Vanda hybrid by Juliet Day
Friends’ News Orchid Festival 2015: The Pollinators are coming... Enjoy the Glasshouse Range transformed from Saturday 7 February – Sunday 22 March 2015 and discover unique plant + pollinator relationships. Orchids are considered amongst the most exotic and alluring of flowers, but their scent and beauty have not evolved to ensure the plants end up as impulse purchases in the supermarket trolley! Petal shape, nectar reward, triggers, traps, scent and glowing colours are just a few of the tricks that orchids employ to attract a vast array of animal pollinators. This cast includes iridescent
bees, wasps, moths with super-long tongues, flies and jewel-coloured hummingbirds, all of which will be paying the Garden’s Orchid Festival a visit – in giant, cut-out form! Orchids are found the world over, their diversity the result of co-evolved relationships between plant and pollinator. For example, in South America, huge, shiny male euglossine bees harvest scents from rainforest orchids, store them in large armoured pouches on their hind legs, and then release them to attract female bees. In collecting the scents, the bees dislodge special pollen packets which are then carried to the next orchid, effecting pollination.
Famously, Charles Darwin predicted the existence of a moth some 50 years before it was actually discovered. Having examined Angraecum sesquipedale, a Madagascan orchid with a nectar spur of nearly 50cm in length, he deduced its pollinator must be a flying insect, probably a moth, with a correspondingly long proboscis. Alex Summers, Glasshouse Supervisor, and his team have devised a magnificent display of popular orchid species and hybrids including suspended globes of Oncidium and pedestals of slipper orchids, Paphiopedilum, floating over open water. Throughout the tropical rainforest displays the focus will be on wild orchid species. These will be grouped to show particular adaptations ranging from incredibly long nectar spurs to the stink of rotting flesh, and there’ll be some new and fun ways to engage with the ingenious biology of orchids – for example families can come and play pollinator bingo when the Glasshouse Range stays open late for Twilight on the half-term Wednesday, 18 February (plus who knows what might be revealed under ultraviolet…).
Juliet Day, Development Officer
Make the most of your lunch hour! Drop in for 1pm on any Thursday during the Orchid Festival and join a free, 30 minute guided tour of the Orchid Festival displays and stories. Meet in the Continents Apart house of the Glasshouse Range, no need to book. For full details of accompanying Orchid Festival events, please visit the Garden’s website at www.botanic.cam.ac.uk
Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
Welcome
Alan Langley: long service recognised The Long Service Award for horticulturalists was instituted in 1958 by the Royal Horticultural Society, to be awarded to any man or woman who has completed forty years of continuous practical horticultural employment.
The task of formulating a strategy for our collection, and of implementing that strategy, will fall to our new Curator, who takes up post in May 2015. I look forward to introducing you to Dr Sam Brockington at a number of events this year. Sam is an enthusiast for the Caryophyllales – the order of flowering plants that contains exotics like cacti, stone plants and bougainvillea, as well as the humble beetroot. His research explores how the evolution of the genetic toolkit of these plants underpins the wide range of novel traits they display. I hope that many of you were able to join us for a very successful Apple Day. We were pleased to welcome 3,600 visitors, and everyone seemed to have a thoroughly enjoyable day. A particular highlight for me was being allowed to drive a tractor-load of apples back to the barn at the end of the day! To continue to provide horticultural interest and the opportunity to explore new ideas during the shoulder seasons at the Garden, we are again developing an enhanced orchid display, to open in the Glasshouse Range in February. And, of course, our collections of winter-flowering, often highly-scented shrubs, early catkinbearing trees and the Winter Garden itself will be an uplifting sight over the next few months. Please do pop in and take a look. I wish you a very happy 2015. Professor Beverley Glover, Director
Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
Alan Langley, Assistant Supervisor in the Glasshouse Section, was nominated for this award by Sally Petitt, Head of Horticulture, in recognition of his 43 years of unbroken service at the Botanic Garden. The inscribed medal was presented to Alan at the Botanic Garden Christmas tea party by Director, Professor Beverley Glover. Beverley acknowledged Alan’s unstinting enthusiasm and dedication to the Garden, and particularly his support of Trainee Horticultural Technicians, garden events such as Apple Day, and social activities.
