Friends news september 2013

Schizostylis coccinea by Howard Rice

Friends’ News The return of Apple Day Family favourite, Apple Day, returns to the Garden this autumn on Sunday 27 October, 10am-4pm, for the first time in five years. At the core (pun fully intended!) we will be again scouring the region to bring together a diverse collection of apples to taste and try before you buy, including some seldom sold and heritage varieties. perennial favourites is a wonderfully moist apple, almond and cinnamon streusel cake. We will bring samples of both to Apple Day as well as recipes for visitors to bring home, and we really look forward to sharing ideas with visitors.’

Tim Elbourn of Cam Valley Orchards is predicting a bumper, though late, maincrop harvest and expects to be picking right into November – a consequence of the miserable May that delayed flowering. He picks out the Cox varieties in particular as all fruiting really well, and is expecting a good haul of Princess and Hereford Russets, Ashmead’s Kernel, Winter Gem and Adams Pearmain. However the coldest spring for fifty years did affect blossom and fruit set at just the wrong time for some of the heritage varieties, resulting in scarce D’Arcy Spice or Pitmaston Pineapple.

Nevertheless, we are confident of a wide range from russets, cookers and crisp Cox to dessert apples for storing.

Experts from the East of England Apples and Orchards Project (EEAOP) will also be on hand offering a pruning and care advice service, including a selection of heritage rootstocks available to order for autumn planting and a display of Cambridgeshire apple varieties.

EEAOP seeks to remind us that the county was once a major grower of apples and other fruit, but only 20% of orchards documented in 1950 survive today, and orchard acreage is still declining due to development, neglect or conversion to arable land. Please do bring along your apples from home for identification by the team – you can find out what’s growing in your garden while our apple experts are fervently hoping that citizen science in action will bring a lost heritage variety to light. And speaking of science, keep an eye out for Sir Isaac Newton, near his eponymous apple tree on Brookside Lawn, a scion of the original Woolsthorpe Manor apple tree said to have inspired Newton’s theory of gravity….

An enlarged produce tent on the Main Lawn will see familiar favourites from Cassels Cider, Watergull Orchards and the delectable cakes of the WI, but we also welcome some new Apple Day converts, including Tom’s Cakes, the Cambridge Cheese Company and the Cambridge Cookery School. Principal of the School, Tine Roche, says: ‘We enjoy cooking with apples at the Cookery School, not least in our artisan breads and cakes – at this time of year we love to add aromatic apples and sage to savoury breads like focaccia. Obviously, we also use apples in our cakes and one of our

Apples have inspired not only scientists but storytellers since before the Garden of Eden, and feature particularly richly in classical mythology: the judgment of Paris awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite, who granted him Helen of Troy in return, the most beautiful woman in the world, thereby sparking the Trojan Wars; while the swift-footed huntress Atalanta, determined never to marry, challenged all potential suitors to a running race. She won them all until Hippomenes laid down golden apples to distract her, allowing him to win the race and her hand. To celebrate

the return of Apple Day, colleagues at the Museum of Classical Archaeology will be holding a follow-up, half-term storytelling session on 31 October for 7-11 year olds exploring Hercules's labour to fetch the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides – (please book via the Festival of Ideas website).

And back at our Apple Day we’ll be exploring all sorts of apple stories and running lots of apple-related activities at our family apple station, plus Garden staff will be leading tours of apple-related plants in our collections, including the lovely crab apples that bring jewel-coloured baubles to the autumn garden.

But perhaps the most remarkable story still is the slow journey of the orchard apple from its wild abode in the Tien Shan mountains of Central Asia eastwards to China and westwards through Turkey to Europe, diversifying over the centuries into the 7,500 cultivars grown today.

Come and discover just a fraction of them at Apple Day this October.

Advance Apple Day tickets Normal admission charges apply plus £3 Apple Day ticket for everyone aged 17+.

Free entry for children 16 years and under. Advance ticket purchase is strongly recommended from either Brookside or Station Road ticket offices during normal Garden opening hours.

This will allow ‘fast track’ entry on Apple Day. You must remember to bring both your Friends membership card and your advance Apple Day ticket(s) to use the 'fast track'entry on Apple Day itself.

Please note that renewal of your Friends’ membership will not be possible on Apple Day due to the large numbers of visitors expected. Thank you!

Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

Dr James Cullen: an appreciation

Welcome

It is with great sadness that we record here that James Cullen, one of the UK’s leading botanists and horticulturists, died in May. Based in the Botanic Garden since 1989, he was Director of the Stanley Smith (UK) Horticultural Trust, which provides grants to support horticultural projects of all kinds, both in the UK and internationally. He was also a hugely influential figure within the Botanic Garden. He served as Chair of the Friends for many years, and also supported the Garden in so many other ways.

Generations of the Garden’s horticultural trainees benefited from his identification tests and lectures on plant taxonomy. He would often be seen out in the Garden, book in hand, helping staff to identify plants within the collections.

