For the love of weather

LiDAR and beyond, a story of carbon storage at the new Carbon Garden at Kew. Part 2

For the love of weather

Show Notes

Gemma and Aisling were invited to speak to some of the incredible people behind the new Carbon Garden at Kew Gardens in London which opened in July 2025. This is part 2, part 1 was released on the 27th of August 2025.

This extraordinary new space explores the story of carbon and how important it is to life on Earth. More than just a beautiful garden, this project communicates the scale of the climate crisis while celebrating the remarkable power of plants and mycorrhizal fungi as our planet's natural allies. With 35 carefully selected trees and 6,500 beautiful plants, the Carbon Garden is one of Kew Gardens' most ambitious garden projects in recent years.

The garden is filled with lots of brilliant features including a rain garden and a stunning central pavilion, which has been inspired by fungi and made with natural materials. Some of the planting also takes inspiration from the climate stripes, which were created by Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading.

This episode focus’ on carbon storage and LiDAR measurement and what the team hope to learn and understand about carbon storage. Each of the guests were unique, fun and above all so passionate about what they do. It was lovely to hear their story in person.

In part 2 we talk to Professor Justin Moat, Senior Research Leader and Spatial Analyst and to Dr. Phil Wilkes, Research Leader.

You can find out more about the Carbon Garden at Kew here https://www.kew.org/kew-gardens/whats-in-the-gardens/carbon-garden

And if you would like to know more about Professor Ed Hawkins Climate stripes - https://showyourstripes.info/. We recorded an episode with Professor Ed on June 18th 2025 https://rss.com/podcasts/for-the-love-of-weather/2078913/ or search Professor Ed Hawkins, for the love of weather podcast.

We really hope you enjoy this episode and leave loving the weather a little bit more. If you want to hear a little more weather and climate chat - please hit subscribe, like and share with a friend.

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