cycadVentnor Botanic Garden
Cycads at VBG: 2019 was a big year for them…
cycadVentnor Botanic Garden
Fossilised cycad trunks have been spitting out of the Isle of Wight cliffs at Compton for years, so we know they were established here 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period.
When one of our cycads produced a male cone in 2013, it was the first recorded “flowering” of a cycad in the UK.
Imagine our surprise in the summer of 2019 when an even larger male Cycas revoluta cone arrived, the second recorded flowering, and at the same time a female cone emerged.
cycadVentnor Botanic Garden
We made the connection between climatic conditions then and now which piqued The Guardian newspaper’s interest. Their story led to a run of media enquiries which enabled us to tell the story of our microclimate and the effects of climate change on the ground at VBG.
Ventnor Botanic Garden Today Book
