A visit to Kew Gardens
I woke up on Monday morning feeling nervous. I’m not saying I never feel nervous but it doesn’t tend to happen on a recording day. I’m normally excited at the thought of going somewhere new and being able with the aid of a microphone, to just be curious and ask questions.
With Jerry at Kew
I think the difference was I was going to Kew Gardens. It’s a garden I love; so every time I go there I think I should try to go more often. Everything is labelled which is a joy when you are trying to learn plant names and test your existing knowledge. But recording there, well that felt very grown-up. Kew is a place of serious science and incredibly knowledgeable horticulturalists.
I need not have worried. Sarah the press officer met me in one of the Kew buggies. She had worked out a brilliant schedule that would get us around the gardens, to the Arboretum nursery, to the community garden and to the Tulip tree which was at the heart of the plant story. Interesting fact - when driving the buggy, you’re not allowed to over take visitors, which is challenging because the vehicle is electric and so most guests don’t even sense it’s behind them, till it is almost on their heels!
Our first stop was to meet Sal who is growing on tree seedlings that will one day find themselves living in Kew or perhaps relocated to another botanical institution. Here was the serious science - every pot with a label detailing how many seeds had been planted, where they came from, when they germinated. Their progress will be tracked as they make their way through the nursery into the outside world. Once again a horticultural passion was traced back to childhood. Aged about 6, Sal remembers she noticed that there were bluebells in the garden next door but not in her garden. Then the following year the bluebells appeared in her garden. And with that she was hooked on propagation! Her story will become an Offshoot episode.
As for the incredibly clever horticulturalists; well Jerry, whose story you’ll hear soon ,and I sat on a wooden seat beneath a towering Tulip tree firing questions at Simon Toomer - Curator of Living Collections at Kew. People who really understand trees seem to think on a different time scale to the rest of us. They understand that there are millions of years of geological history that mean it’s no surprise that you find Tulip trees in North America and China and it is nothing to do with us humans. As Jerry asked about the tree’s roots, all our eyes fell to the ground as Simon explained where they lie, how deep, how far they spread, how they can be damaged. And then of course we talked about climate change and the tree people know that we have to plan now for the world in 50 to 100 years time.
And that’s why Sal is so passionate about the seed that has just germinated back in the Arboretum nursery. She made a beeline for those seeds on Monday morning as she returned to Kew after a week’s holiday. She paints a wonderful picture of the trip to Georgia that she and colleagues from Kew had taken to collect the seed. Could this tiny seed be a part of the answer, in 50 years time, to a climate that challenges our native trees?
So I need not have been nervous. Once again passionate plant people draw you in with their knowledge and skill. I look forward to sharing this episode with you in May. Meanwhile in April we’ll be focussing on seeds and germination and specifically I would love to know where you store your seeds? Are they:
A. On a shelf in a greenhouse?
B. In a box in the shed?
C. In a tupperware in the fridge?
The answer is at the end of this blog.
Listen out for more top seed storage tips on Tuesday.
This week I was in the MOH garden and we planted out the sweet peas that we have nurtured since planting the seeds in November. A newcomer to the garden helped us to plant them. Watching him carefully ease them from their pots and place them in the ground, my colleague and I exchanged a look - this had to be a gardener. He asked what we called these plants, “sweet peas” I said but it wasn’t the word he was seeking. He turned to his phone using it to translate from his own language to ours. It turned out that back in Azerbaijan he had grown melons and cucumbers. The word he was looking for: seedlings.
Have a lovely weekend.
Sally
x
PS If you answered C - congratulations!
PPS remember the ‘+follow’ button on your podcast app means you’ll never miss an episode.
Seed storage