The highlight of the day today was a visit to Kew’s library, which was born out of the Herbarium (which we will visit next week) and which is actually known as “Library, Art & Archives” because it does not manage only books… have you ever visited the Marianne North Gallery?
I usually prefer the outside, but on a rainy day we looked for shelter in the Gallery and it was rather amazing, with plants and animals in bright colours around you on all walls… I was personally also fascinated by the story of Marianne herself: what a brave woman, travelling the world in the late 19th century and painting plants…
But, back to the library: it might look like any other library, but it is pretty vast to start with (it contains more than 500,000 items, 90 languages), a maze of collections, with special thematic sections scattered across the gardens’ buildings in Kew and at Wakehurst Place. You can read more on its history and significance. We got to see the first edition of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” today: there is a special section of the library that contains all the oldest of books…
Everyone can access the Kew library, and you can search the catalogue online. I myself think I will have to go and have a proper browse on my own one day, as so much information can be overwhelming: I do not think I have taken it all in from the tour this afternoon…
The morning I spent edging the South Canal beds. While driving there in our tractor, my colleague showed me a tree, pointing out it was a champion. That was a coincidence! Over the weekend, in a visit to RHS Wisley, I had spotted the label you can see pictured, but had no time to investigate it further, so it was on my to do list.
Champion trees are the ones that are “exceptional examples of their species (Royal Forestry Society) and several of the UK & Irish champion trees are registered in The Tree Register.
On a totally different subject, today ended in a positive way, with me finding out that I passed Level 3 “The management of plant health”. I’m halfway through that now…
Zen and the art of leaf gathering (Week 2, Friday)
It was with some hesitation that this morning I made my way to the Japanese Landscape. It is a rather formal garden, and working on it felt pretty daunting.
There were a few gusts of wind, and each one would scatter part of the light and somewhat sticky leaves I had managed to scrape out of the grass and bushes, while also blowing new leaves from the tree. Something that can be pretty annoying, as I’m sure you know. However, a thought came into my mind.
I remembered a book on mindfulness I recently flicked through, by Thich Nhat Hanh. The Vietnamese Zen monk suggested that happiness is only found in mindfulness and mindfulness in performing an action for the sake of it, by concentrating completely on it, bringing back one’s attention every time it goes astray and observing and acknowledging one’s distractions as they happen to avoid them being more distracting… this was a concept I had been familiar for a while, since I became interested in Hinduism while studying Religious Studies. It was guru Osho – if I recollect well – that said that our mind gets distracted by wandering into either the past or the future, preventing us from enjoying the moment. I think it is one of the reasons I like gardening so much: because it absorbs me completely in the task at hand, and I can relax.
So I thought of my leaves, and concentrated in picking them up for the sake of it. One leaf at a time, one handful at a time, one bucket at a time. It was refreshing and made me think that there’s so much that is like picking leaves just to look them fall again. If you let it get at you, then you cannot but get angry and bitter. But if you keep carrying on as if nothing had ever happened before, or was going to happen again, then you are leaving in the moment, and can find peace.
All my phylosphical musings crashed suddenly into reality when the student I was working with suggested I learnt how to use the leafblower, which I did, after the by-now-usual feeling of awkwardness when starting to use a new tool around people.
Here is me, posing as a ghostbuster, before going in for lunch…
Going about one’s business (Week 2, Thursday)
Another day of bed maintenance, which is what we are here to do!
I am now mostly self-sufficient in getting the tools together before starting the day, such a relief! 🙂 When I first joined I had a locker assigned to me with a standard kit, then, over the last two weeks, I have collected a selection of other bits and pieces I need, like a hand-fork (can you believe gardeners’ hand-forks are one of the most often stolen items if left lying around?!?) and a knee pad. There are other tools in the shed that are there for specific jobs, for example landscape and lawn rakes (the light ones you can use on grass because they do not rip it up as the heavier ones do), saws etc.
