Mediterranean Garden (RBG Centre, Royal Botanical Gardens)

The Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) set up their headquarters in a building completed in 1958, which is now the core of the RBG Centre at 680 Plains Road West. In the 1980s the institution expanded its activities and built the Mediterranean Garden on this site, together with additional teaching spaces. The indoor garden opened in 1986.

The building was later extended again, notably with the Camilla and Peter Dalglish Atrium, LEED Gold certified, which hosts the gardens' major exhibitions and events. In 2014 the greenhouse's exterior walls were reglazed with acrylic sheet, the material already chosen when it was first built, according to the product's manufacturer.

After nearly forty years the plantings have grown considerably: trees that stood about five feet tall at the outset now touch the top of the two-storey greenhouse, and the undergrowth has thickened. The institution is therefore running a rejuvenation project. Pruning is meant to let in more light and free space for new plants, and the upgrade of the automated greenhouse system is intended to support a wider selection. The sources consulted do not name the architect of the greenhouse.

The Mediterranean Garden is a two-storey greenhouse attached to the RBG's visitor building. Its glazed walls and ceiling admit natural light, which explains the vigour of the planting that has come to fill the full height. According to the glazing manufacturer, the exterior walls were originally acrylic, a material retained at the 2014 reglazing; the company also reports that the building has withstood winds that damaged roof dampers, ice build-up, sleet and hail.

Inside, stone paths wind between palms, ferns and flowering plants. The wider complex has other growing spaces, including a cactus and succulent collection and a bulb room, mentioned by the same manufacturer. The sources consulted give neither the exact floor area nor the height of the greenhouse, nor the author of the plans.

The garden is devoted to plants from the five Mediterranean-climate regions of the world. Olive trees, citrus, palms and birds of paradise are listed, along with, according to a tourism source, Egyptian rushes growing along the Nile. The RBG website also presents the space as an indoor garden of tropical and subtropical plants: tall palms, ferns and flowers set along stone paths.

The institution reports new accessions joining an older collection. An artwork, On the Wings of Love by Bob and Jo Wilfong, stands in the garden. The RBG Centre as a whole is described as an indoor garden open year-round with more than 1,200 varieties of plants.

The Mediterranean Garden is part of the RBG Centre, at 680 Plains Road West in Burlington, and is visited with garden admission or membership. An hour allows a relaxed walk, longer if combined with the exhibitions in the neighbouring atrium.

It is above all a winter visit: the institution presents it as a green place to go while the outdoor gardens are dormant. The rejuvenation work plans new seasonal displays that will continue into the adjoining breezeway. In good weather the RBG Centre stands in Hendrie Park, the largest garden on the site, whose rose garden was first planted in 1965 and replanted in 2017.