Newsletter Cylchlythyr

THE FRIENDS OF TREBORTH BOTANIC GARDEN

CYFEILLION GARDD FOTANEG TREBORTH

NEWSLETTER CYLCHLYTHYR

Number / Rhif 66 September/Medi 2019

Fig. 1. Cotoneaster cambricus seedlings germinated in 2018, and one cutting taken in 2018. [p. 8].

Fig. 2. Tom Parry with horticulturists from Chester Zoo, checking and clearing around the plants on the Great Orme. [p. 8].

COMMITTEE

Sarah Edgar ([email protected]) Chair Angela Thompson ([email protected]) Vice Chair, Joint Membership Sec Cath Dixon Treasurer Natalie Chivers ([email protected]) Curator Rosie Kressman ([email protected]) Horticulturist Cherry Bartlett ([email protected] Events Secretary Teri Shaw ([email protected]) Joint Membership Sec Dr John Gorham Committee Member Dr David Shaw Committee Member Tom Cockbill Committee Member Dr Ann Illsley Committee Member Dr James Stroud Committee Member Jen Towill Committee Member Katie Bolton / Maisie Biggs STAG Representatives

Newsletter Team

John Gorham (layout, photos) Angela Thompson (commissioning articles, planning, editing) email as above

Cover Photos:

Front: Death of a bamboo. Chusquea gigantea flowering at Treborth ©John Gorham Back: Volunteer Stuart Turtill planting a Prunus ’Tai Haku’ at Treborth.

Unless otherwise stated, all contributions to the newsletter are copyright of the author.

For more information about the Friends of Treborth Botanic Garden, please visit our website: www.friendsoftreborthbotanicgarden.org, or write to: The Chair, Friends of Treborth Botanic Garden, Treborth, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2RQ, UK.

NB The Garden now has a different telephone number: 01248 388877. The new number will ring to all the phones, including Rivendell (administrative building). Whoever answers can then transfer the call to another extension as appropriate.

Issue No. 66 September 2019

Contents

Chair’s Introduction, September 2019 3

News in Brief 4

Membership Renewal 5

Curator’s Report: May—August 2019 5

Conservation Propagation of Cotoneaster cambricus 8

Monocarpy—Going Out with a Bang 13

Forestry 15

Friends of Treborth and Welsh Historic Gardens Trust visit to Gardens of South Wales, 2 – 4 July 2019 17

A Giant’s Tale 20

Alaska 33

UN Assessment Report, May 2019: Human Activity threatens Nature’s Sustainability 42

The effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Bird Foraging and Vigilance 44

Wild Elements 47

The Rhizotron Taking Root 49

Intern Paul Golding 52

If possible, please access the online version of the Newsletter to save paper and printing costs, and tell Angela Thompson ([email protected]) that you do not require a printed copy.

Chair’s Introduction, September 2019

Sarah Edgar

This newsletter will give you a good picture of the variety of student projects that have been going on at Treborth over the last few months. Paul Golding has been mapping the woodland and Jessica Baggott did research for her MScRes earlier this year on the effects of noise on birds (this explains why a portable bird hide popped up periodically in the Garden!). Stewart Turtill has also written about his summer work at Treborth, and Sarah Ellis tells you about her busy year which has taken her to New Zealand as well as to Treborth. The state of the rhizotron has been the cause of some frustration and embarrassment to us at Treborth; this wonderful facility, dedicated to Malcolm Cherrett, who established it in the 1980s, has been falling into disrepair because of a lack of research being carried out there. But another intern, Claire Duncan, took it on herself to clear it and come up with a plan to make it more accessible to visitors and you can read about this in her article.

Members will have heard about Wild Elements, the social enterprise organisation that was set up by Bangor alumnus Tom Cockbill and is based at Treborth; Claudia Howard writes about the many projects they are involved with. Natalie Chivers up- dates you on other happenings at Treborth in her regular Curator’s report. Angela Thompson writes a thought-provoking article on sustainability and what we are trying to do at Treborth. She also reports on the enjoyable garden tour that the Friends un- dertook with the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust to South Wales in July, while John Gorham has travelled further afield and writes about his recent trip to Alaska – watch out for the bears!

We have plenty of good reading about specific plants as well. Adrian Bell explains about monocarpy as he ponders the fate of Treborth’s dying Chusquea bamboo. I am somewhat envious of Richard Birch’s success in growing Echium wildpretii in his garden on Anglesey - I can’t seem to get my Echium plants to do anything even in my greenhouse. But well done to him for successfully persevering with this stunning red beauty. Rosie Kressman is also persevering with the germination at Treborth of Coto- neaster cambricus and she writes about the conservation programme for this endangered plant.

Finally, I would like to report sadly on the death of Gaenor Price. I first met her in 2014 when a group was set up at Treborth to look into the Victorian history of the site. She was member of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust and she enthusiastically and meticulously researched the history of the proposed Britannia Park development (on the land that is now the botanic garden) that was started and then abandoned in the 1850s. She went to the National Library of Wales, Chatsworth (to see the Paxton archives) and the National Archive at Kew to make sure that every possible avenue of

research had been explored. The results of that research appeared in Newsletter no. 57, September 2016. She was a great character, kind and funny and enjoyed coming on our garden tours - but insisted on eschewing the boring accommodation of our hotel and found a local campsite instead!

News in Brief

Colour Photos in the Newsletter and Online

For each issue of the newsletter, we ask contributors to send in photos to illustrate their articles. These should be of the highest possible quality (at least 1 Mb). We usually receive far more colour ones than we can use due to cost constraints. It’s very hard to decide which ones make it to print; some can be converted to black and white and this does not involve any extra expense. This time, however, due to the large quantity of quality images received, we have bought another page of colour printing. So, in the centre of the newsletter, there’s double the colour for your enhanced enjoyment.

We are also aware that due to the small size of the reproduced images, they can lose clarity and quality. From now on, starting with this issue, we are going to put the newsletter images online on our website, www.friendsoftreborthbotanicgarden.org, under Newsletters, along with all the others we didn’t have space for and couldn’t fit in. We hope this will greatly im- prove your experience of our membership services. Please tell us if you like the change!

