By Nick Wray

The early spring blossom is in full swing with white, pink and yellow blooms appearing everywhere, so it seems a little subdued to talk about a black flower. Its name also is somewhat sombre. Widow Iris, Iris tuberosa is one of only a few flowers of the 400,000 species of plants on the planet with black flowers. Or at least that’s how they seem to the human eye. In fact, there are no truly black flowers as there are no plant pigments that are black. The black part of the flower, its sepals (known as falls in Iris) are saturated in anthocyanins and the part of the light spectrum reflected back at us gives a black colour (or at least the appearance of one). Secondly, this colour only appears on the sepals, with petals in various shades of green, olive and brown. This combination, like is common name, is powerful and makes for a charming plant, if a little difficult to spot in the garden. But persistent tubers ensure that it appears in winter with linear grass-like foliage that is quadrangular in section (the only Iris to do so), followed in March by the extraordinary flowers. Warmth and shelter are what this curiosity needs, to mimic its Mediterranean home and a summer baking. From France across the countries that make up southern Europe to Turkey, mild winters and warm springs allow this extraordinary iris to establish. The base of a sunny wall or in a sunny grassy bank with spring bulbs, full light and full sun in summer and patience for plants to bulk up and this black sheep of the Iris world will make your garden its new home. (more…)

 

By Andy Winfield

This is an unusual time. We’ve all heard these words a hundred times already; words we say to each other when we don’t know how else to sum it up. Scary, unsettling, disquieting, unique… unusual. Here in the Garden the atmosphere is stoic but worried; its hard to know how to plan or what is around the corner. There are no volunteers in the Garden, any risk is too much so it wasn’t a big decision to ask them all to stay at home. Staff who have symptoms are self-isolating and we’re cancelling events, courses and workshops. (more…)

By Andy Winfield

It’s been a wet winter; it started raining in September and doesn’t seem to have stopped. I’m typing this with the sound of raindrops drumming against the glass of our Propagation House, a familiar tune this year. The ground is saturated, and the trees have lost a few branches here and there from the strong weekend winds that have been the theme of this February. Despite it all, Spring is gamefully peering through the rainy curtains to see if it’s safe to start, and there are a few punctual arrivals that are bringing smiles to our rain soaked faces. (more…)

 

By Andy Winfield

This week we held a workshop for students about how you can get a little more from supermarket food and scraps; this provoked so much interest from staff and volunteers that I decided to write a blog detailing the workshop.

The aim of a shop is to sell things, and preferably to come back and rebuy those things again and again; while we can’t avoid supermarkets to buy our food, we can win a few little victories. For example, take herb pots. Has anyone ever managed to keep a pot of basil for more than two weeks before it dies? I certainly haven’t, and the reason is that they are designed to die on our windowsills. Each stalk in the pot is a separate plant and once these plants begin to get bigger the small pots can’t possibly sustain them, so they starve. Instead, why not divide the pot and then pot up a few individual plants to grow on; this could give you up to a dozen basil plants that will last you ten times longer than two weeks; This goes for most of the herb pots and is also effective by dividing them into smaller clumps. (more…)