Colleagues were thrilled and delighted to share this occasion with Alan, and all took great pride in recognising Alan’s achievement, though were surprised for once to see him lost for words. Reflecting on his momentary speechlessness, Alan commented later: “When I first started here in 1971, my supervisor, Jack Simons, said that if I worked as much as I talked, we’d get the job done in half the time!”
At the party, Alan was pressed to relive the day he thought his time at the Garden had come to an end. Many years ago, as a non-driver, Alan was offered a test drive of a Land Rover
With no plans to retire, Alan now has his sights set on the Bar to the Long Service medal that can be awarded for fifty, or perhaps even sixty years’ service! Keith Heppel/Cambridge Newspapers
November 2014 has proved to be one of the warmest on record, and as I write in the week before Christmas, December has only really just begun to feel chilly. We have had very few frosts, and the leaves stayed on the trees longer than usual as a result. When the first frosts did catch them last week it was wonderful to watch how the leaves all fell together – although the horticulture team responsible for leaf collecting were less impressed! When we are planning our plantings for the future, the relatively warm, dry Cambridge climate is something we always have to take into account. But with added uncertainties about future climate behaviour, building in an element of future-proofing to our collection by selecting robust trees suitable for a variety of temperature regimes is becoming particularly important.
which was being renovated by a colleague. He willingly accepted, but his adventure came to an abrupt end when he steered through a hedge at Cory Lodge, narrowly missing a parked car. Shame-faced he made his way to the then Superintendent, Peter Orriss, and offered his apologies and immediate resignation. He was greatly relieved when PO, as he was known, simply replied: ‘There’s no need for that. Just get yourself a spade, clear the mess and replant the hedge.’
Alan was surprised with his Long Service Award at the Botanic Garden Christmas Tea
Twilight Adventures: The Deep Dark Pollinator Hunt Wrap up warm, grab a torch and get ready for adventure! It’s time to make the most of those long winter nights as museums and collections in Cambridge open their doors for after-dark fun. With thirteen venues across the city offering an exciting range of drop-in and bookable events throughout the evening, there will be loads for families to see and explore. The evening is all about fun and discovery; while some museums will be under shadow of darkness, others will be full of colour, light and amazing artefacts waiting to be found. Here at the Garden you can explore the Orchid Festival after dark and play pollinator bingo amongst the foliage of the beautifully-lit Glasshouse Range. Twilight at the Museums is on Wednesday 18th February, from 4.30 pm to 8.30pm. Full details at www.cam.ac.uk/museums-and-collections/events/twilight-at-the-museums
From the new Curator, Sam Brockington I am delighted to be appointed the new Curator of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. It is an exciting time to be a plant biologist in Cambridge, with a thriving Department of Plant Science, the Sainsbury Laboratory and University Herbarium on our doorstep, and the blossoming Botanic Garden with its skilled staff and dedicated volunteers. And I cannot think of a better environment in which to develop teaching and research programmes. While an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh, I attended an influential course in Tropical Botany at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens and the Kampong Tropical Garden in Miami. I do not know if it was the lure of a rich and exotic flora, the memory of a laboratory overlooking the azure waters of the Florida Keys or the abundance of excellent
Cuban coffee, but shortly afterwards I moved to Florida to do a PhD at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Here I was involved in a number of international efforts to resolve systematic relationships across the flowering plant tree of life. In particular, my PhD focused on floral evolution in the South African living stone family, Aizoaceae, which belong to the flowering plant order Caryophyllales. Generally, I find the Caryophyllales to be a rich source of research questions, as they are an exceptionally diverse group of plants that exhibit numerous fascinating adaptations including succulence, carnivory, and unusual pigmentation. On returning to the UK in 2009 I worked under Professor Beverley Glover as a Marie Curie Research Fellow during which time we collaborated on a wide variety of projects including the evolution and development of petals, the origin and evolution of auxin transport in land plants, and the systematics and ecology of the South African beetle-spot daisy, Gorteria diffusa.