Donations

We are very grateful for a donation recently made by Bridget Hogge.

New telephone number for the Garden

Following the completion of work by the university’s Information Services, the Gar- den is now connected to the rest of the network. Consequently, the staff have a new phone number – 01248 388877. This number will ring to all the phones, including Rivendell (administrative building). Whoever answers can then transfer the call to another extension as appropriate.

Membership Renewal

Teri Shaw and Angela Thompson

It’s that time of year again when we’re after your money! Those of you who pay your subscription by cash or cheque, and who are due to renew soon, will be getting a letter and renewal from us by email or in the post. As you already appreciate, the Garden at Treborth needs constant attention - tending collections, propagation and maintenance work goes on all the time. Volunteers undertake much of this, but they need tools and other materials to carry out their tasks. The Friends are de- pendent upon your membership contributions to provide a steady income to im- prove the Garden and facilities. When you receive your renewal form, please complete it and and return it to us with your cash or cheque, ensuring that you do so at the new rates: Type of membership Full price Concession Adult £15 £10 Family/two adults £20 £15 Alternatively, you may like to complete the standing order form on the back so that you can ignore our reminder next year! We don’t define the concessionary rate – we leave it up to you to decide as we would not want anyone to feel discouraged from joining because of finances. Welsh and English forms can also be printed from our website www.friendsoftreborthbotanicgarden.org.

Curator’s Report: May – August 2019

Natalie Chivers

What a busy few months we’ve had! I’m typing on a brand-new computer that has been formally connected to the University’s IT network, and I am happy to report that I haven’t had to restart the computer, pull out a cable and re-plug it or run down the corridor and restart the internet hub! This is a monumental step-forward for Treborth. The Garden now benefits from a practical connection that allows usto share information, keep our data safe and operate new software for our plant records database and mapping of garden borders, but this is also a symbolic linkage to the University who have invested in the Garden in order to ensure we have the same benefits as the rest of the campus. The IT services department have worked hard to

provide the Friends with a group login for full access to the network, as well as connections for the visiting public and organised groups.

When I was writing my last report, the Garden was preparing for the May plant sale which was a huge success and raised almost £3,500. We had the usual edible suspects flying off the benches and being whizzed off to cars in wheelbar- rows, a fantastic array of house plants, cacti and succulents, a polytunnel stuffed full of gorgeous perennials and an exciting display of new carnivorous plants for sale. And all that before I have even mentioned the cakes in the lab! This year we wanted to use the plant sale to address some of our plastic use at Treborth. The horticultural industry is swimming in plastic; pots, of course, are an obvious culprit but so are labels, netting, hoses, compost bags, even propagation tools such as dib- bers and bottles of feed. The RHS recently stated that British gardeners go through 500 million new plastic pots a year, of which two thirds are never recycled. Here is where we could start to make a difference. We set up a ‘pot-swapping station’ in the car park to encourage punters to swap their newly purchased plants from their plastic pots to 100% compostable cups and leave the plastic pots with us so we could reuse them. The response was heart-warming. Dozens of people queued up to swap their pots, much to my Dad’s surprise who was quietly sipping coffee beside me selling the odd bag of compost and was abruptly asked to put the coffee down and get swapping! The industry has a long way to go but we will continue to make a conscious effort to reduce our horticultural plastic at Treborth and Dad`s returning to assist with more `pot swaps` at the September plant sale! Please let us know if you have any plastic-reducing ideas for the garden.

No sooner had the May sale ended, I was busy packing for my week away at the Chelsea Flower Show. It was my 5th time at the show and held all the magic I expected. I was part of the planting design team for the Montessori St Nicholas Garden: a garden to commemorate the centenary year of the charity, child-led yet future driven, offering an engaging space to nurture children, teaching them about the natural world alongside future technology. The garden featured a 10 ft edible living wall, dipping ponds and a cut flower garden where the children could pick flowers to make potions. It also housed a sunken greenhouse for more tender plants and a secret den under the bright pink shipping container classroom. Need- less to say, we played while we worked! This year’s garden was particularly poign- ant as over the last year Treborth and our partner organisation Wild Elements have been working very closely with local schools. We are now even more driven to get local school children excited about gardens, growing things and looking after their outside space whilst enjoying being outside.

Speaking of Wild Elements, they have transformed the garden in Rivendell this year into a haven for learning. The team have installed a new poly tunnel, a

variety of raised beds at different heights for increased accessibility and have a wood processing area and all-weather working area planned. We have loved working with them on the Talent Opportunities Programme again this summer, and our latest collaboration with the National Botanic Garden of Wales, `Growing the Fu- ture`.

Growing the Future is a five-year project to champion Welsh horticulture, plants for pollinators, the protection of wildlife and the virtues of growing plants for food, fun, health and well-being. Treborth has been invited to be a partner site to provide a variety of courses and events for the North Wales community to get involved and learn a new skill. We have thoroughly enjoyed hosting botanical workshops including ‘Getting to Know Plants’, ‘Miniature Forests’, workshops for health, ‘Gardening for Physical and Mental Wellbeing’ as well as cultural uses of plants in ‘Natural Dyeing’ and ‘Home Preserves’. As in any new project, there have been learning opportunities and we hope to be able to continue these workshops annually and engage with the local community.

Community spirit was bursting from the Garden at our annual festival Draig Beats this June. After a spectacular first year, the festival planning committee was nervous about pulling it off again. However, we needn’t have been. Our volunteer- ing list kept growing as the festival drew nearer and we had a phenomenal number of volunteers helping to raise structures, cook food, decorate the Garden and set up the music stages. Despite some heavy rain during the few days leading up to the day (and on the morning itself!), the team thoroughly succeeded in putting on a fantastic show, full of dancing, woodland crafts, yoga, drumming, mud-pies, wood- turning, piano playing and a giant aerial parrot and fire display to lead everyone home. Sophie Williams is the heart of this festival and she was here again this year, enjoying the music with her family and friends who all came out in force to dance in the rain like true north Walians.

Some of our event volunteers were also our hard-working students who were at Treborth this summer as part of the Bangor Employability Award. Rosean- na, John and Sarah worked tirelessly for the festival alongside their horticultural internships, helping to map new areas of the garden, planting new specimen trees, keeping the woodland invasives at bay and learning propagation and repotting skills.

