Manchester University Botanical Gardens

16/04/2026

Some scenes from our Botanical Gardens this week 🪴

1. Close up of Oxyrrhynchium hians (Swartz’s Feather-moss) in the moss house

2. Our wonderful volunteers doing some clean up on the grounds

3. The Firs were-rabbit makes a rare daytime appearance 🥕

4. What we suspect is Prunus serrulata ‘Amanogawa’ (Cherry blossoms) in bloom

5. Turn your audio on for some singing robins 🎵

Come and join see us in person on Friday the 24th of April 2026 for an Open day! We’ll be open from 10AM - 3PM 🌿

10/11/2025

Videos from the Firs of late …

1 - Whitewashing the glasshouses at the beginning of summer to protect the plants from the sunshine! This was especially important for the tropical and cloud forest biomes, for those plants that love the shady understory of the rainforests, even Manchester sun was a little much!

2 - The marquee set up for one of many important meetings we’ve had this year, with all the exciting vision boards out on display

3 - The pond was alive this summer, with all the buzz of dragonflies, damselflies and bees, to name just a few!

4 - Filling up the new bog! We managed to line and fill up a small pond which will bridge the gap between the current pond and the bog. The sunshine bouncing off the trickling water was a treat to see.

5 - Pollinators!

21/09/2025

29/08/2025

We were very excited to host a visit from the university president Prof. Duncan Ivison, and Chief Property Officer Barra MacRuairi last week. We toured the site and told them of our ambitions to grow and become a new Botanical Garden for Manchester. We also gave them each a plant to take home!
•
#2035

07/08/2025

The Bog so far…

Swipe along to see the progress of the bog garden so far - this section of the garden was once a herbaceous border with a now defunct sign cemented into the ground (pointing to nowhere), the first job was to get this area cleared! Thanks to help of volunteers from AMS we were able to dig out and repot all the herbaceous plants and the hundreds of bulbs hidden in the earth.

Thanks to the muscles and bravado of a group of students studying climate change, humanitarianism and conflict response, the old sign was removed from the ground! This left the area prepped and clear, allowing for our lovely volunteers from .botanists to get digging down to shape the main pool and build the mound that will become a mini heath covered moorland.

In recent weeks we’ve had even more muscle on site, smashing up the old concrete path that lay below the surface, allowing us to dig and shape the area into multiple hollows and mounds, which will form the boggy wetlands on which sphagnum mosses, carnivorous plants and native shrubs (bilberry, crowberry etc) will grow.

We even found lots of nice bits of old ceramics, ornate glass and old plant pots hidden below the surface, it was a real treasure trove!

Now to add the liner to keep the bog nice and wet, and to get planting! We’re aiming for a peat free project, instead using coir as a substrate for the plants, which over time will start to produce their own peat.

A big thank you to for supporting this project and for all their guidance and encouragement. More updates to follow…

•

02/07/2025

A wonderful day yesterday for the event, where we were lucky enough to take time out of our days to marvel at the miniature world of moss.

Mossworlds is an interdisciplinary group across the university for those who love all things moss. The exhibition showcased all the lovely things they’ve been up to this last year, including moss poetry, embroidery, scores, artwork, and there was even the opportunity to take a closer look at some mosses under our microscopes. Also highlighted was the ability of mosses to slow down the flow of water, a natural defence against flooding events, wonderfully showcased by the Geography department.

We’re looking forward to working with Mossworlds more in the future! Keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming bog related project…

09/06/2025

The Tropical House - a home for all things rainforest! Kept at around 30 degrees year round with high humidity to replicate the conditions of a tropical rainforest, this is our warmest and wettest biome. Irrigation soaks the plants on a regular basis and trays of water set atop the heating pipes evaporate to increase the humidity in the air.

This house has become, quite literally, a bit of a jungle due to the lack of staffing in previous years - but the team have been working hard to repot and reorganise the house, so far we’ve completed 1 bench and some trees! Here’s some snippets of areas that have been sorted out - with a surprising amount of spiral ginger (Cheilocostus speciosus) seedlings germinating in the grit. We’re aiming for an organised chaos in here and we’re getting there slowly but surely, hopefully we could have the whole house sorted by the end of the year!

06/05/2025

Our open days were a great success! It was great to meet some of you from the local community and to see some familiar faces too :) We hope everyone enjoyed taking a look round the gardens and found all the hidden gems of the Firs, along with all the plants springing into life with their great display of flowers and colour!

A big thanks to .botanists for manning the plant stall and welcoming visitors, we could’ve have done it without you :)

Anyone who wasn’t able to make it don’t fear! We’ll be having more opens days in the future and will post dates and times here :)

•

11/04/2025

It’s another open day today! It’s the perfect sunny day to come look at plants, explore the greenhouses and find some shade in the woodland garden - our gates are open 10-3 for visits :)

09/04/2025

2025 so far…

It’s been a busy year so for so far at The Firs, with the commencement of our April open days we’ve had lots to do to get the site moving forwards! Starting off with a success story, our previously sad and outcompeted magnolia is flowering for the first time following the removal of self seeded sycamore trees from the woodland garden!

We’ve also had some mega days repotting in the glasshouses, Osi had a big job with a monstera that was taking over the path in the tropical house, which needed a good deal of wrestling to tame! Progress along the benches saw many amorphophallus, syngonium and epipremnum plants rescued from tiny outgrown plastic pots into our very old and very characterful terracotta pots (a real upgrade!)

The bed built by the entrance gate last year has found a purpose as our new Mississippi basin bed, and we’re nearly finished creating an interesting design for the plants to go in - hopefully the bed with make the entrance more inviting to visitors 🌱

Labels for the site have continued to be designed, cut and fixed around the site, including those for the Fallowfield tree trail, if you’re on campus you might have noticed these on a few special trees already

Thanks to .botanists for being a big help as always! Among many projects they’ve helped with this year they gave us a hand installing metal edging around the rockery which has made it look far more professional than before

also just had their first harvest of the year, sending off loads of lovely veggie leaves for and Local Food first. Lots will be growing in the gardens this year thanks to their hard work supporting local communities!

We still have 2 more open days on the 11th and 25th, it’d be great to see some of you there 🌸

#2025

02/04/2025

The Firs is open to the public for 3 Fridays this April! On the 4th, the 11th and the 25th, the gates will be open to anyone from 10-3pm who wants to have a look around the greenhouses and gardens. There have been lots of changes since our last open day in May ‘24, and with a new April interest plant trail to follow, there’ll be lots to look at!

Why not make the most of the sunny weather this Friday and come spend some time in nature 🌱