Kew's Herbarium

Today, we had a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes at Kew Gardens to see their Herbarium ("London Fire Brigade's biggest fire hazard in the Greater London area").


Having been up to the reading room in the new wing, and marvelled at how it appeared Benedict Cumberbatch had been manufactured purely with a view to playing Joseph Hooker, we headed to the older wings.


Each of those cupboards is stacked up with papers and specimens:


The specimens are arranged in shelves:


And the curators are going to be moving many of the specimens before cleaning the old wing and replacing their material in APG III order.

We were specifically told not to touch anything, but Hubster and I are dying to know what this is all about:


Any ideas?

Roll On Spring

Like Victoria, I've been absolutely enthralled by Carol Klein's "Life in a Cottage Garden" for the past three weeks. I think she's superb, and her enthusiasm is definitely contagious.

The day after her first episode, "Winter", I ran out into the garden to do winter chores, sweeping out the dead leaves from between pots, cleaning the fountain and the ponds, rearranging pots and topping up compost. The day after her second episode, "Spring", I audited my seed collection and looked through the Chiltern Seeds catalogue, before ordering from eBay a dozen Welwitschia mirabilis seeds to try out, on top of everything else.

Today is the day after "Spring into Summer", and I feel melancholy. The promise of the late spring and early summer seems so far away. Jurassic Park looks miserable, soggy and chilly. The thermometer on the window says 7.3°C outside and 19.4°C inside, and it feels like neither. I want to curl up with Jabba the Gecko in his warm hide (which is at 32.3°C!) and eat raw brownie mix.


However, there is hope. This little frond (I imagine one can still call it a frond if it's on a cycad) belongs to Encephalartos princeps, which has been stuck in my back hall since mid-November. I presume if it can cope with the lack of warmth and sunlight then so can I.

Zombie Apocalypse

Before Christmas I killed another Blechnum. This one was B. gibbum. Ah well, I have a history of killing blechnums - it's astounding that Blechnum tabulare is still kicking. I brought the pot indoors and dusted the soggy rotten core with sulphur, figuring at least it couldn't become more dead, and I was bringing in the hens and chicks fern and the Very Rare Cycad.

And I rather forgot about it, until I came out of the bathroom one morning and saw this:


So B. gibbum aten't dead. However, it does look rather like this:

Expanding Jurassic Park

My in-laws bought me a hammock for Christmas. It's just for one person (sorry Hubster), and I've been wondering where to hang it. I'm not convinced of the sturdiness of the various maple branches overhanging the lawn, and the apple tree (and the blasted evil Tree of HeavenHell) are pretty unreachable.

However, the upstairs fire escape is perfect.

Our upstairs neighbour, Kel, died very suddenly in October. He loved plants, especially big, bright, bold flowers, and often his fire escape was overflowing with red and orange blooms. The week before he died he complimented me on the colours of the dahlias I grew in the front borders. So he'd probably have been delighted to see me taking over. The flat is vacant at the moment, and I have reason to believe that, if it does not stay vacant, any new occupants will not be concerned with outdoors horticulture...


So I figured no one would mind too much if I expanded a bit. This would enable me to accommodate the hammock, put the Magnolia x soulangeana and Magnolia stellata somewhere I can keep an eye on them (they were eaten to bits last year), and add in another mini-pond. I'm limited by needing to keep space free to access the three gas meters (grr).


I moved the greenhouse, and have put it behind the hedge at the bottom of Kel's fire escape. Then the bit of trellis has been moved around through 90° to form the back of the extension. I've taken down the two Athyrium ferns that were hanging off the pillar. I'm going to wrap wire around there and get a vigorous climber to fill the gap there.


And I have a small walkway to connect the two sections. I have plans for some hanging baskets off the fire escape, and I am determined that this shall be the year I grow a water lily in a glazed pot pond.

New Year's Resolution

This year, I resolve to not ignore my garden blog...

Teaching has rather eaten into my creative time - I guess the nurturing of 100 young human lives a year has the potential to take away some of the energy I used to have for nurturing 100+ plant lives. On the plus side, I learned that a college biology lab is the perfect place to overwinter more delicate plants, and I may well have what is getting on for the largest Impatiens niamniamensis in the UK (dare you to prove me wrong...) on account of this.


Jurassic Park has rather looked after itself. I haven't bought too many plants this year, possibly because I have so many specialist criteria for plants - when you have every single fern species sold by the majority of garden centres then nursery visits are much more fruitful (and sadly quite rare at the moment). Possibly suffering some garden centre ennui, I'm looking more towards kit and hardware than new plants.

Despite getting down to -7.8°C, I don't seem to have lost very much yet, but I won't unfleece everything for another two months at least. You will be pleased to know, however, that I continue my talent for killing anything of the genus Blechnum, and Blechnum gibbum is not nearly as hardy as one might think (i.e. not at all).

My parents bought me a tripod for Christmas, so I was out in Kew Gardens today trying out the macro with a rare steady hand.


If nothing else, I hope I'll be able to bring you at least the odd Wordless Wednesday of cool close-up stuff from Jurassic Park. Because that's new and original and nothing like anyone does on garden blogs, isn't it?