Working with students is bittersweet. We are lucky to have such a fantastic and dedicated student group at Treborth who we get to know professionally and personally, but eventually we have to say goodbye. This summer was particularly difficult as a large cohort of STAG students graduated from Bangor, after spending a great deal of their time supporting Treborth. But what is comforting to know is that they all have exciting plans and they have left a passionate and determined legacy in their new committee. 7

The summer didn’t seem to be done with its community message. On a Fri- day afternoon back in May I was pottering around my office finishing up for the day, stepping back and forth over a snoozing dog when two friendly faces popped their heads around my door. The first thing they said was, ‘I’m sorry you don’t know us, but we are in love with Treborth!’. Tamsin and John Evans are organisers of the International Peace Run. It is a global torch relay that embodies humanity's univer- sal aspiration for peace. Since 1987, the Run has traversed over 150 nations and territories and touched the lives of millions of people. The Garden was invited not only to host the runners as they made their way up from the National Botanic Gar- den in South Wales but to be a permanent Peace Run venue and gifted a bronze peace statue. Another statue has been installed in Llanberis beside Llyn Padarn, and people are encouraged to run, walk or cycle between each one.

I was delighted that they wanted the garden to be a part of this special organisation and we spent the next few months organising the statue to be installed, a new bench and an interpretation board to explain the Peace Run to visitors, invite them to hold the torch and make their own private wish for peace.

We chose the coast path as the location for the statue. Our Treborth community has worked incredibly hard to make the woodland a welcoming and inviting place to spend time. We interact with lots of groups on the path from dog walkers to ramblers, horse riders and orienteering parties. We chat with the grounds team who help us ensure the trees are safe and we take student groups to learn about coppicing and invasive species removal. We explore the ground for fungi and build dens in the forest school, so it seemed like the perfect place to provide a space to sit, contemplate and appreciate our community. Next time you’re visiting, please do go and visit the statue. In the meantime, as always…

Happy gardening!

Conservation Propagation of Cotoneaster cambricus

Rosie Kressman

One of the jewels in the crown of our collections at the Botanic Garden sprawls across the top of the rock garden, a plant only an enthusiast could love, with straggly, bare stems, sparse foliage and a form which is best described as ‘messy’: Coto- neaster cambricus (Creigafal y Gogarth - Gogarth Rock Apple). Such an ugly speci-

men is a prime candidate for grubbing out for the bonfire, surely? I’m notoriously intolerant of rubbishy plants, but for the record I am selective as to what I inciner- ate.

The root of the problem

Looking back through time, our avaricious Victorian predecessors felt very differently from me about the aesthetic appeal of this species. In its only native habitat - the Great Orme, Llandudno - it is a lot more compact and less straggly- looking, and plant collectors were enchanted by its fuzzy, greyish leaves and dazz- lingly bright red fruits. Unfortunately, this appeal led to its demise, and over- collection of endemic Cotoneaster cambricus - once widespread on the Great Orme - resulted in its status today as Critically Endangered (IUCN, 2019). Just six original plants now survive on the Great Orme; these have been supplemented with culti- vated plants, bringing the total to around 80 plants in situ. These plants are not regenerating naturally. Grazing by animals causes a reduction in size and flowering of mature plants, and prevents the establishment of any seedlings (Pidcock, S. 2013). Further specimens exist in ex situ locations (including our own two enormous plants) providing a ‘back-up’ population.

A rose by any other name

I feel that I should mention that there has been considerable debate about C. cambricus, (including during at least one lunchtime here at TBG), as it was long believed by some taxonomists to be the widespread eastern European C. integerri- mus, no doubt causing much arguing over hand lenses and field guides. However, genetic studies undertaken by RBG Kew concluded that although similar to C. inte- gerrimus, C. cambricus is indeed a distinct species, and in fact has the accolade of being the UK’s only native Cotoneaster (Pidcock, S. 2013).

Treborth’s specimens

The table below, from Treborth Botanic Garden’s plant collections database, contains the entire information I’ve been able to find to date about our own magnificent specimens (thanks to Nigel Brown, former Curator TBG, for providing this).

Acces- Notes sion number

496 The older of the two specimens. 'Collected' by Len Beer from the Happy Valley area of the Great Orme in early 1970s when there first was an interest in propagating this taxon for conservation purposes. Len Beer planted it out in the Garden but it struggled. After Nigel Brown took over, he dug it up and potted it to ensure its survival. It remained potted for a good few years and then was later planted out on the rock garden, probably about the mid-1980s. 4326 The younger of the two specimens. The origin of its parent is the Great Orme and is one of the remaining native plants. It was germinated from seed at Ness Botanic Garden who shared some of their successes in the 1980s with TBG. This specimen was originally given the same accession number as the older specimen (496). It was allocated a separate Acc. No. in July 2019 as the plant is from a different source and donor.

Table 1: Treborth Botanic Garden plant collections database entry for Cotoneaster cambricus (Brown, N. 2019).

Conservation partnership

Treborth Botanic Garden is involved in a partnership with the Botanical Soci- ety of Britain and Ireland, Chester Zoo, Conwy County Borough Council, National Botanic Garden of Wales, and Natural Resources Wales, which aims to increase the numbers of C. cambricus on the Great Orme to 200.

