Summer’s not here yet but already city’s gardens are ablaze with colour
AFTER ALMOST three months without rain and with temperatures already at July levels, Sheffield’s Botanical Gardens have erupted in colour early this year.
Andrea Jones, head gardener at the 19-acre site to the west of the city centre, said: “Many of the plants have flowered already and are fuller and more colourful than we’re used to seeing at this time of year.”
The gardens have stayed open throughout the quarantine but the centrepiece curved glass pavilions have been closed, causing the cancellation of a number of weddings.
Ms Jones, who took up her post only shortly before lockdown began, said: “We’ve been watering in the pavilions because of the heat in there but the outdoor plants are well established and hardy enough to cope.”
The best-established of all is the fossil of a tree-like Lepidodendron, thought to be 312 million years old, and displayed in one of the 15 garden areas.
Entry to the gardens has remained free and staff have been kept on as usual. But with numbers down as people selfisolate, some have been drafted to other outdoor council duties while the army of volunteers from the Friends of the Botanical Gardens have been kept away.
Many of the plants are fuller and more colourful.
Head gardener Andrea Jones, who took over shortly before lockdown began.
“They are a very large group with several hundred members and we hope to welcome them back soon,” Ms Jones said.
Sheffield Council has run the site since 1951 on a 99-year lease from the Sheffield Town Trust, formerly known as the Burgery of Sheffield.
Long established as the city’s principal outdoor cultural venue, 30,000 visitors attend theatre, art and music spectacles in the gardens.
A £5m lottery grant paid for a wholesale restoration around 15 years ago.