Author: andy.winfield

Have we had a good summer?

Posted on by andy.winfield
Weather symbol for rain, sun, cloud, and storms.We keep records of rain here in the Botanic Garden. We have a little rain collection pot with measurements on the side, and record whenever there is any rain, every day. We have accurate records for here of the rainfall from each day of the last twenty years. The total rainfall for the year so far is 329mm, while last year up to this point (September 7th)  692mm of rain had fallen. It’s been so dry, although right now I hear what sounds like all the water in the world angrily hurling itself at Bristol. Who knows what will happen next year; it feels like we’ve reached a stage of hyper unpredictability, the seasons just aren’t being the seasons I remember. Normal is changing. Is normal very wet weather, or very dry weather, or very windy weather? Gone are March winds and April showers, in are named storms and record temperatures.

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Twenty years later.

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By Andy Winfield

A sea of earth with the outline of paths dug out. The Botanic Garden as a work in progress.
The area now called Phylogeny.

This year marks the twentieth year the University of Bristol Botanic Garden has been at The Holmes.  I started working for the Botanic Garden twenty-four years ago when it was on the edge of Leigh Woods; I had no idea I’d be at the Botanic Garden for as long as I have, or that I was signing up to huge moving operation, none of us did. I could spend a long time describing how we moved the Garden from one place to another, the hours and hours of digging, creating, and planting; but in a moment where we can stop and ponder the passage of time, I think the main thing we’re all most proud of is what the Garden has become. (more…)

Green on the inside

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By Andy Winfield

A meadow with yellow, red, and blue flowers.

At the end of May this year, my colleague Nicola Rathbone (aka Froggie) and I together with Maisie Brett, a demonstrator from the School of Biological Sciences who has an expertise in the lives of pollinators, went to visit HMP Eastwood Park. We were to meet someone called Gary Stone who, since 1996, has been running horticultural activities with prisoners. In recent years Gary and his group have developed an interest in attracting pollinators and working with nature rather than against it. The visit was inspiring; what they’ve done there was wonderful, and nature was responding. (more…)

Lichen through the looking glass

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By Andy Winfield

Orange crustose lichen and green foliose lichen on a fallen tree branch
The array of lichen life on a fallen cedar branch.

I’ve recently started noticing lichen. Now I can’t stop noticing it; it’s everywhere, living on, and in multiple surfaces. Walking around Bristol it’s on the harbour walls, the loch gates, on holiday it’s on the rocks of the cliffs and hanging from trees. Lichen covers around 8% of the planet’s surface area, and so could be argued that it’s one of the most successful collaborations in the natural world.  When you do start noticing, you want to keep noticing, and get in closer with a little hand lens, a looking glass. (more…)