In June 2019, the Treborth crew (Natalie, interns Sarah Ellis, Stewart Turtill and Roseanna Hunt, and I) headed out into the mizzle and ascended the Great Or- me to join Sally Pidcock from Conwy Council, Tom Parry (local resident and propagator of many C. cambricus progeny), Caernarfonshire County Recorder Wendy McCarthy, Robbie Blackhall-Miles of Fossil Plants, and Richard Hewitt and his col- leagues from Chester Zoo. We meandered our way through flower-rich pasture, stopping every few metres to squint/sniff at a variety of gorgeous blooms, such as Helianthemum nummularium, which was carpeting the slopes, and a solitary spike

of Gymnadenia conopsea (the Fragrant Orchid – which really does what it says on the label!) Our goal was to plant out two luscious specimens which were produced by Richard Hewitt and his nursery team at Chester Zoo. Much to my annoyance, these healthy, vigorous looking specimens germinated at the same time as my own first batch – but mine are just a couple of inches tall and seem reluctant to continue to grow, while Richard’s are so lovely I could go all Victorian over them. As we searched for a suitable planting spot for the new arrivals, we were able to see the existing population. This consisted of squat, bonsai-looking plants, which had been miniaturised by the attentions of goats and rabbits. C. cambricus is notoriously hard to germinate (my first year’s efforts yielded just under 4% germination, the subsequent year’s outcome is looking to be around 0.6%, and establishment of the seedlings is a struggle) but the primary problem in situ is clearly that the flowers and any surviving fruits are being grazed off before there is any chance of seed maturing and germinating. Our huge plants at the Botanic Garden flower and fruit prolifically in their luxurious deep soil, but we are infested with rabbits (the rock garden being one of their favourite dining spots), so although the plants are so large that many of their flowers are raised up to around a metre from the ground, allowing them to produce abundant fruit, I suspect that any seedlings which may manage to germinate in the vicinity are soon massacred by the furry pests. Natalie and I can fence off our plants in future to see if this helps but protecting plants with fencing on the Orme is not a realistic option for Sally. This would be unmanageable within the council’s current management methods and their limited resources, but Sally per- sists in harvesting the few berries which survive on the Orme plants, and distributes them amongst members of the partnership to propagate under nursery conditions. She and her allies have done a remarkable job to date, and the more I try to force this ungrateful species to germinate and establish, the more I admire their success.

The future

Here at TBG, we strongly believe that the best way to protect a plant is to share it. In 2018, I gave seed from our C. cambricus to NBGW, Chester Zoo and RBG Kew, and sent home Carly Green, propagator from NBGW, with several our reluctant seedlings. Earlier this year, I received an email from the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place, who are keen to obtain a large quantity of ‘pure’ seed from C. cambricus. One of the considerations with this species is hybridisation, because although it has long been thought to be solely apomictic (reproducing asexually, without fertilization), propagators agree that it can also reproduce sexually, therefore allowing it not only to reproduce with its own species, but to hybridise with other compatible Cotoneaster species. This has been in my mind whilst I’ve been working on germinating seeds from our plants at TBG, as there is no shortage of other Cotoneaster species in the vicinity, and personally I don’t have enough experi-

ence with the species to recognise its natural variations. Therefore, this year I have attempted controlled pollination of our plants to ensure that the seed is the genu- ine article. Lack of genetic diversity will be a problem with this method, as with taking cuttings from our plants. Even if we are able to cross-pollinate plants within the current population, it is such a small gene pool that genetic diversity would be negligible. Ironically, this may be one reason that this species has such a poor rate of germination, so arguably hybridisation could actually be its best chance of survival as part of its evolutionary journey. I find that this species raises many questions that I just can’t answer, but by both banking seeds and producing seedlings for in situ and ex situ conservation, we can at least preserve living material for further research and conservation. In my mind at least, the path we choose for this plant and its genes to take is not yet clearly defined.

Throughout my efforts to find the best technique for germinating this species I’ve found remarkably little published information. Common sense told me that scarification and stratification would be a good starting point, which was borne out in the results of my initial trials, though they still didn’t yield incredible success rates. Treatments with gibberellic acid, hydrogen peroxide and the addition of lime don’t seem to have been successful so far, though I will retain the pots in case they take years to germinate. Local botanist Robbie Blackhall-Miles has been generous in sharing his expertise with me to conduct these trials together, and we plan to work together with the other partners to create a germination protocol, which we hope will be another means of aiding the survival of this rare endemic. We feel that information sharing is a critical part of this plant’s future, and the partnership has enabled this to happen.

At this stage I can only say that Cotoneaster cambricus seems to be a species which resists propagation with remarkable determination, but I’ve learned to love (well, like at least) this frustrating, ugly plant, and I am glad to be part of the partnership supporting its survival, whatever form that may take.

References iucnredlist.org (2019). Great Orme Berry. [online] Available at: https://www.iucnredlist.org/ species/102827479/102827485 [Accessed 28th July 2019].

Pidcock, S. (2013). Species Action Plan Wild Cotoneaster. [online] Available at: https:// web.archive.org/web/20070927064747/http://www.conwy.gov.uk/upload/public/ attachments/48/WildCotoneasterv2.pdf

Brown, N. (2019). Cotoneaster cambricus. Treborth Botanic Garden plant collections database. Available by request at Curator’s discretion. [Accessed 28th July 2019].

Monocarpy – Going out with a Bang!

Adrian Bell

Monocarpic plants are perennials that grow vegetatively for a number of years before turning off leaf development and switching on flower and fruit production, after which the plant dies. A magnificent example is the Talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera) which grows relentlessly for up to 75 years producing scores of enormous but temporary leaves each over 5m in length. Then hundreds of buds form at the top of the trunk producing a massive multibranched inflorescence and thousands of fruits, after which the whole structure dies.

Many species of bamboo are monocarpic, including Chusquea gigantea (also known as C. breviglumis), the large bamboo in the lawn at Treborth. This plant was obtained from a nursery as an offshoot of a stock plant about 20-odd years ago. It is flowering and will then die. And this is where things become curious. All the stock plants in nurseries are behaving the same everywhere, including that of a supplier in the Netherlands. The specimen plant at RHS Wisley is flowering and will die. We have several clumps in our garden near Menai Bridge - all now flowering. The original one was bought 20 years ago from a different source from the one at Treborth. Others are young cuttings and two are organically less than five years old – only a metre tall but also flowering.

But that’s not all. Hopefully many of these Chusqueas will shed viable seeds (technically fruits, as it is a grass) and new clumps develop. These new individuals, collectively known as a cohort - all born at the same time - will grow vegetatively for the same number of years as their parents and then flower and die. The species flowers gregariously and it doesn’t matter if a clump has been split up in the meantime to form a clone and the bits spread to different countries and climates. Different species have different set time intervals between flowering, mostly in the order of tens of years as with our Chusquea, but as short as three years in the Java species splendidly named Schizostachyum elegantissimum. However, at the other extreme is the gigantic 25m Chinese Phyllostachys bambusoides. Ancient records in China, and later in Japan to where specimens were moved, and records later still in Europe, indicate that all clumps flowered and died gregariously in 919, 1114, around 1720, again in 1844-1847, and lastly in the 1960s. So, members of the present cohort everywhere are due to die, wait for it, in 2080.

