located in Chelsea in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The triangular area bounded by the Embankment, of the Royal Hospital Road and the Swan Walk.

History

The garden was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, founded in 1617 as an apothecary garden. 1776, the garden was surrounded by a 131 m long wall. The first greenhouse was established in 1680. Heated greenhouses are occupied since 1685 and were described by John Evelyn and Hans Sloane.

1713 Hans Sloane purchased the adjoining property, the garden plot of approximately 1.6 acres of his son Charles Cheyne, leaving the property in 1722 for an annual rent of 5 pounds of pharmacists society. In return, he demanded that the pharmacist society that they the Royal Society every year produced a report with 50 plant species newly described, were written first descriptions to 2000. Condition was also that the terrain should serve as an apothecary garden forever. The lease is still paid to the descendants of Sloane.

1724 Isaac became the first edge of the Chelsea Physic Garden Praefectus Horti. In his time as a garden director falls a visit to the Garden by Carl Linnaeus in 1736 and the support of Elizabeth Blackwell, as these there customized the drawings for A Curious Herbal. 1732 Sloane had built an orangery, which was demolished in the mid 19th century. 1733 a statue of Sloane by Michael Ruysbrack was erected, which is in the British Museum today. Under Philip Miller, the Chelsea Physic Garden has become one of the most biodiverse gardens of the time. 1899 took over the City Parochial Foundation the garden, 1983, he was transferred to the responsibility of a foundation which opened the garden to the public. Meanwhile, the garden also has an educational center for school classes and lectures as well as the inevitable sales area. A historical tour combines parts of the garden from different periods of its development.

Garden

The garden has a very mild climate and contains the largest solid outdoor olive tree in Britain. and since 1663 the first Lebanon cedar in the UK. The seeds came from Paul Hermann, professor of botany in Leiden and director of its Hortus Academicus. The tree was felled in winter 1903, but seedlings still grow in the Botanical Garden of Cambridge.

The pharmaceutical beds show traditional medicinal plants. In 1993 furnished garden of the world medicine medicinal plants can be seen from other continents, such as the Ginkgo. More discounts show fragrant plants, which are used in perfumery and plants from the Canary Islands as the various endemic Echium species and Aeonien. A rock garden has already been created in 1773 and is now a listed building. It contains, among other stones from the Tower of London, chalk and flints and basalt from volcanic Hafnaefjorhur, the St Lawrence, 1772 had brought the ship of Joseph Banks as ballast. The affiliated pond is decorated with a giant clam that James Cook had collected on his first Pacific voyage 1768-1771.

The garden has over a hundred different kinds of snowdrops (Galanthus gracilis, Galanthus nivalis, Galanthus elwesii, Galanthus plicatus, Leucojum vernum ) which are connected via a circular route. Greenhouses contain ferns, tropical orchids, Mediterranean plants ( including a collection of endemic plant of Crete ) and plants from the Canary Islands. In Fortune's Tank Pond, which was restored in 2004, live toads, frogs and newts. As a new department, a garden with food and crops has been created ( Garden of edible plants ).

The garden maintained since 1683 an index seminorum which is continued today by Freiweillge. Seeds are also commercially available in the garden, but can not be grown commercially.

Upper Gardener ( Curator

  • Spencer Piggott, about 1677/78
  • Richard Pratt, 1678 is
  • John Watts, pharmacist, 1680-1692/93
  • Samuel Doody, 1692-1706 (?)
  • Committee from 1707
  • Philip Miller, 1721-1770
  • William Forsyth, 1771-1779
  • John Fairbairn, 1784-1814
  • William Anderson, 1815-1846
  • Robert Fortune, 1846-1848
  • Thomas Moore, 1848-1887
  • Place unoccupied, 1887-1899
  • William Hales, 1899-1937
  • George William Robinson, 1937-1942
  • Place unoccupied, 1942-1946
  • Allan Paterson, 1973-1981
  • Donald Duncan, 1982-1990
  • Sue Minter, 1991-2001
  • Rosie Atkins, 2001-2010
  • Christopher Bailes, from 2011
Chelsea (London) Isaac Rand Elizabeth Blackwell (illustrator) Ginkgo biloba Aeonium William Forsyth (horticulturist)
181247
de