The Natural History Museum, today, opens its new large-scale outdoor gardens, in support of urban nature, complete with new bronze diplodocus dinosaur.

Wrapping around the west London museum, the five-acre space has been transformed into two new free-to-visit gardens – the Nature Discovery Garden and the Evolution Garden.

The space, which aims to showcase 2.7 billion years of history through plants, geology, and wildlife, now features a Jurassic garden, living laboratory and evolution timeline.

Its new Jurassic landscape, which resides in the Evolution Garden, features a planting scheme that mimics that of the Jurassic Period, highlighting species such as Wollemi pines, dwarf ginkgos and cycads.

Complete with a new bronze cast of Dippy, the Diplodocus; named Fern by local school children. Fern is accompanied by a bronze Hypsilophodon, which was native to the UK.

The Nature Discovery Garden offers a network of ponds and vegetation, with local wildlife already taking up residence in the space.

In a speech delivered in the new gardens earlier this week, museum director, Dr Doug Gurr says:

“Over the coming months and years, the nature here will flourish and grow, the scientific understanding will grow and millions and millions of young people will have the opportunity to reconnect with nature, to participate in new outdoor workshops and engage in the all-important work of understanding how nature recovery begins on our doorsteps.”

The site will also foster a new living laboratory that will host a series of scientific sensors, working to gather environmental DNA and acoustic data, helping scientists monitor, understand and protect urban nature.

The new landscape opens today, as a free-to-visit ‘outdoor gallery’, and is part of the Museum’s larger Urban Nature Project.