Extensive stands of bamboo are indispensable to local rural communities in South America and particularly Asia. Bamboo provides the building material for whole villages, firewood, edible new shoots, and is utilised for a myriad of everyday items – cups, spoons, weapons, musical instruments—the list is endless. So if the

local dependable bamboo dies it’s a major disaster. Hopefully some seeds are going to survive, and new clumps become established, but it’s going to take years before mature usable material is available again. That’s a chronic problem. The acute effect can be far worse. Millions of edible seeds are piling up sometimes inches deep in the dying groves and the wildlife is moving in from afar to benefit - elephants, deer, wild pigs, primates, jungle fowl, mice, and rats, especially rats. Eventually the supply becomes exhausted, but the happy rats have been breeding like, well, rats. They search en masse for alternative food and invade the villages for anything edible which includes food and grain stores and crops in the fields. In the 1950s the gregarious flowering of Melocanna baccifera in Mezorum, India, which happens every 48 years, led to such a famine that people in desperation called for outside help which was ignored and led to armed conflict with the government that lasted 20 years.

So why such precise synchronised flowering intervals of these monocarpic plants? And how is it controlled? If a large number of plants are all approaching flowering age in a particular habitat, some will flower sooner than others and their highly nutritious seeds have little chance of survival. As more and more individuals flower there is more chance of avoiding predation. But then fewer and fewer clumps remain to flower whilst more and more animals arrive. So, the stragglers have little chance. This will be repeated in subsequent generations so individuals with a genetic tendency to flower sooner or later than average will not leave progeny. Over time the flowering window of the population as a whole becomes narrower and narrower and eventually synchronised. But how do all the plants of a new cohort know how old they are even when scattered around the world artificially? And how do all the bits of a single clump dug up at different times know? Somehow, every time cells divide, they pass on information of the length of their ancestry such that eventually the current cells ‘know’ their generation has reached 48 years or whatever. Perhaps some component has a ‘half-life’ reducing annually until a bottom threshold is reached and turns on the reproductive genes. It’s still a puzzle.

Back to reality. What to do with Treborth’s dying Chusquea clump? The canes are very useful in the Garden but unusually for bamboos, they are solid and tend to rot sooner than hollow ones. They seem to last longer if harvested live rather than just removed as old dead ones. However, there is as much or more plant underground where there is a massive cat’s cradle of very tough woody rhizomes probably up to two feet deep in my experience. It will rot in time. Excavating it would require either a mechanical digger which would wreck the lawn, or an army of volunteers with pickaxes, saws, and crowbars. It would be easier just to hack out a smallish hole in the centre, fill it with compost and plant a distinctive tree. How about a Monkey Puzzle?

Forestry

Sarah Ellis

To those of you that I haven’t had the chance to meet yet, my name is Sarah Ellis and I am about to start my fourth year of my MFor Forestry degree at Bangor Uni- versity. I have just finished a very busy course year in which we studied how to produce a management plan, for which I planned a diverse woodland designed around community engagement and educational opportunities. This module com- plimented other subjects such as Advanced Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and forest ecology. In this academic year of 2018/19, I was President of the Bangor Forestry Students Association (BFSA), where we as a society came to Treborth and other various sites around north Wales to volunteer on workdays. The BFSA also hosted the Northern European Retinol Meeting (NERM) for 25 international students where we showcased north Wales for seven days taking them to various forests and landmarks in and around the Snowdonia National Park. During December and January, I travelled around New Zealand to learn about its diverse landscape and speak to professionals from the department of conservation and Scion Forest Research about management across the islands. I also visited the memorial plaque for Mary Sutherland, who studied at Bangor and was possibly the first female in the world to graduate in forestry in 1916 (see article on Mary Sutherland below).

While at Bangor, my involvement with Treborth Botanical Garden has provided me with opportunities to develop myself as a person as well as my skills and wellbeing. The Garden is a phenomenally beautiful place where you have the opportunity to learn about a variety of flora, fauna and mycorrhiza species from all over the world, as well as how to manage them for ornamental and conservational purposes. Treborth has helped me to further my passion for working and conserv- ing a variety of ecosystems and developing my knowledge of management tech- niques. Treborth is a hidden gem of Bangor University in which I have been lucky enough to see some amazing transformations over the past 3 years I have been here, and it is a fascinating and engaging place which I would love to see continually growing as it is a true asset to the University.

During my time here at the garden, I have contributed in largely transform- ing the arboretum with help along the way from Pat, Jake, Claire, Kerry, Mary, Mark, Rosie, Natalie, Stewart and Paul. The arboretum is an ongoing project which, like the lawn, requires yearly management to control weeds, grasses and invasive species. This maximises the potential for the growth of newly-planted trees and encourages a greater diversity of understory species. It also enhances public access, engagement and education. I have become increasingly more involved with other aspects of the Garden, such as re-potting and planting out specimen trees, reorgan- ising the cool house, and creating a mini arboretum in the court between the tropi-

cal and orchid houses for siting and displaying temporarily potted trees, and helping out across other parts of the site.

The following information is taken from an article in Chartered Forester, the quarterly magazine of the Institute of Chartered Foresters, and reproduced here with permission

Pioneering Forester Mary Sutherland is Still an Inspiration in the 21st Century

Mary Sutherland studied at the University College of North Wales in Bangor from 1912 to 1916 and subsequently joined the newly created Forestry Commission. But her career stalled when her job as an Assistant Experimental Officer was axed and in 1921, she moved to New Zealand to work for the newly created State Forest Service. But in New Zealand she struggled in a man's world. Mary's botanical knowledge and professionalism were acknowledged, but, unable to share a tent with male staff, she was seldom sent out into the field.

