Speaking on their experience of Husqvarna’s robotic lawn mowers, Simon Toomer, Curator of Living Collections at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew said: “We have really seen the benefits robotics have brought to RBG, Kew over the past year, and the team has definitely embraced the change. Making the transition has provided a lot more consistency in terms of the grassland and lawn management in the different areas we’ve been running them in.

“Before our partnership, one of our biggest barriers was achieving that continuous and consistent cut. We’re always looking for ways in which we can make better use of our horticulturists’ time, so Husqvarna’s robotics felt like a no-brainer.

“Mowing grass is a highly important task and it’s a skill in itself. Finding machines that could do that, freed up time for our horticulturalists to be doing things like collection auditing, collections maintenance and development, and planting new plants. Mechanisation has been very welcome to us.

“In some of the areas, it has also allowed more planning in terms of long and short grass which is a huge benefit. So much so, the person who plans can now define exactly what they want from the mowers and then it just gets done. So, for example, when we’ve got the machines running in the Temperate House, it means that we’ve got that consistent and continuous pattern ready.

“The introduction of electric mowers is also supporting our Sustainability Strategy, which is great, as decarbonisation plays a large role in our 2030 strategy.”

Simon added: “Our visitors are really interested, and we have the mowers on our interpretation boards, so we’ve had a lot of people asking us about the partnership as well as about the sustainability and biodiversity aspects. Visitors are also keen to know whether they can be used in domestic gardens which is great as we can explain the benefits that can also be experienced by consumers in their own gardens.”