This is my first Friends’ News since taking up post as Director at the beginning of July, and it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to say ‘hello’ to you all. I have to say that my first two weeks in post have been an exhilarating experience.

The most impressive thing has been the sheer energy and enthusiasm of everyone I meet – it is clear that the staff value the Garden just as highly as I know the Friends do, and they all have ideas to improve things even further. Watch this space over the next year or two, as we try to implement some of their ideas!

Things to look forward to over the next few months include some new developments around the western end of the Glasshouse Range, and the very welcome return of Apple Day on Sunday 27 October.

Professor Beverley Glover, Director Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

James completed his PhD at the University of Liverpool and then worked at Ness Botanic Garden. From 1972–1989 he was Assistant Regius Keeper at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, working on the classification of Rhododendron, improving standards of plant curation and was one of the first to use electronic databases to store plant records.

He was honoured by the Royal Horticultural Society in 2001 with the award of the Veitch Memorial Medal.

He was a mentor to many, gave encouragement to all and will be greatly missed.

He was also a prolific author and, working with local artist, Georita Harriott, wrote many plant portraits for the prestigious Curtis’s Botanical Magazine based on plants from the Botanic Garden. He was also the Principal Editor of The European Garden Flora, the standard reference

Fun with fungi on Sunday 13 October

The damp and cold weather that we all endured early in the year led to a very late spring. But the sunny summer has more than compensated, although the July heatwave meant the horticultural staff had to work hard to maintain the plantings in wonderful shape, helped out by judicious use of stored rainwater.

In collaboration with the South Cambridgeshire Fungus Recording Group, Huntingdon Fungus Recording Group and G's Fresh Mushrooms, The British Mycological Society will be taking over the Classroom at the Garden on Sunday 13 October this autumn to celebrate the inaugural UK Fungus Day. Ali Ashby

Highlights of this spring included the Festival of Plants on 18 May. We saw over 1800 visitors on the day of the Festival, and the Garden tours and talks by local plant scientists were particularly popular.

We plan to make this event a regular feature of the calendar. The Tropical Wetlands dipslay opened to much fanfare in the local press. The Glasshouse team have done a fantastic job creating a raised pool and coaxing Victoria cruziana to put out lots of enormous lily pads. Less immediately impressive is the sacred lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, in one corner – but if you sprinkle water on its leaves you’ll see one of the most hydrophobic surfaces in nature. Its surface properties have been copied by engineers designing water-repellent paints.

work on temperate cultivated plants, and the Garden was delighted to host the launch of the second edition, published in 2011.

Mycena arcangeliana, angel’s bonnet

Dr Ali Ashby, coordinator of UK Fungus Day, urges everyone, from children to grandparents, to come along between 11am3pm for some fun with fungi: ‘There’s the opportunity to go on fungal foray around the Garden with expert field mycologists; grow your own fungus; speak to scientists about their research; explore why fungi are both friends and foes and why it is so important for us to study this fascinating kingdom of organisms – you could even help to search for the UK’s largest fairy ring!’

UK Fungus Day events are free.

Normal Garden admission applies.

For more information visit www.ukfungusday.co.uk

The Max Walters Lecture To mark the 30th anniversary of the Cambridgeshire Plant Heritage Group, Dame Fiona Reynolds, Master of Emmanuel College and former Director General of the National Trust, will give the inaugural Max Walters Lecture, taking as her subject ‘Gardens, gardening and a celebration of plant conservation’.

Dr Max Walters was Director of the Botanic Garden from 1973-1983. Max was a keen gardener and the correct classification of garden plants became a passion. His research collection of ladymantles, Alchemilla, became one of the Garden’s nine National Collections under the scheme administered by Plant Heritage, with which Max was deeply involved.

The lecture takes place at 2.30pm on Saturday 9 November 2013 in the Queen’s Building, Emmanuel College, followed by tea in the Old Library. Tickets are £10 for Plant Heritage members, £15 for non-members. Please apply for tickets, enclosing a cheque payable to NCCPG Cambs Group, an SAE, Plant Heritage membership number (if applicable), and a contact number, to Plant Heritage, c/o 6 The Maltings, Alconbury, Huntingdon, PE28 4DZ.

One of the most interesting aspects of managing a plant collection is the unexpected discovery. The recent publication of a monograph on the genus Betula, the birches, has furthered interest in this group of important garden trees, and the publication is of particular relevance to Cambridge as its authors, the late Ken Ashburner and Hugh McAllister, have both kindly donated many of the plants in our collection.

A favourite for many is the tri-stemmed Himalayan birch, Betula albosinensis var. septentrionalis, at the eastern end of the Winter Garden, widely admired for its particularly attractive copper- and pink-mottled bark. Our tree came from the famous Hillier’s Nurseries in Winchester, who recognised the superior qualities of a particular example growing in their nursery and propagated from it. The arrival of this striking tree to the UK has been researched by Lawrence Banks, who holds the National Collection of Betula at Hergest Croft.

