Tag: plants

It seems that most horticultural traineeships/apprenticeships are applied to in January for an August start. That means that July in the final month for the participants in the schemes and today three of our trainees have gone. I will miss them, we had a good time together! Other than that, today too I’ve been working…

I have seen so much of it this week: Oxalis corniculata var. repens (looks like it is mushrooming all over the place and setting seeds within a few days!) that I have had what I call a “genius idea”: what if we made use of it as ground cover? It is hardly visible, because it’s purple on…

Weeding around an overgrown Oemleria (and you know that an overgrown Oemleria is a swallower, don’t you?) I found inside it a large herbaceous plant with beautiful purple, bell-shaped flowers and entire, ovate leaves. A little bit of research online did not provide a match, and my colleague also had no idea what it might…

The Ilex collection at Kew is the largest of mature cultivars in the world but I must admit my prejudice: I find Holly Walk rather depressing, it’s my least favourite place in Kew and not only because it is an area under renovation. I’m not a fan of evergreens, or hollies, and this is 1…

While pulling the Alliara, I found myself covered in cleavers (Galium aparine), another weed whose name I have just learnt, despite being familiar with the plant from the plot at home. Amazingly effective, cleavers, in, well… cleaving to whatever is at hand. Seed are not the only part of this plant of the Rubiaceae family endowed…