Chelsea Physic Garden Zine 4: The Hidden Histories of Chelsea Physic Garden

The fourth, and final, zine for our 350-year anniversary focuses on the Garden's hidden histories. This may seem an inward-looking theme on which to end, for a series that has focused on broad and globally important issues - biodiversity loss and climate chaos; the future of plant science; and the changing representation of women in professional horticulture.

However, things are not all they first seem - neither is the Garden's history. Change is afoot. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and other humanities researchers have been joining better-known, and more expected, plant and fungi scientists. The resulting, new academic discipline of Plant Humanities is changing the way we think about our relationships with plants and gardens - in the past, now and in the future.

Author: Pippa Pemberton