It seems almost certain that it originated as a collection made in China by the great plant hunter Ernest ‘Chinese’Wilson under his number Wilson 4106. Introductions made by Wilson are often the first or early introductions into cultivation and in many cases from areas that have now been deforested. He writes of this collection made in western Szechuan at 2600m–3600m: ‘It is a tree from 20 to 26m tall … the bark is bright orange to orange red, peeling off in very thin sheets, each successive sheet being covered with a white glaucous bloom’. Knowing the provenance of this tree adds to its value both within our collection and the collective diversity held across UK plant collections.

Despite being familiar and well-liked trees, birches have lacked a modern comprehensive treatment, so the recent monograph is an

important and valuable addition to our knowledge. New collections of plants from the wild represent new data sources, and a monograph puts this data in context with regards to natural variation and defines where species limits should be drawn. This can often change our historic perspectives and treatments, while modern molecular techniques can provide completely new insights unavailable to earlier generations.

Modern monographs are thus extremely important in bringing together all available data, so to provide a classification which is coherent and can be readily understood.

One of the most difficult groups of birches addressed in the monograph are those found commonly through the Himalayas, from Afghanistan and Kashmir to western China, that have been referred to under the names of Betula utilis, B. jacquemontii and B. albosinensis. Many who have shopped for these often colourfully barked birches will recognise them as being amongst the most desirable of garden plants. Treatments of these species have varied, an example of where different views have perhaps caused confusion. The monograph recognises the three as one species, Betula utilis, but one which varies greatly across its range.

Specimens at opposite ends of the distribution range do look very different from each other, but there are intermediates which link these morphological extremes. The treatment is based on linking the similar characters of their flowering catkins and leaf shape rather than taking bark variation as the determining factor. To take account of the geographic variation across the range, a number of subspecies are recognised under B. utilis: the typical form subsp. utilis from the central Himalayas through to western China with brown to pink bark; B. utilis subsp.

SAPS Associate wins School Biology Teacher of the Year Supporting the younger generation of plant scientists – from the young Charles Darwin to today’s students – has always been a key goal for those at Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Pupils, trainee teachers and experienced teachers all visit the Garden and many use resources from the Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS) website. The SAPS Associate scheme offers additional support for secondary science teachers to develop their teaching of plant science, including giving grants and advice.

We are delighted that biology teacher and SAPS Associate, Bev Goodger, has won the Society of Biology's 'School Biology Teacher of the Year’. The award was made at the Society’s annual conference and recognises the very best and most inspiring biology teachers in the country.

Juliet Day

Birches – a new perspective

Bev was one of the first teachers to attend the annual teachers’ summer school, run by SAPS in conjunction with the Gatsby Plants Summer School. The activity she subsequently developed on investigating leaf temperature was one of those demonstrated to the Queen and Prince Philip by students at the opening of the Sainsbury Laboratory in April 2011. Bev has since demonstrated this practical and others to teacher trainers from universities around the UK on our Train the Trainer course. She credits SAPS as providing instrumental support towards the work that helped her win the award and we are very pleased to have had a role in this.

We are doubly pleased that the runner-up in the School Biology Teacher Award, Richard Spence, from SRC Bede Sixth Form in Billingham, is also a SAPS Associate. Richard

A recent monograph on the genus Betula will have impacts on the naming of some specimens such as this Himalayan birch

jacquemontii from the western Himalayas with its bright white bark; and B. utilis subsp. albosinensis from western and central China with its typically copper-coloured bark.

Another particularly fine specimen of subsp. albosinensis can be found amongst the main birch collection along the South Walk, its bark burnished to a shine by many admirers. Just beyond the Winter Garden are a group of three fine trees of subsp. jacquemontii.

We shall adopt the new names for our own collection in due course so as to follow this definitive work. The genus Betula, a taxonomic revision of birches, by K Ashurner & H McAllister, was published in 2013 by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, as a Botanical Magazine Monograph.

Dr Tim Upson, Curator & Deputy Director Bev Goodger demonstrating new plant science practicals in the Sainsbury Lab

has just completed a great project called 'Plants R Mint' with a SAPS Associate Award.

Showing true ingenuity, he has managed to interpret the whole A level Biology curriculum in the context of the mint plant. Richard has been invited to take his work to a Europe-wide showcase of inspirational science teaching in Berlin.

A great reminder to all those in biology education, that the best biology teachers are those who enjoy teaching about plants!

Harriet Truscott, SAPS Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

In the night garden

The North American section of the Rock Garden and the new dry meadow planting outside Cory Lodge are awash with evening primrose (Oenothera spp). These familiar garden plants hail from the Americas and, as their name suggests, open in early evening, the flower unfurling before your eyes. They are predominantly pollinated by bees and moths, and the plant compels the former to stay up past the usual bedtime and lead a shady half-life moonlighting as pollen chauffeurs. This behaviour is known in the zoological world as a vesperine (evening) temporal specialism.

