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Sainsbury Laboratory

Welcome to the Blooming Numbers digital tour 

Blooming Numbers was our interactive exhibit at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025, showcasing cutting-edge plant science research with a focus on the flower.

If you couldn’t join us at Chelsea, we’re bringing the experience to you. Scroll down to explore the posters, videos, and interactive content that made up the exhibit—and discover how a quantitative approach, combining experiments with computational modelling, is helping scientists decode plants.

Starting with the flower

Flowers are more than just beautiful. Their vibrant colours, intricate shapes, and striking patterns have evolved over millions of years—not for us, but to attract pollinators, protect delicate pollen, and in some cases to ensure seeds find their way into the world.

From a flower’s first moments as a single cell to its final bloom, our Blooming Numbers exhibit traced the fascinating journey of floral development.

 

The Pollinator Patch

Oakington Garden Centre, a beloved family-run nursery based in the village of Oakington on the outskirts of Cambridge, created a mini garden to champion pollinators for the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge: Blooming Numbers exhibit at the RHS Flower Show 2025. The garden was not only beautful, it was designed to illustrate how even a tiny space can provide pollinators with food, shelter and nesting resources throughout the year - and most importantly - a safe source of water.

The Pollinator Patch Plant List

Download this wonderful resource compiled by Ali Chappell-Bates with photos and information about which pollinators each plant species supports with food, shelter and nesting resources for bees, butterflies, beetles and other garden wildlife.

 

Thank you to our Partners and Sponsors

The Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge: Blooming Numbers exhibit was made possible thanks to our partnership with Oakington Garden CentreDepartment of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and Darwin Nurseries

We are incredibly grateful for generous support of The Gatsby Charitable Foundation core funding, and sponsorship of our exhibit from Leica Microsystems and Strulch.

 

Partners

 

 

Sponsors