Historical Gardening Event Of The Week:

12 January 1699

■ On this day, James Sutherland was appointed the first ‘King’s Botanist’, under a Warrant of William III. Sutherland was instrumental in creating the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (see below), and his ground-breaking – for the time – publication Hortus Medicus Edinburgensis placed Scotland at the forefront of European botany.