No. 38, July 2009

 in News

PlantNetwork publishes a regular newsletter containing news and information from botanic gardens, arboreta and holders of other documented plant collections in Britain and Ireland. This newsletter is only available to members of PlantNetwork. Institutional members receive several copies of the Newsletter for circulation amongst their staff.

  • From the Chairman of PlantNetwork
    • Recent meetings, Annual General Meeting, Pests and diseases, upcoming meetings.
  • Upcoming Meetings:
    • Displays of Plants from Arid Places
    • Fruit and Vegetables in Public Gardens
    • Managing and Sustaining New and Old Tree Collections for the Future
  • Reports of PlantNetwork Meetings
    • PlantNetwork Target 8 Project: making progress in Scotland
    • Botany in the Garden: classification and taxonomy today in plant collections
    • Appointments, Awards, Staff & Training
      • Katy Barnard took up the post of Education Officer at Moorbank Botanic Garden, Newcastle University, in January 2009. See pp.21 and 36.
      • Tim Baxter, a graduate from Bangor University, is in a new post at Ness Botanic Gardens. He’s been working with Hugh McAllister and Sally Thompson to update the Garden’s maps and plant record system.
      • Brian Coppins has retired after 35 years as Lichen and Ascomycete Taxonomist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
      • Sjaak Kastelijn is the new Gardens Manager at York Museum Gardens.
      • David Knott is now Curator of Living Collections, Inverleith, at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
      • Hanneke Schreiber is the new Hortulanus at De Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam.
      • Graham Stewart was appointed as Curator at Dawyck Botanic Garden in autumn 2008.
      • John Weir has resigned as Director at Westonbirt National Arboretum to take up a new job as Climate Change Programme Manager for Forestry Commission England, based in Bristol.
      • New Trustees at the National Botanic Garden of Wales include Susyn Andrews, Consultant Horticultural Taxonomist; Professor Alistair Hetherington, Melville Wills Professor of Botany at Bristol University; and Professor David Mabberley, Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
      • Congratulations to both Professor Stephen Blackmore and Dr David Rae at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on being presented with the Scottish Horticultural Medal by the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society.
      • Alex Summers was declared the Young Horticulturist of the Year 2009 by the Institute of Horticulture. Alex is now a student on the Kew Diploma course. Both he and the two runners up James Hearsum and Faye Steer are recent graduates of the Certificate of Higher Education in Practical Horticulture and Plantsmanship at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
      • Peter Clough died in December 2008, after a long horticultural career. He had been Head Gardener at Achamore on the island of Gigha and then at Tresco Abbey Gardens, and then at Inverewe, for the National Trust for Scotland, in 1984-95.
      • Historic and Botanic Garden Bursary Scheme
      • Data on Historic and Botanic Gardens – request for feedback
      • Debating the Future of Botanic Gardens
      • Changing the World?
  • CONSERVATION
  • PESTS and DISEASES
  • NEWS
    • Great Plant Hunt Continues
    • The Brash Opens at Rosemoor
    • Breathing Places at Kew
    • 7th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens – Durban Botanic Garden
    • Open Air Laboratories network (OPAL)
    • OPAL East of England: orchard biodiversity
    • OPAL North East
    • New Leaf at the Station: Southwark’s community reparation scheme
    • Pioneering Plants at Tynemouth Station
    • Kew’s 250th Anniversary in 2009
    • Kenilworth Garden Restored
    • New Developments in the Lower Garden at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden
    • Taxonomy at a Crossroads
    • Plant Sciences in the UK
    • Aspidistra Species – can you help?
    • Cascade in a Rock Garden – can you help?
    • RHS Winter Hardiness Survey 2008-09 (Gardening in a changing world)
    • Cold Snap at Trebah
    • Bee Border at Cambridge Botanic Garden
    • Bees at Tregothnan
    • Bee Garden at Botanic Garden of Wales
    • Big Buzz at Kew
    • A New Buzz at Dyffryn Gardens
    • Save Our Bees
    • Plants Cheating Bees?
    • How Bees See Flower Colour
    • Bees in the UK
    • Wildflower Meadow At Kew
    • Gate Restored at Cambridge Botanic Garden
    • John Hope Gateway
    • New Boilers at Dundee Botanic Garden
    • New Alpine House at Harlow Carr
    • Desert House at Moorbank
    • Arid House at Winterbourne
    • Restoration of the Fernery at Benmore
    • New Sorbus Species and Hybrids
    • Updating the National Trust Plant Database
    • Palmer’s Leys at Harcourt Arboretum
    • Italian Gardens Expand at Trentham
    • Dr Who in Wales!
    • India Landscape at the British Museum
    • Savannah Habitat at Dublin Zoo
    • Vertical Plant Production at Paignton Zoo
    • Affordable and Flexible Plant Labels
    • Liverpool Botanical Collection
    • New Rhodos from Logan
    • International Year of Natural Fibres: 2009
    • Garden Photographer of the Year 2009
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • EXHIBITIONS & CONFERENCES
    • The Big Lunch
    • Dispersal
    • Insect Festival 2009
    • Garden and Cosmos
    • Highgrove Florilegium
    • Shirley Sherwood Gallery
    • Botanical Artists
    • Art & Memory
    • Power Plant
    • On Plants and Plantsmanship
    • Natural Fibres ’09
    • Meadows
    • The Wych Elm Project
    • Wild About Wood
    • Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a
    • Changing Planet 1969-2009
    • The Good Life
    • Insect Biodiversity and Conservation in Gardens
    • Ferns & Ferneries
    • Historic Orchards
    • Charles Darwin Bicentenary
  • Diary
    • Walled Kitchen Gardens Network
    • First International Lavender Conference
    • Plant Conservation for the Next Decade
    • Action Learning: places, spaces and partnerships for biodiversity and human well-being
    • 4th Global Botanic Gardens Congress