On the Systematic Beds, a modest gem awaits discovery: the night phlox, Zaluzianskya capensis. Nestled near its mullein and snapdragon relatives in the figwort (Scrophulariaceae) family, the flowers of the night phlox have an exquisite, heavy vanilla scent. The petals are fused into a tube which splays at the apex into five flat appendages. The tube prevents all but an elite group of insects, namely long-tongued, night-flying hawk moths (Sphingidae), from accessing the highly prized nectar lure.

The Systematic Beds harbour many mothpollinated species. Crossing to the pink family (Caryophyllaceae), we find Nottingham and night-flowering catchfly (Silene nutans, S. noctiflora). These flowers share many similarities with night phlox; they open in early evening, have a floral tube, are white or pale in colour and produce a rich scent. The scent acts as an Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

Tropics. An epiphytic cactus, Epiphyllum oxypetalum, has truly massive flowers, the fist-sized buds opening mid-evening to reveal many white petals. The flower’s robust nature and sheer size, together with the placement of its reproductive organs, act as a midnight nectar bar for bats. By 9am the flowers are a flaccid mass and offer no hint of the night’s previous display.

Alex Summers

Oenothera speciosa on the Rock Garden

Epiphyllum oxypetalum in the Glasshouse corridor Howard Rice

Flowers, whether night or day opening, are the advertising hoardings that plants use to attract pollinators. But, in the case of nightblooming species, colours in the visible spectrum become redundant. It is scent and contrast – usually white petals against a dark sky – that matter and this suite of characteristics is a common theme in the floral plan of species with night blooms.

They appeal to crepuscular (activity at dawn and dusk) and nocturnal animals; bats, moths, rodents and oddities like the kinkajou, a small rainforest mammal native to Central and South America. The Garden holds many of these exotic night bloomers, so let me introduce you to this midnight landscape, a hive of activity while we are all tucked up in bed.

Juliet Day

As the bell sounds across the Garden and the last of the visiting public leave, a new shift of flowers bloom with the setting sun. This floral transformation is rarely witnessed, but includes some of the plant kingdom’s most elegant flowers and delicate perfumes. The appeal of these flowers is clearly not for the familiar crowd of insects such as bees and butterflies that frequent the daytime landscape, but attracts a quite different posse of midnight pollinators. Here, Glasshouse Supervisor, Alex Summers, takes us on a tour of the night garden....

It is a select group of tropical and desert plants that have enlisted bats to cart their pollen between flowers. This pollination syndrome is exclusive to tropical latitudes, with bat-pollinated species usually having the largest and most robust flowers within a plant family to accommodate such hefty visitors. Our magnificent spring-flowering jade vine immediately springs to mind. Whilst it is also open throughout the day the luminosity of the blue-green flower is actually a homing beacon for night-flying bats in the tropical forests of the Philippines, whence it originates. It produces a pleasant scent in early evening and drips with copious nectar – an irresistible feast for any passing bat. Clothing the ceiling of the West Tropics corridor opposite is the chalice vine (Solandra maxima). As its common name suggests, this vine produces large, waxy, goblet shaped flowers with a coconut aroma. Compared with many other members of the potato (Solanaceae) family, its blooms are enormous to behold and leave a lasting impression.

attractant, and the well-protected nectar reward can only be reached by the long tongues of pollinators metabolically active after dark.

There is, however, an alternative flower shape for bat-pollinated taxa to the robust housing of the species already discussed. The Guiana chestnut (Pachira aquatica) is one of the canopy trees in the central palm house of the Tropical Rainforest display, and produces giant shaving-brush blossoms dominated by stamens. These open from elongated lipstickshaped buds and last just a single evening, with their spidery remains littering the forest floor by mid-morning. They attract bats with a pungent smell and rich nectar reward, and after a good rummage, the bat leaves dusted in pollen, oblivious to its precious cargo.

Passing the massive shadowy monoliths of the giant redwoods, we reach the Glasshouse Range. This space truly comes alive as the gates to the Garden close. One of the most extravagant night bloomers can be found on an upright bole outside the West

Whilst there are numerous other plants at the Garden that save themselves for the night garden, my final pick is probably one of the most spectacular. Recently we have introduced two pools into the Glasshouse Range and adjoining bays. These are home to

Solandra maxima in the West Tropics corridor

Santa Cruz water lilies (Victoria cruziana), one of the true giants of the plant world.

This remarkable species is best known for its colossal leaves, purportedly able to carry the weight of a small child. Its floral biology is, however, even more spectacular than the giant pads for which it gained its fame.

Chemical changes heat the inflorescence to around 10º above the cooled night air and with nutritious starchy appendages lining the chamber, the flower becomes a beetle boudoir in which they linger longer in search of a mate. The flower is at this point female.

