March of the Magnolias

Magnolia campbellii subsp.mollicomata ‘Lanarth’.

By Andy Winfield

There’s nothing like watching nature mark off the times of the year, like familiar landmarks of a train journey to a favourite place, we know we’re moving away from winter when we see magnolias flower. The last time they flowered we couldn’t have known the year we had in store until they bloomed again, but here we are a year later and there they are with a comforting familiarity that the seasons bring, but for magnolias, they’ve seen it all before. (more…)

Curator’s live tour 17/6/20

This week we attempted a live tour of the Garden on our Facebook page with Curator Nick Wray. Of course, despite the driest spring and early summer we can remember, the rain fell down and the thunder and lightening raged. The show went on however, and for those who missed it, here it is in all it’s glory; enjoy!

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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 potential of honey: a highly topical application

By Helen Roberts

The one animal that springs to most people’s mind for eating honey is bears. Especially a particularly round individual who gets his hand stuck in the honey pot numerous times. However, many animals around the world, including raccoons, skunks, opossums and honey badgers, feast on honey. They brave the fury of the hive to not only get at the sweet sticky stuff, but for the protein obtained from eating the bees and larvae themselves. We humans are fussier and prefer to stick to just the honey, though some people will eat honey on the comb. (more…)