Since establishing my own research group in the Department of Plant Sciences in 2014, I have been focusing on two research topics. The first, funded by the National Environmental Research Council, tackles the evolution of the cuticle, a thin waxy layer that covers the epidermal surface of all land plants, and an essential innovation that allowed the green algae to colonise the land as land plants. The second is a genome sequencing initiative funded by the National Science Foundation. Here, together with collaborators in the USA, I will try to understand the relationship between genomic diversity and the evolution of extreme adaptation in Caryophyllales. I take up the Curator position officially in May, and am very much looking forward to getting to know the staff, volunteers and Friends of Cambridge University Botanic Garden as we work out the future direction for the living plant collections and associated research and teaching initiatives.
Sally Hughes: weather woman We have been recording weather data at the Botanic Garden since 1904 and supply daily figures to the Meteorological Office at Bracknell. I took on the role of Met Office weather recorder in September 2013, having been at the Botanic Garden for two and a half years. As a gardener, the weather impacts all you do, how you work, where you work, planning, planting, what you’re wearing, how happy you are, how much hot chocolate you consume at lunch time…. So when the opportunity came up for me to take over the weather observation recording I jumped at the opportunity. I had always held an interest in the weather, but was a novice in comparison to my
predecessor, John Kapor, whose love of the weather is legendary among Garden staff. So when I started I made sure to improve my basic skills with a more in-depth understanding of how our weather works by reading, observation and application. I have learnt a lot in my year or so about how weather phenomena in this country are interconnected with jet streams, hurricanes, changing sea temperatures and climates across the rest of the world. This understanding of why the weather does what it does has become a personal interest as well as professional one, and I might add that it has improved my small talk dramatically! Next time you come to the Garden, observe what the weather is doing. Think how the year’s storms and droughts have affected the plants – and the gardeners – within. You might discover a windswept tree or a flooded path, or even a beautiful sunny spot to sit and soak up the winter sunshine.
Sally records daily rainfall as well as maximum and minimum temperatures on her weatherboard in the Research Plots and publishes monthly weather summaries on the Climate & Soils page of the ‘The Garden’ section on the website at www.botanic.cam.ac.uk For 2014, she notes that the year was wetter than average with 617.7mm of measurable rain. Our notable wet months were January, February, August and November. We had a very dry spring through March and April as well as a dry September. In March there was a sustained dry period where no rain fell for two full weeks and September was dry for 11 solid days. The heaviest rainfall day was recorded as 8 August when a thunderstorm brought 33.7mm of rain.
Good news for the Garden Room We are delighted to report that planning permission has been granted by the Cambridge City Council for the new purpose-built classroom, to be known as the Geoffrey and Eileen Adams Garden Room. The good news came through just before Christmas! This new facility, supported by Chris and Sarah Adams in honour of his parents, will transform our capacity for introducing schoolchildren to the natural world. We have already begun the site preparation, and construction will start in the next few weeks. We are hopeful of a May opening, so watch this space….
Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
Spotlight on research Ever since its foundation, the Cambridge University Botanic Garden has been a focus and stimulus for science in the University and beyond. We are delighted to acknowledge the transformative effect that a recent legacy of £225,000 from life-long friend of the Garden, Monica Beck, will have on the Garden’s ability to safeguard and extend plant systematic research today. Mrs Beck’s legacy has founded a Research Fund, which will support promising young scientists in their ambition to use the Garden’s living collection to enhance our understanding of the fundamental biology of the plant kingdom. In readiness, we are looking at ways to facilitate research. One barrier to collaboration is the difficulty and expense of finding short-term accommodation for visiting scientists. The University is helping us overcome this by refurbishing the Superintendent’s House, to provide five bedsits to facilitate short-term sabbatical visits from plant scientists and horticulturalists using the Garden and its collections in their
work, and to enable the Garden staff to involve a wider range of collaborators and institutions in their own research. We are also developing existing partnerships. For the last 18 months we have hosted an algae growth facility in our behind-the-scenes glasshouses. A partnership, funded by the European EnAlgae initiative and delivered with InCrops, is using the facility to research the biomass potential of different algae. We are now supporting the team in developing a research glasshouse devoted to algae which could be integrated into the Garden’s publicly-accessible research plots, allowing visitors to access and learn about cutting-edge plant science with potentially far-reaching applications. We also welcome this year the P2P solar hub, an experimental prototype building that harnesses solar and plant power.