As the second day dawns, the flower closes down, traps the beetles and the petals become rippled with flecks of pink. On the second evening the aroma has gone and the flower reopens to release its hoard of imprisoned beetles, which scrabble to leave, no longer enamoured of the flower’s

Night 1

Richard Mabey

Alex Summers

The flower opens over two nights, and in this time it changes its sex, colour and scent. On the first evening, the bud opens to reveal beautiful white petals and emits a pineapple aroma which attracts scarab beetles.

Night 2

Victoria cruziana, the Santa Cruz waterlily, blooms over two nights. The bud opens white, scented and female but by the second night has lost is scent, become pink and is sexually male.

original lures. The flower is now sexually male, and the beetles leave covered in pollen and charge off in search of another pure white, pineapple-scented, and crucially, sexually female bloom. Luminosity and scent, the watchwords of successful night-flowering blooms, ensure crosspollination and seed set.

Night-flowering plants can seem an alien concept, as weird as plants that catch and digest insects or parasitise other plants, but if there is a niche to be filled you can be sure that nature, the great innovator, has ‘got theshirt’. So I urge you to explore your own gardens as the light disappears, and you will see that I have just scratched the surface of the night garden.

If this has whetted your appetite, Alex will be offering tours of night-blooming species at the Garden next summer. Watch out for details in the May 2014 Friends’ News.

Digitally different Changing Perspectives: a Garden through time is a new digital exhibition on the contemporary history of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden to be launched later this month.

Curator of the digital exhibition, Dr Pippa Lacey, writes: ‘After the Second World War, the allotments in the eastern half of the Garden were reclaimed and the ‘New Area’ began to take shape under the direction of John Gilmour and his Superintendent Bob

Younger. Since the 1950s, subsequent Directors, Superintendents and Curators of the Botanic Garden have each introduced innovative ideas that reflect our shifting relationship with the world around us.

Changing Perspectives follows the development of these plantings and explores why and how ideas were introduced – such as the Winter Garden, the Dry Garden, the Scented Garden, the Genetics Garden and the Limestone Ecological Mound.’ The exhibition also

seeks to place these developments within a context of relevant national and international policies and events.

Visitors to the new website are invited to take a virtual tour through the Garden’s changes decade-by-decade, meet key people and listen to them talk about Botanic Garden events and ideas during their time.

There’s the opportunity to map the changes in the Garden from the Air section or explore the sources via a digital timeline.

The Changing Perspectives project is part of the University of Cambridge Museums Connecting with Collections initiative and is funded by the Arts Council of England. Keep up to date with progress via the project blog at connectingwithcollections.wordpress.com

The exhibition website can be found at agardenthroughtime.wordpress.com from the end of September

Putting the Garden into words Kate Swindlehurst, an established and versatile local writer, has successfully secured funding from the Arts Council England to become a writer-in-residence at the Botanic Garden until May 2014.

Kate gained a Distinction in the MA in Creative Writing at Anglia Ruskin University in 2010, and went on to win an Arts Council Escalator award for emerging writers. She has completed a short story collection, a collaborative memoir and is currently working on a final draft of her first novel. Kate’s work reflects an interest in memory and she is keen to develop this through involvement in the Botanic Garden’s Voicing the Garden project.

Kate writes: ‘Several months into the residency and already I’ve learnt so much, including a sense of just how much I have to learn! I tend to live my life at full tilt. Spending time in the garden is an opportunity for me to stop rushing around and to train myself in attentiveness and absorbing the sights, sounds, textures around me, the rhythm of the weeks passing. At the same time I’m fascinated by the people who have contributed to the Garden over the years and, inspired by visits to the Herbarium, have been drawn to research the lives of some of the women, plant hunters and illustrators, whose labours have tended to be overshadowed by their male counterparts.

Kate interviewing for Voicing the Garden

Then and now, the therapeutic role of the Garden is also something I’m keen to explore. I hope to produce a book which captures my experiences and combines fiction and nonfiction in a new interpretation of the journal form. Meanwhile, regular blog posts are a good way of keeping up with progress.’

Kate’s blog can be found at cambridgeuniversitybotanicgarden.blogspot.com Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

Howard Rice

Horticulture Tree safety inspections As the holder of a large and valuable collection of trees on a site to which some 200,000 visitors are welcomed annually, regular inspections of our tree stock are essential. Our in-house surveys have placed particular emphasis upon mature trees and those with known structural issues, while actions to reduce the risk have included the bracing of limbs and crown reductions. In order that we can better manage and record our tree collection, a comprehensive survey of all trees within the Garden has been undertaken by Tim Moya Associates during the summer. The survey has provided us with vital information regarding the hazards and condition of each of our trees and large shrubs. This information will be imported into our database (BGBase), and will also provide valuable information for our records including height and spread data, and GPS locations for each tree grown. This comprehensive survey has reflected the inhouse assessments undertaken by the staff on the Trees and Shrubs Section, but additionally provides us with re-inspection dates ranging from six months to five years and also

prioritises work. Of the 130 trees identified as having a hazard risk, many require only the relocation of a bench sited beneath the canopy, the removal of ivy, minor dead wooding or branch reduction. In the majority of these cases, the highlighted work will have little impact on the appearance of the tree, and will enhance the health and life expectancy of the tree, while also minimising the risk.

