Please note this year, due to limited capacity and to avoid disappointment all paying visitors (who are not CUBG Friends or CU students) should purchase advance tickets, available via the Botanic Garden website from June 2019. Tickets may be available on the gate on the day if not sold out in advance, but this cannot be guaranteed.

Please note: due to limited capacity and to avoid disappointment all paying visitors (who are not CUBG Friends or CU students) should buy advance online tickets via the Botanic Garden website from June 2019. Tickets may be available on the Gate on the day of each performance, but this cannot be guaranteed.

Highlights include

• apple tasting: over 2 dozen delicious, locally-grown heritage varieties from the region to try and buy

The Beth Chatto Gardens began in 1960 as an overgrown wasteland which was then transformed into inspirational, informal gardens set within the countryside of East Anglia.

The Gardens include the Gravel Garden, world-famous for being drought-tolerant, in the driest part of the country, in free-draining gravel soil.  There is also the Water Garden, Woodland Garden and redeveloped Reservoir Garden which has interesting new planning of perennials.  The plant shop offers a wide range of plants, the majority propagated from the gardens or surrounding stock beds.

Highlights include:

Join Chantal Helm for a spring twilight ramble through the Garden and learn about the fascinating world of bats.

As well as searching for these elusive nocturnal creatures, there will be a chance to use our bat detectors and have your questions answered.  Starting with a short talk, followed by a walk through the Garden, the event will finish at around 21:30. 

The event is weather dependent.

Join Dr Julia Mackenzie, who is involved in bird research at the Garden (where our nest boxes have been monitored since 2003).

She will take you for an early morning tour, observing birds in the Garden before it opens to the public.

Ticket price includes a cooked and continental breakfast in the Garden Cafe with tea and coffee after the tour.

Dr Cerian Webb Post Doctorate Research Associate Epidemiology & Modelling: Department of Plant Sciences

The UK ash tree population is in rapid decline due to the fungal pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, more commonly referred to as Ash dieback, but there is another threat on the horizon – a small green shiny beetle.

Dr Kelsey Byers, Research Associate Butterfly Genetics Group: Department of Zoology

In 1879 Charles Darwin wrote that the rapid diversification of flowering plants was an “abominable mystery” and, citing Gaston de Saporta, suggested that the relationship between flowering plants and insect pollinators was responsible for flowering plant diversity. Flowering plants attract insect pollinators with a wide variety of signals which advertise the availability of floral rewards such as nectar and pollen.

Professor Ottoline Leyser, Director: Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University

Plants in the natural world are the products of evolution by natural selection. Their genes work in concert to allow them to survive environmental challenges, defend themselves from predators and pathogens, and successfully reproduce, passing their genes on to the next generation.