Plant blindness

By Andy Winfield

You may or may not of heard of the term ‘plant blindness’; it’s a phrase that we in the Botanic Garden have been hearing much more of in recent years and will continue to throw around in the future. It refers to the slow shutting off of plant knowledge from generation to generation resulting in an inability to acknowledge plants around us. The simple things that were once common knowledge, such as dock leaves used for nettle stings are becoming bred out of a collective instinct and plants are becoming irrelevant and annoying green things to many people.

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The Impossible Garden

Luke Jerram sits casually dressed on an over-sized picnic bench in the Botanic Garden
Luke Jerram on one of his exhibits.

By Andy Winfield

We’ve always felt that art and the Garden work well together. Every Easter we run a sculpture exhibition which brings this home, plants and art are good friends; nature’s sculpture makes the Garden a gallery and placing human art amongst it embellishes both. With this in mind, for some time we’ve wanted to show a permanent summer exhibition but nothing has fit the bill. (more…)

Native American foods

By Claire Cope

Having worked as a trainee at the Botanic Garden for nearly two years I am now coming to the end of my time with the garden. I have learned more than I thought possible to learn in just two years, have gained my RHS qualifications, have had the opportunity to work with an amazing range of plants and have acquired a huge amount of practical horticultural experience. Best of all, I have had the opportunity to work alongside some very wonderful people who have shared their knowledge and passion with me and have made me feel very welcomed into this beautiful community. (more…)

The Garden blog

By Andy Winfield
Here at the Botanic Garden we’ve decided to take a slight change of direction on the blog; while there will still be science based items, there will be much more about the day to day running of the Garden and various experiences of the small team who work here. There may be items from volunteers or staff and the subject matter will be diverse, you will be surprised at the areas of life plants take us. (more…)