Patagonia Revisited

I took this photo when I visited the Perito Moreno Glacier in spring 2013 (September in Agentina). It is such a beautiful, fascinating place. It is lovely to look back at some previous travels at this time of year. Especially when travelling continues to be difficult for everyone. The Patagonian Sierra Finch, Phrygilus patagonicus, Yal…

Vanilla orchid and Edmond Albius

Vanilla is actually produced from the cured seed pod of the vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia. This species of Vanilla orchid is native to Belize, Guatemala and Mexico. It’s thought to have been first cultivated by the totonac people. Vanilla has a climbing monopodial habit and is found growing up trees in its native habitat. The…

The Orchid bee, Euglossini

Gongora powellii is an orchid species native to Panama, with its pollinator; an orchid bee, Euglossini species. You can see orchid pollen sacs, called pollinia attached to the bees back. Euglossini bees are typically iridescent colours and there are over 200 species at least! This photo was taken at the conservation centre; Aprovaca in Panama…

Patagonian Fire Gorse

Anarthrophyllum strigulipetalum, Patagonian fire gorse, mata guanaco, photographed at Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, Chile. Anarthrophyllum strigulipetalum is similar to the red flowered A. desideratum. This rare and beautiful plant is included included in a talk I’m putting together on Andean Alpines for the Alpine Garden Society. The genus Anarthrophyllum is in the pea family,…

Mediterranean Steps, Gibraltar

Please do enjoy some of these wildflower iPhone shots from the hiking trail called ‘Mediterranean Steps’, know simply as ‘Med Steps’, in Gibraltar. The walk winds up the Rock of Gibraltar through the Upper Rock Nature Reserve. Names verified with help from the book; ‘The Flowers of Gibraltar‘, by Leslie Linares, Arthur Harper and John Cortes….

Wildflower Meadow Update

Back In 2014, I helped to create this wildflower meadow in a garden lawn in Witham, Essex, United Kingdom. The addition of hay rattle or yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) in 2020 has been a big success. Hay rattle parasites grass species, reducing there vigour, helping more choice wildflowers to establish. The yellow rattle was direct-sown…

Growing Gibraltar Native Plants

I’ve really enjoyed growing the Gibraltar native plants this year as part of our Conservation work at Gibraltar Wildlife. in this post I’ll share a few of these native plants. Firstly, we have the Melancholy toadflax, Linaria tristis from seed. The common name is a reference to the species name (specific epithet) ‘tristis’ which means…

Growing mistletoe

In this post, I will share how to grow your own mistletoe, Viscum album  from seed. January or February are the best months to start your own mistletoe plant, so don’t throwaway your bunch of Christmas mistletoe after Christmas. It is a really fun thing to have a go at and great to inspire younger members…

Travel highlights 2010 to 2020

In this post I will look back at some of my plant travel highlights from the past decade. Whilst we can’t go where we want to, whilst this awful pandemic continues, we can dream of future travels during lockdown. I have been very lucky to have travelled to some amazing places from 2010 to 2020,…

Ecological Plantings

Ecological planting design in a nutshell, is a dynamic and fully functioning landscape or ecosystem as opposed to a naturalistic planting scheme; which may just appear natural, but requires large amounts of human intervention (Noel Kingsbury 2018). This intervention normally is in the form of lots of weeding, often because plants are two spaced out,…