In 1928 she became a chartered member of the New Zealand Institute of For- esters and was elected a fellow of the Society of Foresters of Great Britain. She visited forests in Britain, Denmark, Norway, Canada and the United States to encourage farmers to rethink old attitudes. But on a field trip to Central Otago in New Zealand in March 1954, Mary became ill with a kidney condition, which abruptly ended her working career and directly contributed to her death a year later. A Sequoia semper- virens was planted in Mary's memory in Whakarewarewa Forest where a number of well-marked and well-trodden paths weave through the trees to a plaque commemo- rating her work.

Student member Sarah Ellis, a third-year undergraduate at Bangor University and current President of the Bangor Forestry Students' Association, visited New Zea- land in December and January to see how landscapes are managed and visited Mary’s memorial plaque. "Mary Sutherland has been an inspiration to me. She didn't let her gender stop her from pursuing her passion and enhancing her knowledge in the forestry sector despite being the only female in her class and career," said Sarah.

"There are still more men than women studying forestry at Bangor University. I feel this is possibly due to the educational system in schools not providing enough awareness of the career possibilities in forestry, conservation and land management. Mary Sutherland’s journey has helped inspire me to take a chance on the unknown, pursue knowledge that will pave a better path for the future and optimise opportunities that present themselves no matter what country they might be in.

"I decided to visit New Zealand because I wanted to see the beauty, opportunities and potential that Mary Sutherland must have seen when she arrived."

Friends of Treborth and Welsh Historic Gardens Trust visit to Gardens of South Wales, 2 – 4 July 2019

Angela Thompson (with thanks to Pat Denne, Sarah Edgar and Olive Horsfall)

Hoping for continued good weather (although not quite so hot as the previous week!), thirty-plus people across both groups piled on to the coach for our journey south early on the Tuesday morning. The trip was arranged by Olive Horsfall (WHGT) and Sarah Edgar (FTGB), and, as usual, a good selection of gardens awaited us. Sun hats and sensible shoes were de rigueur and by now, as most of the pas- sengers were seasoned returners to this annual event, some waterproofs were brought along, just in case…

We arrived at Aberglasney Gardens, at Llangathen, Carmarthenshire, in time for lunch, and then explored the grounds and the Mansion (which contains the Nin- farium, an indoor sub-tropical garden, built in the ruins of an inner courtyard). We were taken on a tour of the Gardens by the head gardener, who pointed out many interesting features which included the famous yew tunnel, thought to have been planted in the eighteenth century, and the two stunning walled gardens. One walled garden was the kitchen garden and was planted up in interesting angles, and the layout of the other garden was in concentric ovals with the planting designed by Penelope Hobhouse and which featured, when we were there, some wonderful towering flowers such as thalictrums and delphiniums. The estate has a long and chequered history maybe dating back to the 14th century. There is a medieval gatehouse and what is thought to be a unique Elizabethan cloister bounded on three sides by an arcaded stone walkway. The house and gardens were bought by the Aberglasney Restoration Trust in 1995, when uninhabited and on the brink of collapse, due to neglect and vandalism. It was soon realised that there were similar problems throughout Wales, which led to the formation of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, whose administrative centre is still based at Aberglasney. Thanks to individual donors, charitable donations and grants a tremendous amount of work was done in a very short time and Aberglasney opened to the public in July 1999. Restoration work has been on-going since and today the garden is one of the finest in Wales and regarded as a plantsman's paradise. The large pool, the stream garden and the woodland walks contrast with the strict formality of the gardens nearer the mansion.

Wednesday, another fine day, and in the morning, we were off to Cowbridge Physic Garden in the Vale of Glamorgan. There, we were greeted by Jane Reader (WHGT) who gave us an introduction to it. Jane has been instrumental in recre- ating, in the walled garden that was once part of Cowbridge Old Hall, this small fascinating garden. It contains a glorious collection of medicinal plants and herbs, laid

out in small formal traditional plots around a central fountain. Each plot is devoted to plants that are attributed to help particular parts of the human body – the eyes, kidneys, nerves, lungs, for example. There is also a border of dye plants and another of fragrant plants. Initially the inspiration of the South and Mid Glamorgan branch of WHGT the garden is now the responsibility of the Cowbridge Physic Gar- den Trust, and their volunteers maintain the plant beds to an exceptionally high standard.

In the afternoon, we visited the National Trust’s Dyffryn Gardens at St Nicho- las in the Vale of Glamorgan. This is a huge estate, quite different from the human- scale physic garden of a few hours earlier. We were given a tour from Gerry Do- novan, the General Manager of this popular NT property. We saw the newly restored pool and fountain which completes the wonderful view from the house down the garden, and the series of small, but very diverse, garden rooms (including the Pompeian Garden, a popular location site for films and television programmes!). We were also treated to a behind the scenes tour of the propagating area and were fascinated to see the twenty or so full-grown yew trees waiting to be planted out to replace the original, but now very misshapen, yew trees on the south lawn. Gerry also explained the ongoing project to redevelop the north front of the estate to open up the vistas that would have been part of the original setting of the house. The history of Dyffryn can be traced back to the 7th Century when the house was given to Bishop Oudaceous of Llandaff. Various families across the cen- turies have owned the estate and the present house was built in 1893 by John Cory. His son, a passionate horticulturist, collaborated with Thomas Mawson on the garden design. The estate eventually passed to the then Glamorgan County Council and the house and gardens are now managed by the National Trust. Dyffryn is a Grade I listed garden featuring a stunning collection of intimate garden rooms, formal lawns (the Great Lawn contains the obligatory ‘canal’ leading to a stunning collection of water lilies at the far end), seasonal bedding and many more themed areas. The extensive arboretum contains some impressive champion trees with brilliant Acer foliage in the autumn.

