It was raining today and as I was not feeling too well, so I asked to work indoors, and was sent to the Princess of Wales Conservatory, with some lovely people, doing weeding among weird and wonderful plants.

Hope you enjoy their pictures, while I’m off under cover again, of my bedsheets this time.

I am sorry I failed to look for the labels, but do visit the Conservatory if you want to find out what they are! I am sure you would love it, and once a year at the end of the winter they have an orchid festival, which is rather spectacular…

Oh, I also stroke an acquaintance with the very special chap down there: call him Biocontrol (he does have a proper name, but I can’t remember, I did say I’m a bit off today…). He and his friends Chinese dragon lizards (Physignathus cocincinus) play a very important part in keeping pests under control in the Conservatory…

… if you visit, keep an eye out for them. The first time my husband and I spotted one was during the orchids festival a couple of years ago!

Today we had the pleasure to visit the Quarantine House, where plant material that gets into Kew (from
donations and expeditions) and out of the gardens (for example to repatriate seeds to repopulate areas in the wild for which conservation had been undertaken) is scanned and kept to ensure no pest or diseases are released that could affect Kew’s over 30,000 plants, or any of the involved countries’ biodiversity.

The facility is new and state of the art, to comply with licencing authorities’ requirements: it was designed for maximum containment and for sustainability. But an important concern was also to create a controlled environment that was affordable to run, as there are cases in which very expensive facilities failed to ever be used because of spiralling maintenance costs. And expensive facility this one was, built on a World Heritage site and a site of archaeological interest, with all the extra measures that demands.

The advanced technical features to contain risk are really special (fascinating to hear about the negative air pressure system that would suck any broken glass in, should a disaster happen, which is unlikely because the glass is double glazed and laminated to boot; and did you know that silicone is not a good enough insulating material, as it gets damaged by UV rays? –  a more detailed description of the features is available online. The latest technology is not all that is needed, though.

The duty of care and chain of custody requirements when dealing with such sensitive material as internationally moved plants requires that a sound process in place: legal and healthy are the two keywords here, something that does require extensive paperwork (for example the collection permits for expeditions), specialist skills, and special licences.

The building is licenced with a Plant Health Licence by FERA and the Forestry Commission, and needed to get an Home office licence for controlled drugs, to deal with some plants such the genus Erythroxylum. As the point of entry for pests and diseases are multiple, soil needs a special permit to be dealt with, which Kew is considering. And because Kew is also the UK CITES Scientific Authority for Plants, the Quarantine House also works in partnership with the UK border forces to ensure that the Convention is enforced and that material of conservation interest is protected.

… and live amongst.


No, this is not about pests, rather horticulture at London Zoo.


Had you ever thought of zoos as places for horticulture? I hadn’t. That is, until a month or so ago I heard Kevin Frediani, Curator of Plants and Gardens at Paignton Zoo, talk at a conference. He mentioned that while ecosystems are made up of both plant and animals, too often our research, conservation and education institutions don’t connect the two together in their living collections and exhibits. Then he went on to talk about the high density vertical growing fish-based hydroponic system they use at the zoo to grow some of the fodder for the animals.

Pretty exciting stuff, really, so, when the Arboretum manager announced the opportunity to go on a visit to ZSL London Zoo, he got my attention straight away. Today was the day, and I must say I was not disappointed.

Plenty of exciting stuff is going on in London too, and with a focus on being environmentally friendly (they are in fact certified to ISO 14001 standards): for example they no longer buy mineral oils, minimise pesticide use and compost their green waste in an arrangement with Royal Parks.

They are also looking into interesting practices, such as beaver coppicing (did you know beavers coppice regularly every 7 years or so?!?) or scything as a meadow management technique.

There are different aspects of the zoo that the horticulture department takes care of. One is of course bedding displays, as the zoo is a tourist attraction and has to be a pleasant place to walk around. In the greenhouse, we saw some of that bedding.

But then there is the more exciting horticultural stuff. For example, new exhibits, where plants complement the presence of animals and help create a comfortable place for them to live in. For the tigers’ project, the keeper went to Sumatra to study their native environment, and got photographic evidence so that a suitably complex environment could be recreated, to keep the animals interested and provide them with privacy from each other (in nature male and female only get together for mating) and the tourists.

It is always a tricky trade-off for the zoo to make the animals as visible as possible, while caring for their welfare. But the environment they created in this case seemed to provide a fairly comfortable place for the animals, with a pond for them to cool in, a stone wall where I saw one relax, and different layers of vegetation. Miles away from the cages and concrete settings I remember from zoo visits when I was a kid…

Last but not least – actually last and most interesting – the horticulture department does feedstuff research. Apparently, so many animals in zoos are overweight and diabetic because they are fed an unsuitable diet, rich in fruit and grass (i.e. bamboo, suitable for grazers) but many animals are browsers instead, so their diet should consist in leaf matter!

On the back of that consideration, the zoo first launched a wiki for the zoological community to share their knowledge on which plants to feed which animals… Then they started a programme of nutrient testing on a set of plants on site: they are analyzed three times a year to understand how the nutrient balance changes and might affect the animals’ diets… and they’ve also got a leaf silage initiative – time intensive but successful thanks to the help of volunteers – for winter feed (with excellent results, nutrient-wise).

We had the privilege to experience what that more true-to-life feeding of animals means: a couple of small Acer campestre were felled in the woodland area and fed to the giraffes. In the picture, one of them tucking in into the branch I was offering her – It’s fascinating, but note: they do pull hard!

A very enjoyable visit and food for thought… I will certainly consider applying to horticultural jobs in zoos.

Students do not get to take any leave while they are in class term, so they go on holiday when they are out in the gardens, that is how South Canal beds and I are on our own once again. So far so good, we have got to know each other rather well and we do like each other very much!

Still feeling a bit emotional from my trip down memory lane last week, I am trying to concentrate on the stock-checking project.

So far I have printed out the list of plants that have been in the beds (dead and alive) from our living collection database. I have created a MS Excel spreadsheet to record my stock-checking and also include:

• labels (numbers and status)
• notes (on the plants)

Then I have taken the list of living plants and gone out into 4 of our 6 beds and around most of our individual plants in the middle area, noting down which plants I found, which ones I didn’t find, whether I found plants that were not in the list and how many labels (and in which state) they all had. 

While trying to take a picture of an awkward label, I inadvertently hit the switch camera button on the phone…

That has involved some crawling under Pyracantha and generally making my way through wood, both dead and alive, mostly in the rain when the weather was unsuitable for other tasks! The use of a camera phone and the internet have been essential to read unreachable labels and to help identify dubious cases respectively.

My problem so far has been where plants are not neatly separated but have grown into each other: Rosaceae are pretty vigorous, prolific self-seeders and largely suckering stock! In those cases, I may have not found the labels or I may not be sure whether there are any, swallowed up inside congested plants. 

So, the way I have proceeded is cutting back those plants that have already flowered and clearing the ground, particularly at the base of plants, of weeds, debris and dead wood and leaves, so as to find any labels that might have been covered. It works, but it is rather time consuming.

Anyway, this morning I moved on to stage 2: I took my stock-checking of one of the beds and recorded it into my spreadsheet. Then printed it out and took with me to the beds for double checking.

You can see it took a bit of watering while I was moving sprinkles and hosepipes around, but it did what it was supposed to do. I have double checked the recordings, noted any differences, and at the end of the day finalised the results in the database.

Now I am left with:

• 3 beds to double check
• 2 beds to check & double check (including any clearing needed)
• finishing and double checking all the single trees in the middle area

Enough to keep me busy for the next 6 weeks, isn’t it!