If you look around you now, at scrub and thickets on your perambulations around the city or countryside, wherever you may roam, you will see that this is the time for hazel catkins. They hang from bare branches in the low light, the morning is still so dark, the evening light lasting a little longer each day. For many, hazel flower is something that typifies this early time of year, a welcome messenger of the movement of the seasons. (more…)
It’s been very dark and very wet lately, like, very dark. I’ve just come in from cutting back mistletoe and the rain began falling heavily, completely in line with the yellow weather warning for rain that the Met Office put in place. I thought, dark, wet, and cutting mistletoe, what can be more midwinter than that; there was a robin hopping around nearby as well just to add some festive card chic to the occasion. Throughout human history here in the northern hemisphere, getting to, and past, midwinter has been something to celebrate, and we’ve made it to another one. It won’t be long until the signposts out of winter begin to appear. (more…)
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…)
