Eden Project

Rosie Boycott: I was sceptical about filling a clay pit with tropical trees

Journalist Rosie Boycott was sceptical when she heard about a former record producer wanting to build huge plant-filled domes in a clay pit. Today, she looks back at how Eden has grown up over the last decade.

I first heard about the Eden Project from a friend of mine down in Cornwall. She told me of a former record producer she’d just met, with a dream of building several gigantic domes inside an old china clay pit and filling them with tropical trees.

Driving past the St Austell slag heaps that day, I did wonder how on earth it would work and where all the money would come from. But within a few years I began to hear how, out of a scar of Cornwall’s industrial past, an extraordinary homage to the power of nature was being born. Like everyone else, my imagination was captivated by the audacious scale of the venture.

In the first year Eden opened, 1.8 million people visited. Yet, a decade on, the gardens have literally blossomed. Visit the Mediterranean Biome today and you enter a sweet-smelling world of citrus fruits, olives, grapes and flowering vines.

Inside the Rainforest Biome, the trees reach so high up to the 160ft-roof that they require regular care from abseiling tree-surgeons to keep them from piercing the skin of the dome. I’m not great with heights, but when I stood on the platform which hangs just below the roof I could almost feel these mighty trees breathing, absorbing the world’s carbon dioxide, and putting back life-giving oxygen.

Of course, Eden is far more than two domes in a deep pit. It’s also a centre of learning and a driving force in the environmental movement. Unlike most established groups, which tell you that only sacrifice can save the planet, Eden is about optimism. Its message leaps out at every visitor: everyone can do it — whether it is planting a vegetable garden, taking part in a neighbourhood Big Lunch, or helping to educate kids about our dependency on plant life for all life.

So whether you come to Eden to see the plants, or to wonder at the transformation of the pit into a vast global garden, spare a moment to consider your part in this planet. If I ever need to be reminded of mine, a trip to Eden always puts me right.

Writer and broadcaster Rosie Boycott is a Non-executive Director of Eden. She also runs her own smallholding in Somerset. Read a longer version of Rosie’s article.

Find out more about taking part in The Big Lunch in your own neigbourhood.

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Celebrations, Eden's 10th birthday, Inspiration

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Eden's 10th birthday, Environment