Plant blindness

Posted on by andy.winfield

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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At your convenience.

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

The Garden is changing year on year, saplings are becoming trees and borders now fill out showing maturity. One of the changes is visitor numbers to the Garden which have risen steadily, and as a result our facilities were becoming inadequate, such as the loos.

What is a forward thinking 21st Century Botanic Garden to do when the they need new toilets? We were in no doubt that we had to think of an alternative that is safe and sustainable.

Toilets are all about waste, drinking water is used to flush them and research suggests that the average person uses 45 litres of water each day just from flushing a toilet; if we could find a way of restricting this we could save thousands of litres in the Garden. (more…)

The Impossible Garden

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

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

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…)

Going to Extremes

Posted on by andy.winfield

By Andy Winfield

Pink and yellow flowers and greenery in a valley between cliffs
The Fynbos of South Africa

For Bristol, this is extreme weather; usually we hardly go a week without rain, it’s been over a month. The plants in the Garden are taking it all in different ways; the aromatic Mediterranean plants look at home and are producing wonderful fragrant oils whose scents drift up as you brush past them.  Tree ferns on the other hand need their trunks watered daily to stop them from drying out; native to wet forests they have adapted roots on their trunks to soak up all the rain. (more…)