However, in a very few cases, the required tree works will have a far greater impact, resulting in major reductions to the whole tree, removal of large limbs and in some cases in the removal of a mature, decaying specimen(s).

One tree requiring more substantial intervention is the Caucasian wingnut, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, whose imposing form is a significant feature of the Garden. The original planting of this tree numbers amongst the earliest plantings here in the Garden, and the multi-stemmed clump seen today is of great heritage value to us. As a mature specimen overhanging key access routes, work on this tree has been on-going for some years, and has

The Caucasian wingnut, Pterocarya fraxinifolia, has been identified as requiring work included branch reductions and the removal of large trunks. The recent survey has identified the need for further limb reductions and the removal of additional trunks. In addition, the survey recommends picus testing, a technique which uses sonic waves to measure the percentage of decayed wood within a tree, and this may result in the removal of further stems within this stand.

While any such works may appear dramatic, they are both well considered and inevitable in a maturing tree collection accessible to the public. We would anticipate that such interventions are timely in enabling us to prolong the life expectancy, where possible, of our mature specimens.

Sally Petitt, Head of Horticulture and Mark Crouch, Trees and Shrubs Supervisor All images Tim Upson

Clippings & Cuttings

Juliet Day

I Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) was grown on the research plots as a green manure this summer, the final step in a soil improvement process. Sugar beet washings, a silt lacking in organic matter, had been used to re-soil the area following the Sainsbury Laboratory build and a compacted pan at about 40cm depth was also impeding drainage causing an anaerobic layer. The pan was broken up by digger and the beet washings mixed in with the subsoil, with added compost dug in. Buckwheat was chosen as the green manure for its rapid growth on poor soils. In mid-summer, the crop was chopped and rotovated into the soil to add rapid organic bulk. An interesting side-effect of using the sugar beet washings was the appearance on the plots of a characteristic weed flora of East Anglian sugar beet fields, including a couple of uncommon docks and some Chenopodium species. These are associated with the draw-down zone of farm reservoirs, the seed being spread over the fields during irrigation.

Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

First year colour in the perennial meadow. From L-R foxtail lily, bigfruit evening primrose, Indian paintbrush and Berkheya purpurea I The recently sown perennial meadow occupying the semi-circle to the east of Cory Lodge has already provided some floral colour although will really come into its own over the coming years. First year highlights have included Eremurus stenophyllus (foxtail lily), native to the dry mountainous regions of central Asia. A profuse display of large bright yellow flower spikes contrasting with the yew hedge was spectacular in June and July. This species was one of the few planted as rootstocks (sprawling starfish-shaped and tuberous) through the sand rather than sown from seed. The large yellow flowers of Oenothera macrocarpa subsp. incana (bigfruit evening primrose), native to south and central North America, have also been prolific, contrasting with the silver foliage. Castilleja integra (wholeleaf Indian paint-brush) germinated beautifully and the striking orange bracts of the flower heads make this plant a standout. This genus comes predominantly from the Americas and is sometimes semiparasitic on other plants but here is growing on its own roots. One of the later species to flower has been the spectacular South African daisy, Berkheya purpurea,

producing large mauve to purple flowers against very spiny foliage and stems. The drought-tolerant perennial meadow mix has been developed by Professor James Hitchmough of Sheffield University and Olympic Park fame. Despite the 7cm sand barrier put down to prevent contamination, some annual meadow seed from the 2012 displays germinated through and was laboriously weeded by hand to leave the germinating perennial seedlings to develop unhindered.

I Following on from the installation of the new kiosk at the Station Road gate, we have been working with the University and local planning authority to replace the existing boundary with a smart new set of more secure railings. The increased height will give necessary security and continue to allow views into the Garden and for the new herbaceous planting to contribute to the urban landscape. They will be similar in style to those used to upgrade the Brooklands Avenue boundary and painted dark green to match the finish at the Brookside Gate. A larger gate will be more inviting but also leave the opportunity for a more ornate entrance to be created in the future.

Education First Saturday Family Fun

Hooked on Plants At the Botanic Garden we love anything fun to do with plants so late last year when the opportunity came up to crochet plants with the newly formed Cam City WI group we jumped at the chance. Together with crochet tutor, Joanne Scrace, we decided to run monthly crochet sessions over nine months working towards making crochet plants to exhibit amongst real plants in the Glasshouse Range for the Festival of Ideas running this October.

Women of Cam City WI were recruited, and in January of this year the first session took place.

Many people, myself included (it sounded too interesting not to join in!), were either complete beginners or fairly new to crochet. The first few months were taken up with learning the basic stitches while those with more experience helped teach beginners and experimented with leaf and flower patterns.

