Bursary reports

All bursary recipients produce reports on their experiences and each year two prizes of £500 and £250 each are awarded

What happens after my bursary?

If you are awarded a bursary you will be required to produce a written report within three months of completion of your project.

All reports are assessed by a judging panel of RHS staff associated with Botany, the Lindley Library, and RHS Media. A short list of reports is then prepared for final assessment by members of the RHS Bursaries Committee.
 
Each year two main prizes are awarded. The major prize of £500 is given to the individual whose report is considered to reflect the highest standard of report writing, while the other prize of £250 goes to the person who is judged to have personally gained the most from his/her project.

Read previous reports

RHS Libraries are a great resource of information when preparing your application, researching for your project, or writing up your report. Downloadable PDF copies of previous reports can be requested by emailing an RHS Libraries Bursary Report scan request form (112kB pdf) to the Wisley library at [email protected].

Please note: Some bursaries are kept in off-site storage, and it will take up to four weeks to fulfil a request.

Recent Bursary Report £500 prize winners

© Melissa Bennett

Melissa Bennett, Exploring Desert Plants

South Arizona, 15 – 29 June 2023
DBG in Phoenix, Arizona is a world class, contemporary and diverse botanical garden with a mission to ‘advance excellence in education, research, exhibition, and conservation of desert plants of the world with an emphasis on the Sonoran Desert’ (Desert Botanical Garden 2023a).

  • Sally Bower – Nature rising from the rubble – gravel and recycled aggregate gardens in Essex and London, 2022
  • Jennifer Whittaker – Right Plant, Right Place: A study of the use and manipulation of micro-climates in Cornwall, 2020
  • RHS Garden Wisley students – The Gardens and Plant of Andalucia, 2019
  • Robert Blackhall-Miles & Ben Ram – A further study of the high altitude Proteaceae in the Western Cape of South Africa, 2018

Recent Bursary Report £250 prize winners

Emma Leaper – Aotearoa

New Zealand, 14 October – 7 November 2022
New Zealand’s environment is unique, with high levels of endemism in its flora and fauna, which has evolved quite separately from the rest of the world. The country extends across both temperate and subtropical biomes, and its ecosystems are hugely varied.

© Emma Leaper

  • Scott Galloway – A molecular investigation into the genus Bergenia, 2022
  • Richard Eltringham – A summary of the American Horticultural Therapy Association 2019 Annual Conference
  • Joseph Evans – Flowers, Fronds & Forests: North East UK, 2018
  • Charlotte Bancroft – Following in Harold Comber’s Footsteps, 2018


Got a question for the Bursaries team?

Get in touch with our dedicated team and they’ll help get you started:
The RHS Bursaries Co-ordinator, RHS Garden Wisley, Woking, Surrey GU23 6QB
Call: 01483 479719
Email: [email protected]
 


Get involved

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.