Look inside newly renovated Palm Houses at Scottish botanic gardens

Captured under clear blue skies with sunshine pouring through the restored glass to mark the summer solstice – the longest day of the year – the new images and video footage reveal the Palm Houses almost fully brought back to their former glory and the first wave of plants already settling into their new home.

Still a working site as final touches continue, the two Palm Houses are entering the last stretch of a major restoration to one of the Garden’s most iconic spaces.

More than 600 plants had been stored in another hot house while the Palm Houses were being renovated and have now been returned to the buildings.

With only a few months to go until completion, the restoration of the nineteenth-century Palm Houses onsite in the Edinburgh Garden marks the close of the first phase of the Edinburgh Biomes project, the most ambitious programme in the garden’s history.

Described as the tallest traditional structure of its kind in the world, the multi-million-pound renovation has involved temporarily rehousing hundreds of plants before work began in 2021. The structures were initially closed temporarily in 2019 for emergency works.

The restoration has painstakingly replaced thousands of panes of glass alongside specialist ironwork and sandstone repairs and removal of a central partition between the two houses to create a single, unified temperate climate zone.

Replanting began early this year and will continue until opening in late 2026. The research and front range glasshouses remain closed to the public, awaiting future restoration as part of the wider Edinburgh Biomes project.