As long as there have been gardens there have been birds in gardens; as gardeners we’re continuing the long relationship that will ever end. There may be some ups and downs, pigeons pecking seedlings or fruit bushes stripped; but on the whole gardeners and garden birds have a bond that goes deep. Here’s how I see some of the birds that visit the Botanic Garden. (more…)
I may be biased, but plants are amazing! They tell us all we need to know, they feed us and can make us feel better in the mind and body, they can clothe us, make us warm and cool us down; they were here a long time before us and they’ll no doubt be here a long time after us. Plants are everywhere with thousands of stories to tell, the planet’s true survivors adapting to everything thrown at them; we could live to be three hundred years old and still discover new and bewildering ways that plants have found to exist. They are the dominant life form on earth making up 83% of all biomass; without them we are nothing, they literally give us the air that we breathe. (more…)
May is monstrous, in a good way. An unstoppable surge of green enveloping everything, gunnera leaves fighting their way from the earth like zombies and the croziers of tree ferns unwinding like the kraken from sea water. This beast like energy is on our side, scaring away spring and winter back to the past where it now belongs, the power of nature is never felt more intensely. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “there is potent blood in modest May”. (more…)
The Garden is open again and we’re all looking forward to seeing visitors back, and they’ll be back in time to catch the optimism of spring throughout the displays. Tulips in the Mediterranean, magnolias in the family beds and ruffled new leaves clambering out of buds and stretching into action. They’ll also see carpets of flowers that we didn’t plant, they were here before the Botanic Garden and maybe before whatever was before the Botanic Garden; they’re Anemone nemerosa otherwise known as wood anemones. (more…)
