London’s Natural History Museum is set to launch its transformed gardens, a Jurassic landscape home to a new bronze diplodocus.
Guests can visit the new gardens from tomorrow, 18 July. To mark the opening, the museum has unveiled Fern, a new bronze cast of Dippy the diplodocus.
Part of the museum’s Urban Nature Project, five acres of green space around the building in South Kensington have become two living galleries – the Nature Discovery Garden and the Evolution Garden.
Doug Gurr, Natural History Museum director, said “We are incredibly excited for visitors to get lost in nature and the story of our planet, stretching back 2.7 billion years, as they explore our completely transformed gardens this summer.
“Beneath the graceful gaze of our newest dinosaur Fern, two immersive outdoor galleries are already teeming with wildlife. It’s the perfect place for all to connect with and learn about the nature on our doorsteps.”
In the Evolution Garden, guests will explore 2.7 billion years of history of the planet via an immersive timeline of plants, rocks, and representations of reptiles, birds and mammals.
Highlights in this garden include a canyon clad in ancient stone from Scotland, another bronze dinosaur, and a dining outlet to open later this year.
In the Nature Discovery Garden, visitors and scientists can explore different habitats representing the biodiversity found in the UK’s urban spaces.
Living laboratory in London
There are sunken pathways, and ponds with frogs, newts, dragonflies and mandarin ducks. At the Nature Activity Centre, guests can learn about urban nature.
“We know that for people and planet to thrive, we must act to support urban nature recovery,” said Gurr.
The reimagined gardens, he said, will “play a vital role in understanding how nature in our towns and cities is responding to a changing planet, and how we can better safeguard it”.
Scientists will observe wildlife and collect eDNA samples from the gardens, described as a living laboratory. Also, a network of 25 scientific sensors will gather environmental and acoustic data.
Images courtesy of Natural History Museum
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