We continue in our mission to share science through our collections, events and communications. We are shortly to appoint a one-year Interpretation Associate, funded through the University’s HEIF5 initiative, whose brief will be to develop and deliver two new displays focusing on contemporary plant science research areas. We have also revised and expanded our research pages on the Garden’s website to make them more visible and encourage new collaborations. You will find just a few of these initiatives summarised on these centre pages, but to find out more about plant science at the Garden, make sure you have Festival of Plants in the diary: our day dedicated to bringing plants into focus runs on Saturday 16 May 2015, 10am-5pm, and is generously supported by the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University and CambPlants. Juliet Day, Development Officer
Web research Studies on plants cover a wide spectrum of activities – biophysics, computational biology, developmental biology, ecology, genetics, molecular biology and physiology – while the animal life of the Garden can be readily studied in this protected and diverse environment. We have just reorganised and expanded the research section of the Garden’s website: these selected synopses below reflect the diversity of research making use of the Garden and the horticultural skills of its staff: Mycorrhizal associations: Dr Sebastian Schornack (Sainsbury Laboratory) studies the interactions between plants and microbial organisms. These can either be detrimental such as the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of the Irish Potato Famine, or beneficial such as the symbiotic interactions with mycorrhizal fungi that occur in most plant species.
Food plants in the Upper Palaeolithic: Dr Alex Pryor (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology) works on the role of plant foods during the last ice age, specifically plant underground storage organs (USOs) and the carbohydrates they Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
provide. This research has included building a reference USO collection at the Garden, burning them, and photographing the charcoal residue so as to examine the surviving cellular structure, particularly the vascular tissues and druse crystals. Plant physiological ecology: Professor Howard Griffiths (Department of Plant Sciences) studies succulent plants and Crassulacean Acid Metabolism. He models the compromise between water use and carbon gain to interpret evolutionary origins and biomass production potential, using Agave, Kalanchoe and Mesembryanthemum plants at the Botanic Garden.
Bamboo for sustainable building: Dr Maximillian Bock (Department of Architecture) is investigating bamboo as a viable alternative to current building materials to help meet CO2 emission targets in order to lead architects and engineers to a greener and more sustainable future. Dr Bock is working with the Garden’s Experimental section to investigate how best to cultivate fast-growing exotic bamboo species in the European climate. Evolution and Development: Garden Director, Professor Beverley Glover, is particularly interested in petal characters such as colour, texture and insect-mimicking spots, as well as in structural features such as nectar spurs and anther cones. Her research group has a major focus on understanding the role of petal microscale and nanoscale structures to produce different optical effects, including floral iridescence. For more profiles, visit the research pages at www.botanic.cam.ac.uk
Peter Carey
Rescue mission Staff at the Botanic Garden are using their scientific research and horticultural expertise to help save a critically endangered plant. Potentilla porphyrantha, believed to have a very narrowly restricted population globally, is found growing in Amulsar, in Armenia’s mountainous southern region. The plant, which sports pink flowers and grows in rocky crevices at 3300 meters above sea level on rocky slopes, is nearly extinct in the wild, being described as critically endangered. It is estimated that the habitat of 21% of the plants will be destroyed by a mining project proposed by Lydian International, an emerging gold mining developer in the region.
partnership between plant scientists in Armenia and at Cambridge, brokered by Cambridge Enterprise, which will see populations of the plant relocated to the Yerevan Botanic Garden and a new garden in the mountain city of Jermuk. The Yerevan Botanic Garden has for years suffered from neglect following the collapse of the Soviet Union; the tree collection was destroyed, for example, during the 1988 energy crisis when trees were felled for household heating. As part of the rescue mission, the Garden’s Head of Horticulture, Sally Petitt, will go to Armenia to design new facilities for the Yerevan Botanic Garden, which will see the greenhouses and rock garden restored in readiness for the plant relocation.
Lydian follows a ‘no net loss’ biodiversity policy, so to that end Lydian is funding a
Professor Glover, Director of the Botanic Garden, and Dr Peter Carey, an affiliated
Potentilla porphyrantha lecturer in Plant Sciences at the University, will also be training an Armenian graduate in techniques to research and map the genetic relationships of the wild populations of Potentilla porphyrantha and its nearest relatives. This will inform how the Armenian cinquefoil can be successfully introduced to botanic garden cultivation or to other natural habitats, so that it can be safeguarded during the life of the mine.
