The Garden Blog

Green on the inside

Posted on by andy.winfield

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

Posted on by andy.winfield

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…)

Remembering to look

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

Purple crocus flowering through grass and covered in raindrops.
Crocus tommasinianus.

The other day, I was walking through the Garden as a very heavy shower of rain had just finished. The landscape around me seemed to be looking up disgruntled, rainwater dripping down waterproofs, running down the path, off branches and twigs. Then the sun came out. The dark clouds carrying the rain were moving away behind me and the low January sun shone in my face. I stopped; between me and the sun were three low trees, and as the sun’s light travelled through them to me, the recent water glowed. It looked like the tree was made of water, so recently had the shower passed; I’d never really seen anything like it, and it reminded me to keep looking, even in darkest January, keep looking, otherwise we don’t see. This is the same with January and early February flower, they’re there, but we have to look. (more…)

Light in the darks days of winter

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

A Robin sitting on a branch and looking back.

So, December has arrived, the two darkest months of the year are upon us; it’s normal for this time of year to get us down. On midwinter’s day there is just 7 hours and 49 minutes of daylight, almost exactly half the amount of light on midsummers day.  In the Garden and green spaces, it may seem that everything is in stasis, just sitting and waiting for four months until light levels are productive enough for leaves, but there is a lot going on in the ground and within those bare branches. (more…)