The bin bags are for the non-compostable weeds and also for all the plastic bits and foil wrappers that we keep finding stuck in between plants and pretty much everywhere in the beds.
Anyway, today we tackled Cotoneaster as well as Rubus. Here’s a before and after pic (have to remember to take them from the same angle perspective in the in the future):
While cleaning up, I unearthed a millipede I had not seen before, which Paul Lee at the British Myriapod and Isopod Group very kindly helped me identify as a flat-back millipede of the genus Polydesmus. Apparently there are 5 species that look very similar in the UK, and you need to inspect the underside with a lens/microscope to find out exactly which is which. Fascinating, isn’t it?
By the way, do you know which is the rough rule of thumb to distinguish centipedes from millipedes? Centipedes have only one pair of legs per body segment, millipedes have two.
I was taught that centipedes, 1 pair of leg = good in gardening terms, as they are mainly carnivores. Millipedes, 2 pairs of legs = less good from a gardening perspective as they might feed on roots and seedlings even though they are mostly detrivores. But I am not endorsing any violence on them, I think a healthy ecosystem, with as many species as possible, is the best environment for plants to thrive in, and detrivores are really useful for the recycling of nutrients. The little fellow there was left to go about its business straight after I took the picture.
We, on the other hand, were stopped halfway through our work in the beds by a sudden thunderstorm, so had to head in in a rush.
After work, however, the weather was sunny again and, if anything, Kew looked more gorgeous for the shower, so I went on a plant IDing round… it’s such a privilege to be here every day!
Weedy Wednesday (Week 2, Wednesday)
A day that was mostly about weeding and edging.
My progress in edging consists in having learned how to straighten beds using a string. Also, I am becoming better at using my foot behind the half-moon when lifting soil. There are two main movements you have to learn with the half-moon.
- First, it’s pressing down the blade, keeping the tool vertical, in a continuous way along a line, so you do not get bitty cuts.
- Second, it’s to lift the soil away from the edge, using your foot as a lever so that the half moon does not smudge the grass edge.
With regards to weeds, since I am spending time pulling them out, I thought I would take pictures of each specimen, so as to do a bit of IDing.
I have previously found it useful to identify wildflowers and weeds from illustrated guides and web keys (for example, I love BSBI wildflower key), but my colleague suggested I buy a proper botanical key. Which I did, and will use it to identify the pictures of the weeds I have collected so far.
We collect and compost the plant material we discard (except the infected material which is incinerate), and we compost erbaceous and woody material separately in the stable yard where we have our base.
There are huge compost heaps there, which can reach the toasty temperature of 60°C-104°F. In the mornings on a cool day you can see them smoking, and the peacocks like to wander around the are; you often find them on top of the heaps, crying out what sounds like a raucous call for help.
At those temperatures, partial sterilisation occurs. My books for RHS Level 3 said about soil that:
- 45°C kills nematodes
- 55°C kills insects and weed seeds
- 60°C kills fungi (unfortunately including mycorrhizae)
Tree circles (Week 2, Tuesday)
Today was team working again, and we did tree rings on the Pagoda vista.
No, not the tree rings inside a tree trunk, which can be used to identify the age of a tree. I mean we weeded, edged and mulched the circular, grass-free areas around the pairs of trees that flank the heritage walk that is the vista, which – I am told – are “double-banked matched pairs”, meaning they are pairs of the same tree, flanked on the outside by another pair of trees.
I was not feeling very well, haven’t been since yesterday when I had to stay at home, so did not think of taking any pictures. However, a secret admirer took one of me working from a distance (no, I can’t be seen, it was too far away, but that’s the area).
Will have to go back and check on some of the trees we did, as they attracted my attention being Acer saccharum (sugar maple), and they must look pretty when they put out their leaves, although I suppose they really come into their own once it’s autumn.
The technique to make round circles consists in tying your half moon to the tree trunk with a non-stretcheable piece of string, then working around the tree, so I had the opportunity to practise a lot with this new tool.