P2P: from plant to power The increasing demand for energy is driving research into new ways to generate power. We have been working with the P2P (Plant to Power) partnership, a team of scientists at the University of Cambridge working together with green technology companies, to bring their prototype solar hub to the Garden as a working, experimental model that encourages visitors to explore what part of the solution for a sustainable future could look like. The P2P solar hub is situated close to the Station Road gate and should be open to visitors by the spring.
The P2P solar hub integrates solar panels with specialist living, green wall systems planted up with ferns, ivies, heuchera, geraniums and grasses. In combination, P2P will be harnessing both solar energy from the sun and electrical current derived from green wall plant root interactions with the soil, a new concept technology called ‘plant bio electrochemical system’ (plant-BES). The green walls also provide insulation and interesting possibilities for supporting biodiversity within urban settings.
The P2P solar hub will be here at the Garden for a year while the team behind the project monitor the amount of energy produced. The long-term aim of the P2P solar hub research is to develop a range of self-powered sustainable buildings for diverse use all over the world from bus stops to refugee shelters.
Walk and Talk Science You can walk and talk science and research at the Garden this spring for this year’s University Science Festival. Christine Bartram from the University Herbarium will look at Women in Botany through the prism of the Herbarium’s historic specimens, contemporary letters and rare books from the Cory Library. Gwenda Kydd will lead guided walks of the Garden’s tree collection discussing the chemical compounds extracted from them for use as drugs, poisons, and dyes and you can discover the science behind the P2P solar hub in the company of Paolo Bombelli, lead scientist on the project. We are also excited to be launching Science on Sunday during Science Festival, a series of bite-sized informal plant science talks that take place every third Sunday of the month beginning with A trick of the light? How petal surfaces attract pollinators from Garden Director, Professor Beverley Glover. 22 March A trick of the light? How petal surfaces attract pollinators Professor Beverley Glover, Director of the CUBG and Head of Group, Plant Evolution and Development Research, Department of Plant Sciences 26 April The shapes that feed us: a molecular/aesthetic journey into grass leaf shape Dr Devin O’Connor, the Leyser Group, Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University
24 May Nature’s geometry: the fascinating world of plant patterns 28 June A birds-eye view of the natural world: monitoring forests from aircraft 26 July Blooming algae – a nuisance, or something useful? 23 August Extreme green: plant adaptations to the world’s harshest environments
Science on Sunday talks last 30 minutes and are free (normal Garden admission applies); there is no need to book, just drop-in to the Classroom at 11am (session repeated at 2pm) on the third Sunday of the month. Suitable for 12+. For more details on the Science Festival programme visit: www.sciencefestival.cam.ac.uk
Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
Juliet Day
Juliet Day
Horticulture Dogwoods On mention of dogwoods, particularly at this time of year, thoughts immediately turn to those species and hybrids whose vibrant, naked stems brighten even the gloomiest of winter days. In our own Winter Garden the likes of Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, C. stolonifera ‘Flaviramea’ and C. sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ are planted en masse for impact, creating an ember-like blaze when the low winter sun strikes the stems. It is the new growth which bears the most intense colouring, and plants are coppiced each spring to encourage the growth of the young stems and maximise the effect. With these winter stars taking the limelight, it is easy to overlook the remainder of the genus.
Cornus are widespread in their distribution, occurring throughout the temperate northern hemisphere, with a few rarities growing in South America and Africa. Here in the Garden, we grow two species in particular for their winter merit. The Cornelian cherry, Cornus mas, is a large spreading shrub of European origin that can reach five metres. It is grown primarily for its flowers, which are borne in February – March on the leafless stems of the previous year’s woody growth. The tiny individual yellow flowers amass to produce umbels approximately two centimetres across,
Cornus ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’
Cornus mas
and in the winter landscape the whole creates a warming lemony haze. While pleasing for those of us braving the winter weather, Cornelian cherries are also a valuable food source for early-foraging bees. Brilliant glossy red, oblong fruits follow flowering; with an acidic flavour, they are used to make syrups and preserves, and to flavour vodka.
and girth in the United Kingdom and Ireland. While not as brash as its highly coloured counterparts in the Winter Garden, it can perhaps be considered the quiet, classy relation.
