Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
How did our Botanic
History of city’s jewel is revealed at exhibition
IT has gone from an old potato field in Dundee to a five-star attraction enjoyed by over 70,000 visitors a year since 1971.
Dundee University is celebrating 50 years of the city’s Botanic Garden with a new exhibition in the Tower Foyer Gallery.
Over The Garden Wall commemorates the people who were involved in the project and charts 50 things which shaped this iconic green space.
The exhibition has been dedicated to the memory of Dr Neil Paterson, the garden’s education officer, who died in the process of planning the 50th anniversary event.
In the 1960s, staff at Queen’s College started their campaign for a botanic garden at the university.
A report was prepared by in 1966 but was not taken up until 1970. By this time the independent Dundee University had been formed.
In 1971, work on the ninehectare site began and it opened on October 23 that year.
The site for the garden had previously been used as a potato field, meaning it had fertile and well-drained soil and was ideally suited to growing a wide range of species.
The university secured a 99-year lease and bought adjacent land to extend it.
The first curator, Eddie Kemp, established a clear direction for the garden’s early collections – a supply of plant material for the department of Biological Sciences but a garden that also had to appeal to “all visitor levels – academic, school and public”.
Kemp was previously the curator at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.
He brought with him 21 years’ experience in professional gardening, as well as many rare plant specimens.
Kemp was also responsible for adding the tropical and temperate glasshouse to the garden.
The garden changed from being a research and medicinal garden to a visitors garden in the 1990s when Leslie Bisset took over the curatorship.
He expanded the garden significantly by adding 4,500 plants.
Current curator Kevin Frediani said: “Les studied under Kemp at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.
“Over the 18 years he spent as curator, he continued to grow the plants Kemp had brought over from the capital.
“By the end of his and Kemp’s tenure, you could see the garden we know today.”
Alasdair Hood was the third curator. A Fifer, he had taught horticulture and arboriculture at Elmwood College.
Kevin added: “Hood wanted to make the visitor attraction more profitable, and also more useful to the university and wider society.
“There was a shift occurring in the UK at that time – nearly all the university botanic gardens closed or transferred over to trusts.
“The universities no longer valued these resources.
“Alasdair widened the public engagement by including things like an orchard and a cafe.
“He ramped up the education programme and appointed the first full-time education officer.”
The gardens became a significant visitor attraction with up to 70,000 visitors a year.
The Botanic Garden has also been a home to art and artists over the years, hosting many art exhibitions in its visitor centre, and houses several permanent public sculptures.
According to Kevin, the garden’s art is one of the reasons people keep coming back.
He said: “People have switched off to scientists; they don’t want to hear people like me – but they respond to really good art.”
The sculpture Bee Fruitful and Multiply by Emma Lindsay was commissioned by the McCarrison Society in 2011 to highlight the plight of the honeybee and how important it is to our food chain.
Kevin, who started as a gardener before winning a scholarship for the Cambridge Botanic Garden, said: “I’ve been lucky that the curators that came before me were really good at what they do.
“Their legacy allows me to have a platform where I can share the work of the garden.”