As spring finally came, the daunting task of starting work on the actual plants began. With such a range of plants to choose from, Joanne thought that it would be interesting to focus on plants that trail or climb. This fitted in well with the plans of Glasshouse Supervisor, Alex Summers, who is keen to raise the profile of trailing plants that grow in arid lands.

The group divided up into smaller teams to tackle individual species. Deciding on colours and yarn fibres was relatively easy – to fit in with our plant theme, we chose natural plant fibres, using bamboo, linen and cotton yarns wherever possible. But coming up with our own patterns and plans for making the plant structure was much harder.

Left: Crocheting at the Café. Right: Cissus quadrangularis being made out of yarn I am part of a group crocheting Epiphyllum oxypetalum (see centre spread), a fascinating epiphytic, night-flowering cactus. I can tell you that the prospect of crocheting a plant makes you look at it in a completely different way!

Luckily our group had a couple of more experienced crocheters who are leading the way on how to make its thick glossy leaves.

Still on our to-do-list, however, are creating the enormous white flowers and green stems and the most formidable task of all, putting it all together!

Dr Sally Lee, Education Officer Visit our exhibition in the Glasshouse Range from 23 October - 3 November to see how we've got on.

If you fancy having a go at crocheting plants yourself you can come along to our Crochet Flowers day-long workshop on Wednesday 16 October. At this course, led by Joanne Scrace, you will learn how to make a variety of crochet flowers, perfect for embellishing clothing or making into brooches and hairclips. The workshop costs £55 (including all materials) and runs from 10am-4pm.

Telephone 01223 331875 to book.

For the last five years we’ve published a printed What’s On guide. And although it’s great to have this as a resource, the cost of producing and posting it, and the inflexibility of trying to set the whole year in stone by the end of August the preceding year, are proving difficult obstacles. So this year we’ll be moving course listings to the website, with bookings opening in mid-November, as before. If the internet is difficult for you to access there will

Celebrate Sticks Saturday 5 October With help from the team at the University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology we’ll be celebrating the humble stick. Making stick creations and telling stick stories.

Potty about Bulbs Saturday 2 November Decorate a plant pot and plant it up with miniature bulbs to take home and save as a Christmas present for someone special, or your own spring surprise.

Christmas Craft Saturday 7 December Create stunning Christmas decorations using plant materials from the Garden and plaster of paris to make unusual textured decorations to take home for your tree.

Family Flags 4 January 2014 Stake your claim to your own garden by making your very own family flag.

Tell us which part of our Garden your family likes best , and plot mini flags on our big Garden map.

For the half-term...

What’s up for What’s On As autumn approaches, some of you will be thinking that the gardening year is drawing to a close. But of course it’s also the time to reflect, to plan, to consider what worked and what didn’t. And, in my case, to look at my gardening diary to remind myself of all the plants, plans and ideas that I noted during this growing season. With all this in mind we’re currently in the thick of it, planning the 2014 programme of courses, family events and school activities.

No need to book, just drop-in anytime between 11am – 3pm on the first Saturday of every month for plant-inspired fun. £3 per child, plus normal Garden admission for accompanying adults.

be a print-out of the full list of courses available on request at ticket offices from November.

Then, throughout the year, we hope to add more courses where we can, to cope with demand and take advantage of new opportunities. We’ll also be using some of the resources devoted to the usual print run to keep you up to date with courses, events and talks on a regular basis through posters and smaller flyers that will be available in the Garden and beyond.

You can expect to see a full programme of botanical art, basketry, craft and photography alongside our expert gardening, botany & plant identification and garden history courses. We have more new tutors joining us and hope to add more short talks and guided walks – all of which will allow you to dip into our adult courses programme and find your inner artist, botanist or gardener.

Apple Station Sunday 27 October We’ll be there celebrating the return of Apple Day with a pop-up Apple Station, for apple inspired arts, crafts, tasting and stories.

New faces We welcome lots of new faces to the Garden this month. Our six new trainees join the Garden for the year and we’re delighted to welcome a new Schools’ Officer to the education team. Bronwen Richards joined our team in mid-August and will be running our hugely successful schools programme, which welcomes over 9000 school children annually. We’ll let Bronwen introduce herself in the next newsletter but those of you who attend our regular family events will meet her over the next few months.

Flis Plent, Head of Education Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

Dear Friend

Friends’ Events

Along with the beautiful warm weather that finally arrived in late June we have also had a welcome increase in the number of visitors to the Garden. Many summer events have taken place including outings to Rousham House, Felbrigg Hall, Hever Castle and East Ruston Old Vicarage. The Friends’ tours were very popular and many Friends also enjoyed our summer Sounds Green picnic proms during July.

A booking form with full descriptions, details, times and prices is enclosed.

All places will be allocated by ballot.