Also worthy of mention is the little known C. wilsoniana, introduced to cultivation by Ernest Wilson in 1907 from a collection in Hupeh, China. The small white flowers are carried in corymbs in June, followed by black fruits. But it is during the winter months that this species has particular appeal. It takes the form of a tree, which serves to amplify the impact of its flaking, mottled bark, which has earned it the common name of ‘ghost dogwood’. Our 25 year-old specimen in the Gilbert Carter Memorial Area is listed on the Tree Register as being the largest specimen for both height
If you are delighting in the exuberance of the Winter Garden, its plantings, and particularly its dogwoods, might I suggest you take in a detour through the Gilbert Carter Memorial Area to savour both the Cornus mas and C. wilsoniana. And of course, keep your eyes open late in the year for spring- and summerflowering species, such as C. ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’ and C. capitata, which you’ll find in the Gilbert Carter Memorial Area and in the Woodland Garden. As the four enlarged white or pale green bracts reflex to expose and advertise the central, rather insignificant flower, they look spectacular.
Sally Petitt, Head of Horticulture
Juliet Day
Clippings & Cuttings
I In early December, we gave the go-ahead for the removal of the impressive tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima. The 2013 tree survey had indicated significant decay, which was confirmed when the trunk was revealed to be hollowed out. There was approximately 25% decay throughout the tree’s base, and rot down in to the roots, up the trunk and through the branches. We have retained a section of the trunk to make into a seat somewhere in the vicinity.
emerged on 19 December, but sadly in such a precarious position we were unable to get a decent photo!
Pete Atkinson
Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
I Work is underway to extend the Mediterranean Beds. A new path will lead from the Lynch Walk/Henslow Walk junction diverging near the Yoshino cherry to give onto the Main Lawn. The existing beds will then be widened to meet the new path and new rock work introduced. We will be planting up with tender lavenders this year while we grow stock from wild-collected seed shared by Montpellier Botanic Garden, which will be introduced next winter and spring.
I The Demonstration & Display team are re-working the planting area under the Caucasian wingnut close to Brookside Gate now that tree work is complete. It is a challenging transition area leading from the more precise plantings at Brookside Gate around to the informality of the long grass areas on the West Walk. A tapestry of ornamental, shade loving woodland plants will feature ferns and grasses, spring-flowering Primula japonica and Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’and lots of hellebores and snowdrops. Juliet Day
I We were delighted in late winter with our first flowering of Dahlia imperialis in the west courtyard of the Glasshouse Range. The plant had been scorched by frost earlier in December, but nevertheless one flower
I Trees & Shrubs have been busy in the Rose Garden. Over the years, the thick mulches applied to conserve water have raised the soil level making it, ironically, harder for the roses to seek out moisture deep in the soil. The team have therefore been levelling the beds, constructing new supports and will be re-planting over the coming months, selecting some new varieties for improved disease resistance while maintaining Graham Stuart Thomas’s concept and layout.
Howard Rice
Education What’s On this year?
No need to book, just drop-in anytime between 11am – 3pm on the first Saturday of every month for plant-inspired fun. £3 per child, plus normal Garden admission for accompanying adults.
Sixty ways to learn something new about plants in 2015
And you can’t fail to be inspired by the exciting range of botanical art, photography and creative workshops on offer this year.
Upcycled Garden Saturday 7 March 2015 Are you planning some gardening projects? We’ll be re-using all kinds of items and turning them into funky plant labels, soil scoopers and bird scarers. We’ll also be having a seed share where you can bring along seeds you don’t want and swap them for some you do.
The Garden’s range of courses includes many creative workshops that are inspired by the plant collections There are printing courses including linocut and solarplate printing and a one day introduction to Nature Printing with Pia Ostlund from the Chelsea Physic Garden, which will include viewing nature prints in books from the Cory Library. We also have garden writing workshops led by author and garden journalist Jackie Bennett , which would be perfect to combine with one of our plant photography courses. You’ll find a guide to the 2015 What’s On programme enclosed with this newsletter and for more details and online booking visit: www.botanic.cam.ac.uk
Felicity Plent, Head of Education
Giants of the Garden taking part in the trail are challenged to look carefully for specific fallen items to make a magic wand. The trail also includes information about the trees like how the strangler fig squeezes other trees to death and the story of the grafted beech.
