And we owe it all to leaves.

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By Andy Winfield

A silhouette of acer leaves against a pale sky.

In summer a breeze will work its way through the boughs of a tree and the resulting sound is one of the constants in our lives, a white noise of leaves dancing on their stems. Right now, in autumn the leaves are at our feet, or swirling around corners, collecting at the foot of a tree, or at the base of a wall. Leaves stimulate all of our senses; we calm down merely by touching a leaf due to our innate evolutionary programming, and the sight of them emerging in Spring is enough to quicken our heartbeat. When we give leaves a bit of thought, it’s a wonder every tree and shrub doesn’t have a group of people staring up at them in awe. (more…)

An interview with Mark Bolton: photographer, traveller, cider-lover and allotment dweller

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It was nearly a year ago when I first emailed professional photographer Mark Bolton about an interview. He’s a busy man. However, last week our schedules finally meshed and we got to chat on the phone about his lifelong passion for photography, his love of gardens and his long-time connection with the Botanic Garden. (more…)

An apple a day

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by Helen Roberts

Name three things Somerset is famous for and most people will say cider, Cheddar cheese and the Glastonbury Festival. While I could certainly talk at length about cider and its versatility (particularly having enjoyed a lovely mug of mulled cider recently at bonfire night), it is where cider begins – the humble apple – that is the subject of today’s post. I live near Wells, in the heart of Somerset, and the trees in the apple orchards are positively dripping with fruit at the moment, a welcome sight for orchard growers who had a dismal season in 2012. It was National Apple Day on the 21st of October, and many places around the UK have been hosting events to celebrate England’s national fruit. Humans and the common apple have a long history together in terms of its cultivation and it is a familiar fruit throughout the world. Essentially, the richness of this sweet little fruit lies in its ordinariness. (more…)

Altered carbon: the catastrophe of coal

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By Andy Winfield

Old black and white image of a coal miner in shorts and vest drilling a seam of black coal.
Coal mining in the UK in 1942.

In early November this year, myself and my wife went to the Welsh National Coal Museum also known as the Big Pit. It’s a great visit, looking at the working practices over the years of digging up this material that’s been locked underground since the Carboniferous period. Part of the experience is to go down into the mines, down in the lift, and look at the coal seams. The walls of glittery blackness were shimmering under the light of our head torches. We learned how coal is hard to get to, it requires a lot of ingenuity and effort to get it back to the surface; a surface that it hasn’t seen for many millions of years. Due to its importance in feeding the insatiable monster called progress, coal was a huge industry for many years; an industry we now know with certainty was a driver in changing the planet’s climate. But what is coal, and why is it so bad? (more…)