Thank you to Elizabeth Rushden and Jenny Leggatt for organising the trips as part of their role on the Friends Volunteer Committee.

Sadly, Jenny has now retired from the Committee to pursue other interests, but we are delighted to welcome new Committee member, Gail Jenner.

A highlight of the autumn Friends programme (for details, see right) will surely be the Annual Lecture on Thursday 14 November, this year given by Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener at Great Dixter. This year we have moved the venue to Robinson College whose main lecture theatre will allow more Friends to enjoy Fergus’s fascinating talk.

A question – has your washing machine/child/dog ever eaten/chewed your Friends membership card? We have had many

requests over the past 18 months for more robust cards; so, from January 2013 I am pleased to advise that we will be issuing Friends with new plastic credit-card style membership cards. We hope this change will reduce the number of cards inadvertently destroyed by machine, person or pet. Also, please remember that to gain free admission to the Garden you must present your membership card at the ticket office. Failure to present a valid card means that you will be required to pay for admission.

If you have any questions regarding your Friends membership please contact the Outreach Office on 01223 336271 or email friends@botanic.cam.ac.uk. Thank you for your valued support.

The National Trust garden of Trelissick was the first delight, affording lovely views down to the river Fal and abundantly stocked with rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and the tree ferns for which these gardens are famous. An afternoon boat ride took us to St Mawes – a lovely blowy interlude – before we were met at Lamorran House by the Head Gardener. Opinion was divided: certainly gardening on such a steep slope would pose problems for us East Anglians, but I myself found the very careful juxtaposition of different leaf and plant forms, plus a wider range of plants beyond the usual acidic stalwarts, very exciting.

A brief visit to Burncoose Nurseries on the Tuesday was followed by an exploration of St Ives - the Tate Gallery, the Hepworth Sculpture garden, the Leach pottery - or all three! Then the Minack Theatre, an open-air theatre hewn out of a cliffside, was extraordinary. Exotics and succulents thrive in the spectacular position, including bright silver-leaved Leucadendron.

Wednesday afternoon was spent at Trewidden, a peaceful and homely place with paths wandering between tree ferns, rhododendrons and camellias. At Trengwainton, the extensive Friends’ News – Issue 93 – September 2013

Outing to Highgrove Gardens Friday 18 October A day outing to the Gardens at Highgrove, the home of HRH The Prince of Wales and one of the most creatively inspired gardens of today.

Managed as a model of organic horticultural practice, a series of interlinked areas, each with a distinct character, weave magically around the garden, with the house always visible in the distance.

Wishing you all a colourful autumn,

Emma Daintrey, Outreach Administrator

Cornwall in May: camellias, and so much more Thirty of us set off on a grey Sunday morning in a comfortable coach, most competently driven

by Mike, himself a Cornishman. We stayed at the Royal Hotel on the seafront at Falmouth, a beautiful hotel with very helpful and friendly staff, which added greatly to the pleasure of the holiday.

The Garden in Autumn Wednesday 16 & Tuesday 22 October at 10.30 am Join our expert Garden Guides for a tour of the colourful delights of the Garden in autumn. Tours will depart from Brookside Gate and end at the Garden Café for morning coffee and cake.

walled garden with some south-facing upward sloping beds was interesting, though it was noticeable how late the spring had been this year, and many plants were only just waking up.

On Thursday we went to Bonython, which featured a well-stocked walled garden from where the extensive site sloped down towards three lakes, one of which had a memorable Gunnera island. A small wood was wonderfully carpeted with nodding bluebells and threecornered garlic, which also lined many of the minor Cornish roads. Our last garden, Trebach, was absolutely stunning, running along a slender ravine down to the sea. Paths run along the steep sides offering magnificent views over enormous trees and palms. It all looked in very good order, but unforced and bountiful.

Apparently it had almost collapsed after its initial creation in 1831until new owners began restoration nearly 25 years ago. Its future as a trust seems now assured.

Robert and Rosmarie Hill

Friends’ Annual Lecture: Good planting – designing with plants Given by Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener, Great Dixter.

Thursday 14 November at Robinson College Great Dixter was the family home of gardener, gardening writer and King’s College alumnus, Christopher Lloyd.

Now under the stewardship of Fergus Garrett and the Great Dixter Charitable Trust, Great Dixter is a historic house, a garden, a centre of education, and a place of pilgrimage for adventurous horticulturists from across the world. We are delighted to welcome Fergus to Cambridge to share his decades of experience of gardening at Dixter.

Looking ahead...

Friends’ residential overseas visit to Italian Lakeland Gardens Sunday 8 to Friday 13 June 2014 Enjoy the fabulous scenery and benign climate of the north Italian Lakes which have attracted aristocrats and the wealthy for many years. Their elegant villas and lush gardens complement the natural landscape perfectly and nowhere encapsulates the extravagant spirit of the Lakeland gardens better than the Borromean Islands.

Please find full details enclosed, including how to register your interest.