Ever felt like you were being watched when visiting the Garden? Well six of our favourite trees have indeed been given a huge pair of eyes for our new Giants of the Garden family trail! The trees now looking out for us are a golden willow, a giant redwood, a hop hornbeam, a eucalyptus, a strangler fig and the grafted weeping beech. At each tree, young visitors
The Family Tree Saturday 7 February 2015 Everyone knows sticks are great – you can make them into swords and even magic wands. At this workshop we’ll be using sticks to make magical portraits of your family.
Our Visitor Services team has spotted some quite fantastic wands leaving the Garden and one lady commented to them that she is now doing the trail regularly with her grandchildren who insist on making a different magic wand each time they visit. Giants of the Garden runs until spring 2015 – please pick up a self-guided trail map at the ticket offices.
Sally Lee, Education Officer
Moths v Butterflies Saturday 4 April 2015 Who has the fuzziest body? Who has the knobbliest antennae? Who likes which plants? Discover the differences between moths and butterflies and craft your own moth or butterfly craft to take home with you. Wild Weaving Saturday 2 May 2015 Come along to our wild weaving day to discover the different textures and colours that can be found in the Botanic Garden. Weave your own natural artwork using collected materials.
For the half-term and Easter hols….. Twilight at the Museums (& Botanic Garden!) Wednesday 18 February 2015, 4.30 – 8.30pm The Glasshouse Range stays open late until 8.30pm for Twilight at the Museums, a unique opportunity for families to explore the Orchid Festival by torchlight and play pollinator bingo! The Glasshouse Range only is open after hours, and admission is free after 4.30pm. The Lindt Gold Bunny Hunt Saturday 28 March - Sunday 12 April 2015 Hop around the Garden with the family this Easter, answering clues along the way and be rewarded with a delicious Easter chocolate treat. Find the Magic. Find the Lindt Gold Bunny.
Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
Ed Lloyd Jenkins
Our popular Learn to Garden weekend is back for a third year – this gardening kick-start weekend is suitable for absolute beginners and would work well combined with one of the garden design sessions led by Dawn Isaac, perhaps Designing City Gardens or Designing Family Gardens. As a perfect follow up to these introductory sessions why not try one of our courses on propagation, growing vegetables, coping with garden pests or choosing plants for your garden. Or if you’d rather marvel at the gardens of the past our garden history talks series this year will explore 18th century landscape designers: Sir John Vanburgh, William Kent, Humphry Repton and Capability Brown (ahead of the celebrations in 2016 marking 300 years since the birth of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown).
Join the Botanic Garden experts for a morning course on Plant Propagation on Saturday 21 March Howard Rice
The Garden’s adult learning programme is fit to burst this year with 60 courses and workshops running during 2015. New to the programme are a series of short plant science courses including a one day Introduction to plant genetics, and half day sessions on The Biology of Flowers and Chemicals in Plants. If you are looking to develop your plant identification skills or understand more about wild plants there is a four part series looking at a range of habitats – woodland, mountains, meadows and wetlands – and identification sessions on grasses, field crops and the rose family, all in addition to our flagship Flowering Plant Families five-day course.
First Saturday Family Fun
Friends’ Events
Dear Friend We hope you enjoyed a delightful Christmas and New Year. On 1 January 2015 both the Garden admission charge and Friends membership subscription were increased for the first time since 2012. A single membership is now £35 and joint membership, for two people at the same address, is £60. The charge for replacing lost membership cards remains at £10 per card. In December, Friends supported the work of the University Herbarium through two guided tours led by Christine Bartram. The tours were so oversubscribed that Christine has offered two more tours for Friends in March 2015. A booking form for these, together with two early summer outings to Savill Gardens & Valley Gardens and Ightham Mote & Sissinghurst Castle are enclosed. We anticipate that all these events may be oversubscribed so a ballot will be held for each. The Friends’ residential trip to Scotland in June 2015 in conjunction with Brightwater
Holidays is fully booked. Thank you to volunteer Margaret Goddin for organising. The Volunteer Committee, responsible for arranging Friends activities continues to meet regularly and our thanks go to Gail Jenner, Pam Newman, Richard Price and Elizabeth Rushden for their work on your behalf. This is my last Friends’ News after nearly five years as Outreach Administrator. From late spring I will provide full-time support to my colleagues in the Education Department and a new Friends’ Administrator will have been appointed, who will no doubt be introduced to you in the May issue! With best wishes to all our Friends and thank you for your support.
