The Gardens are just waking up but the Friends have been active over the winter and in particular supporting the Friends of Glasgow Parks Forum.
The Forum has been leading the “Participatory Budgeting” process with the City Council – this sounds complicated but can be summarised by saying there is £90,000 available for new projects funded by Wee Green Grants.
Applications have closed and the Friends have applied for £4500 (max per application is £5000) for “Teaching the Teachers” – essentially a scaled down version of our Certificate in Practical Horticulture.
We teach the teachers and then they will take the knowledge back to the classroom.
We aim to have 10 one-day courses for teachers/classroom assistants from Glasgow schools and it will be provided as a partnership between the Friends, Botanic Gardens staff and the Royal Horticultural Society, which is already engaged with Glasgow schools.
The courses will be offered free to participating schools.
The next stage is for the public to vote on their preferred projects. There are about 28 projects and each voter can vote for three projects. It is very much a pilot project but nevertheless real funding is available.
If you would like to see the projects submitted go to
There are many worthwhile projects but we hope you would like to vote for the Friends project, you have to register but it will be worthwhile if we are successful.
Best wishes
The Friends of Glasgow Botanic Gardens
