• Norwood Forum

The South London Botanical Institute (SLBI) is 110!

The SLBI is 110 years old this year. They have provided us with the following synopsis of their work and pointers to forthcoming free events and other work, and news of their birthday celebrations!

“The SLBI can be found in a large double fronted Victorian house, set behind a sweeping drive at 323 Norwood Road in Tulse Hill. This ‘little gem’ of a place was founded in 1910 by eminent ornithologist and botanist Allan Octavian Hume and today has a beautiful botanical garden, a library of over 2,000 botanical books and an extensive herbarium that includes not only Hume’s original dried and pressed plants but many other thousands of interesting plant specimens from around the world.

Hume was keen to share his passion for plants and natural history and to this end the SLBI runs a wide range of courses, workshops, school visits and events for all ages. Of course, as with most places, we have had to temporarily close our doors to schools and visitors. We are however still keen to create and inspire a love and enthusiasm for plants and all things botanical as much as we can online, and have created a number of ways in which you can still enjoy our garden and learn more about the plants to be found all around us in London.

For families and schools we have created some free online educational resources to use - you can find them on our website under School Visits & Families. More will be added each week so keep checking back!

There are a series of upcoming short online events, the next one being Exploring the Byways in search of Plant Folklore with SLBI president Roy Vickery, Thursday 14 May, 7pm. This will be followed by Bat Night with Iain Boulton on Thursday 28 May, 7pm and Container Food Growing with Mark Riddsdill-Smith on Thursday 4 June, 7pm (limited numbers).  These will all be free of charge but of course donations are always welcome. All events will be accessed via Zoom. Please see our website to book.

Roy Vickery is also posting on Facebook a ‘Plant a Day’ found on his daily walk. He doesn’t just identify and photograph the plant for you but also fills you in with some of the local history, myths and folklore surrounding it.  You can keep up to date with all our latest news and photos on FacebookTwitter and Instagram. Please do join us and contribute with your own photos. There is so much to see and share at the moment and we love to see what’s growing in your local area.

This year at the SLBI we will celebrating 110 years since opening in 1910.  Instead of inviting you to an online birthday party, we’re inviting everyone to join our Big Botanical Birthday Challenge! Your participation will help support the SLBI garden, collections and education work at this difficult time and help secure our future. Anyone can take part and you can choose any challenge that interests you, whether it be artistic, scientific or poetic!  Lots of fundraising ideas and further details can be found on our Support Us page – we can’t wait to see what botanical challenges you set yourself.

We’d love to hear more from you. Please do get in touch with us if you have any interesting botanical news you like to share, and as soon as we’re open for visits again, we’ll be in touch.  Stay safe and hope to see you all soon.”

South London Botanical Institute
323 Norwood Road
London
SE24 9AQ  
Tel: 020 8674 5787
Email: info@slbi.org.uk