Emma Daintrey Outreach Administrator 01223 336271 friends@botanic.cam.ac.uk
Discovering treasures in the Cory Library It’s just over a year since I started work as Library Manager at the Botanic Garden’s Cory Library; and what an enjoyable year it has been! Although relatively small in Cambridge terms, the library, named after Garden benefactor Reginald Cory, is an Aladdin’s cave of fascinating and rare volumes. As well as modern books on gardening and horticulture, used by Garden staff, there are over a thousand books printed before 1900, and sets of some of the earliest gardening and botanical periodicals. These older items are a fascinating and rich resource for anybody interested in the history of botany, horticulture, and gardening, and I’ve been enjoying exploring them as I create detailed records for them on the University’s library catalogue. It’s important to remember that these books are not just interesting for their printed contents. We need to think of them in the same way we would think about an artefact on display in a museum – as objects, each with a unique history. Each book has been made, owned and used, and we can learn about the lives of those involved from the evidence they left behind. There are many clues to look for: what’s the binding made of and how is it decorated? Is it personalised in any way, perhaps with a coat of arms or initials? Are there other marks of ownership – a bookplate, handwritten notes, autographs, or even doodles? Paying attention to these features can help us learn more about the Friends’ News – Issue 97 – January 2015
people who interacted with the books and the world in which they lived. I’ve had some wonderful surprises so far, my favourite being a self-portrait dated 1682 (pictured above), drawn on the front endpaper of a volume published in 1676; and, of course, it’s exciting coming across connections to the Garden’s history, such as the bookplate of J.S. Henslow, who was responsible for the 1846 relocation of the Garden to its present site. It’s with a thrill of anticipation that I take the next book from the shelf; each one has a story to tell and I never know what I’ll discover next! To learn more about the Cory Library visit our pages on the Garden’s website, and follow us on Twitter (@corylibrary). If you’ve got any queries please drop me an email to library@botanic.cam.ac.uk or call 01223 336270.
Jenny Sargent, Cory Library Manager
A booking form with full descriptions, details, times and prices is enclosed. All places will be allocated by ballot. To register for the ballot please complete and return the enclosed booking form by the given closing date. Please take care to note the cancellation and refund policy outlined on the booking form. University Herbarium Tours Thursday 12 March at 11 am or Thursday 19 March at 6.30pm Discover the treasures of the Herbarium including the seed packet sent back by William Lobb from which our now enormous giant redwood was grown and witness the beginnings of the understanding of species variation in the herbarium sheets of Henslow and Darwin. For Friends only, maximum 15 people per tour. Proceeds will help to support of the work of the Herbarium. Day Outing to Savill Garden & Valley Gardens Wednesday 6 May 2015 The Savill Garden offers 35 acres of interconnecting gardens and exotic woodland and we are visiting at the right time for its world-renowned rhododendron, azalea and spring woodland displays. The Valley Gardens are 250 acres of flowering forest, mixing grassy meadows and exotic shrubs that have been liberally and continuously planted since the 18th century. Both are part of the Royal Landscape. Day outing to Ightham Mote & Sissinghurst Castle Wednesday 17 June 2015 There’s something very romantic about approaching a manor house via a bridge across a moat! Ightham Mote house dates back to the 1320s and its beautiful, serene quality is enhanced still further by the stunning use of water. Sissinghurst was made famous by the Bloomsbury duo of Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson. Harold designed the architectural framework to provide the perfect backdrop for Vita’s billowing, informal planting schemes.
A new engraved plaque acknowledging the commitment and skills of staff past and present was installed on the millstone by the path to the Garden Café late last year.