I was also told why we need to cut quite deep edges into the grass: I always finds that understanding why you are doing something helps to learn and remember. But it is surprising how few people are able to formalize their (especially practical) knowledge into communicable information, to explain how and why they are doing something. It’s a rare skill, and as a former Knowledge Manager I have confronted – and had to bridge – this reality often in my career. I am lucky, however, to have found some people here that are excellent at sharing their knowledge.
So… because the grass roots expand sideways by rhizomes and stolons, they would start creeping into the rings and towards the trees. If, instead of soil, they find air, they stop, so you get a neat and tidy ring. Hence, you need to cut an edge that reaches down all the depth of the grass roots.
Incidentally, did you know that because of the root/shoot ratio principle, the length of the root is in proportion to that of the canopy? It is the principle at the basis of pasture management for soil fertility. When grass grows long, the roots grow long, then, when grass is mowed, a part of the roots die back, and remain into the soil as biomass; then it grows again and so on… if you want to know more about it you can Google “Joel Salatin”, an American farmer who centres his farming on this principle.
… but back to our sward, we keep the grass quite short, and so are the roots, and that is how deep tree rings work by preventing the spread of grass towards the trees.
When mulching, you have then to take care to keep the mulch away from the edges (again to prevent grass spreading into it) as well as from the tree trunk (to avoid rotting).
Day five: sharpening up
One of the things I had never done was to sharpen a pair of secateurs, so when a colleague said he was going to fix his and offered me to tag along I took the opportunity straight away.
After disassembling the nuts, bolts and the spring, we cleaned and sharpened the blade using oil and stone, then had to reassemble the lot. I look forward to doing it again to see if I can remember how to do it properly as I was shown… and in the meantime I will keep the official instruction for maintenance to hand.
After that, I spent the day finishing the jobs I started yesterday, and reflected on the past week.
- As the distances in the garden are considerable, it is best to carry all the tools you think you will need with you from the start of the day, so as to avoid having to go back to the toolshed. As my garden and plot are fairly small, I can access whatever I need at all time, but this new experience is a good exercise in planning your day ahead and general efficiency.
- Because we work in contact with the public, we need to be particularly careful with health & safety, avoiding that our tools get in the way or endanger anyone, and we have to leave everything neat and tidy. That is also a good exercise for me, so I am getting used to planning my gardening tasks more carefully, finishing what I have started and leaving time to clear up.
- Last but not least, I have started working in a team: I depend on others and others depend on me – although I have worked in teams in an office all my life and I’m well acquainted with the principles, it is a new way of gardening for me, and out there in the open, doing physical work, being able to rely on a team feels more… essential.
Day four: Rubus and Prunus
Today I went off to become more familiar with my beds and we planned to manage a Rubus or two.
It was a whole day of gardening, me and the plants, which was good as I need to take in all of the changes that have happened in the last few days and adjust to the new pattern of my days.
We start work at 7.30 in the morning, which means that I have to wake up at 5, and by the time I get home I am so tired and my evening flies, but I am still studying my Masters module on Environmental ethics, so I have to stay up late.
Anyway, people that know me say it really shows I’m happy… and no wonder!
The weather is warming up a little bit, so the Prunus trees in my section are starting to flower. This Prunus serrulata ‘Pandora’ is one of the first, and is right next to where I’m working.
The National History Museum published leaflets on how to identify cherry trees, and links to Kew’s own cherry walk, which will be gorgeous to be in in a few days from now…
About Me
M.Paola, that’s me
I got my first allotment in the UK in 2007 and started growing my own food. Learning as I went along was not enough, so I studied horticulture. Faced with the horticultural warfare, I became a conscientious objector: I use no chemicals and support organic principles and regulations.
Brexit gave me a new life in the Netherlands, three new plots by a nature reserve and an MSc in sustainable food systems.
I write in my personal capacity and, as a language perfectionist and a non native speaker, I keep reviewing my entries’ text for clarity.
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This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.