The last day of our tour, and more fine weather. In the morning we visited High Glanau Manor at Lydart, a lovely Arts and Crafts house snuggled into a wooded hillside above Monmouth. Pat Denne writes:

We were greeted with warm hospitality by the owners Helena and Hilary Gerrish with delicious home-baked cakes and an introductory talk in the beautifully panelled and book-lined rooms of this important Arts and Crafts house. It was built in the early 1920’s by Avray Tipping (an Editor of Coun- try Life), who designed the house and garden together specifically to inte- grate the house into its landscape. From the front rooms there is a spec-

tacular vista westward through formal terraces and ponds across the Vale of Usk to the Brecon Beacons, and from the side rooms a more intimate view along magnificent herbaceous borders to the pergola. Beyond that is the kitchen garden, where a long series of square raised beds stepped down a steep slope, and an orchard where each tree is surrounded by wild- flowers. After Avray Tipping died in 1933, the grounds were considerably modified by a series of owners. But when the present ones took over in 2000, they fortunately found the original garden design, together with old photographs, so were able to restore it to its original splendour. Though rooted in the past, it does not seem dated or fossilised, and there is a delightful feel- ing of informality and tranquillity about High Glanau.

I must admit that this was, for me, the loveliest garden of the tour. The desk in Tipping’s study is placed in front of the window aligned with the grass path between stunning herbaceous borders, and I’m sure, if I had worked there, I would never have written a word, being constantly distracted by the beautiful views over the changing seasons and dreaming up new plantings.

Our last visit was to Stockton Bury Gardens near Leominster, Herefordshire. The 4-acre garden was originally one of the Bury farms of the Benedictine Priory in Leominster. The 15th century dovecote and medieval barns remain important land- mark features. Mature planting and clever plant combinations compliment the medieval farm buildings and countryside setting with a neighbouring cider orchard. There is a water garden, formal borders and island beds and many rare and unusual plants, and a garden museum with a Roman hoard. The original Victorian kitchen garden and impressive monkey puzzle tree are still very much part of the new garden. Now 30 years old, the garden is home to mature plantings and offers keen gardeners plenty of inspiration. New to the garden this year is the ‘Pavilion’, a wonderful place to sit and enjoy views of the countryside. The area has a very fertile clay soil so many plants exceed expectations in the ideal growing environment. The planting around the rill and pond is especially effective, and a bit further on, there’s the hidden folly grotto. A final interesting point – the gardens stock a range of composts made by a Cumbrian firm that replaces peat with wool and bracken. As these are sustainable renewable resources, this is clearly a step forward, but I offer no personal recommendations.

We returned home late on the Wednesday afternoon, weary and hot, but very pleased to have visited a wonderful collection of distinctive gardens, thanks to Sarah and Olive, and shared good company. Of course, the coach on its way back to Pwllheli, was considerably lighter, having been relieved of its massive weight of plants purchased en route. We just can’t ignore the lure of so many fine plants beg-

ging to be bought, but I’m sure a few of us were wondering where in our gardens we’d manage to squeeze in yet another irresistible bargain…

Fig. 3. View from the desk in Avray Tipping’s study, High Glanau Manor. [p 17].

A Giant’s Tale

Richard Birch

‘She’s grown a good deal’ was Alice’s first remark. ‘It’s the fresh air that does it’, said the Rose; ‘Wonderful air it is, out here’. (from ‘Through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll)

Even in death, there is something awesome about Echium wildpretii: the Red Viper’s Bugloss, or Tajinaste rojo, as it is known in Spanish. In March, on the rocky slopes of the Caňadas del Teide, Tenerife, the ghostly spires, as tall as a man, stand like skeletal sentinels above the spiky grey masses of the next season’s rosettes.

By mid-May, the rosettes abandon their ‘Addams-Family-Cousin-Itt’ guise and erupt into towering columns of brilliant scarlet. The effect is stunning and prehistoric: flowers from another time. Anyone who sees them will want to grow this extraordinary plant.

Fig. 4. Cousin Itt from the Adams Family, which Echium wildpretii resembles. [p. 20].

Ah – and that’s the rub. The reason you do not see it adorning every garden is that it is notoriously difficult to bring through our winters to a decent flowering size.

Echium wildpretii is a monocarpic biennial, which means it puts out masses of leafy growth in the first year (hence the ‘Cousin Itt’ metaphor) and flowers in the second, after which it dies. In cultivation, it cannot be constrained in a pot: it would need to be absolutely huge to allow the full root run and copious rapid expansion that takes place over a single season. But neither is it safe in the open ground. On Mount Teide (Tenerife), the highest mountain in Spain (which is, geographically, actually in sub-Saharan Africa) it withstands sub-zero temperatures and freezing winds in winter, and high-intensity sun in summer. In Wales, we generally supply the inverse of those conditions. Hence it may grow well in its first summer, especially given the shelter of greenhouse or conservatory, but inevitably succumbing to soggy, mild winters. I have tried it dozens of times, but never yet managed to get it through that crucial winter period.

The winter of 2018/19 was cool and relatively dry, affording the best opportunity to grow Echium wildpretii outside that we’ve had in years. Even so, elaborate precautions were implemented to safeguard the investment. Seed sown in January 2018 was pot-bound in a 20-litre pot by August, and three plants were transferred into the open ground. The ‘three-plant rule’ is essential with such a statuesque plant; it just looks odd and freaky growing by itself, so plenty of space is necessary. That’s a premium in a small garden, and in this instance, I was forced to plant closer than would be recommended, resulting in smaller plants than one might see in the wild. 21

Fig. 5. Mini-greenhouse around Echium plants [p. 20].

Fig. 6. Mini-greenhouse minus glazing. [p. 20].

Fig. 7. Aberglasney Gardens, Carmarthenshire. [p. 17].

Fig. 8. The Tour Party at High Glanau Manor in Monmouthshire . [p. 17].

Fig. 9. Herbal treatments for heart and blood at Cowbridge Physic Garden, Vale of Glamorgan. [p. 17].

Fig. 10. Ornamental Fountain at Cowbridge Physic Garden, Vale of Glamorgan [p. 17].

Fig. 11. Dyffryn Gardens (NT), Vale of Glamorgan. [p. 17].

Fig. 12. High Glanau Manor in Monmouthshire . [p. 17].

Fig. 13. Alaskan bluebells, Mertensia paniculata, in Denali National Park. [p. 33]

Fig. 14. Chocolate Lily (Fritillaria camschatcensis) in Ninilchik, Alaska. [p. 33].

Fig. 15. Coralroot (Corallorhiza trifida) on the Root Glacier Trail, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. [p. 33].

Fig. 16. Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in Valdez, Alaska. [p. 33].

Fig. 17. Black bear (Ursus americanus) on the Root Glacier trail, Wrangell—St. Elias National Park, Alaska. [p. 33].

Fig. 18. Grizzly (brown) bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) in Katmai National Park, Alaska. [p. 33].

Fig. 19. Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) in the salt marsh at the base of Homer Spit, Alsaka. [p. 33].

Fig. 20. Peace runners in the Woodland. [p. 5].

Fig. 21. Echium wildpretii in Tenerife [p. 20].

Fig. 22. Echium wildpretii on the rocky slopes of the Caňadas del Teide, Tenerife in March [p. 20]. 30

Fig. 23. Young Echium wildpretii plants in Richard Birch’s garden. [p. 20].

Fig. 24. Echium wildpretii flowering in May 2019. [p. 20].

Then a mini-greenhouse was constructed around the plants. They are resistant to icy blasts if hardened off properly: the grey colour of the foliage is due to a dense layer of stiff hairs which protects them from wind and sun, and they benefit from a bit of exposure, otherwise this climate defence mechanism backfires, and they will rot off. A high-potash feed (eg tomato fertiliser) during the summer growing season will aid tough growth and ensure they bulk out.

The greenhouse frame was made of old pallet wood onto which was screwed cut-offs from a sheet of corrugated Perspex. Full coverage is not necessary: the aim is only to keep the wet off, not protect the plant from the fresh air, which is absolutely beneficial. The sheeting protects the crown and the base – the two places where rot is most likely to get in, especially if a frost follows rain. A lick of paint to protect the wood and the finished job costs less than £10.

So, we made it through to March 2019, by which time the fat projectiles of the flowering spike are beginning to push the lid off the temporary frame, and it can be taken apart. Extension of the flowering spike is leisurely, but by mid May, they are taller than the garage roof and explode into crimson towers of colour, adored by insects.

By mid-June (at time of writing) the glory is past, and they look like delinquent fat kids hanging around the garage door, but this stage is essential if the copious seed is to be ripened and collected. Echium wildpretii is a true alpine: it grows above 2000m on Mount Teide, in the sub-alpine zone, along with Erysimum and Cytisus, which also have representatives in the rock garden. This phenomenon of gigantism in the alpine zone is repeated around the world, by many plants with a superficial semblance to Echium wildpretii. Think giant Lobelia from Mount Kenya, or the Espeletia of the South American Andes, neither of which it is yet possible to cultivate in our gardens. But this is proof that Echium wildpretii can be grown, and some lucky folk on free-draining limestone can even do so without recourse to the strategy outlined above. A warming climate is not anything to be remotely glib about, but I doubt it would be possible to achieve these results even as recently as a decade ago. I’m hoping for a place for it on the rock garden at Treborth in 2020.

Fingers crossed…

Alaska

John Gorham

Where are you going next? Alaska. Oh, a cruise. No, we don’t like big cruise ships and we want to see more of the wildlife, so we are going to drive. Oh!

That was the usual conversation. And we picked the right time to go – late May and early June – when the season had just started and before the biting insects became a nuisance. Getting there was relatively easy – a flight from Manchester to Keflavik and then Keflavik to Anchorage (after an unexpectedly long wait for the incoming aircraft). By the way, if you fly with Icelandair, take some sandwiches. Air travel is not what it used to be! Clear skies meant that we had a fantastic view of the Snaefellsness Peninsula, and Snaefellsjokull in particular, and later the mountains, icebergs, glaciers and sea ice of east Greenland. Our route took us over the islands of the Canadian Arctic and brought home the difficulty of navigating the Northwest Passage (having just read Michael Palin’s book on HMS Erebus, which was John Franklin’s vessel and now lies on the seabed off the coast of the Adelaide Peninsula).

Our first full day in Anchorage, before we picked up our hire car, was occupied with shopping (presents for Chris and bear spray for me) and seeing downtown Anchorage, the Ulu knife factory (the local semi-circular Native American knife), and the salmon fishermen in Ship Creek. In the afternoon we walked along the Tony Knowles coastal trail by the shore of Cook Inlet (James Cook came here in 1778 looking for the Pacific entrance to the Northwest Passage. The inlet was named after Cook in 1794 by George Vancouver. William Bligh (of Bounty fame) explored the Knik and Turnagain Arms of the Inlet and discovered that they were river mouths and did not lead to the Northwest Passage). The inlet itself, and nearby Turnagain Arm, was very wide, muddy and shallow, with a little saltmarsh near the trail. Here we saw our first sandhill crane (Antigone canadensis) feeding a short distance from a quite busy foot and cycle path. Although there was little of botanical interest on the trail, we did see a few Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris) flowers – a little reminder of Newborough Warren. The view gave a foretaste of what was to come, with Mount Susitna across Cook Inlet and the Chugach Mountains behind Anchorage.

Driving north the following day, we had our first view of Mount Denali (formerly Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 20,310 ft (6,190 m)) at mile 135 of the George Parks Highway. Our hotel in the strange community known as Denali Park Entrance was on a hillside with a fine view of Mount Healy across the Nenana River. The ‘village’ is a string of hotels, restaurants and shops near the only road access to the vast Denali National Park. The park road leads 92 miles to Kantishna, but only 15 miles is open to private vehicles. To see

the Park, you have to take a bus, which restricts access to the local vegetation. The driver did once interrupt his descriptions of the local fauna to mention Rhododendron lapponicum, but most of the attention was on the grizzly bears, caribou, Dall sheep, ground squirrels, willow ptarmigan and snowshoe hares. The views were spectacular, especially at Polychrome Pass. A brief stop at a viewpoint revealed some familiar alpines such as mountain avens (Dryas octopetala).

The following day we explored the trails in the Denali Park Entrance area, starting with Horseshoe Lake. The trail led along the Alaska Railroad track and then downhill through a forest of mainly white spruce (Picea glauca), paper birch (Betula papyrifera) and black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa). Many of the trees were festooned with lichen (Usnea longissima) while on the floor there were extensive patches of Peltigera, and yellow anemone and windflower (Anemone richardsonii and A. parviflora), and in the more open areas, alpine lupin (Lupinus arcticus) and bluebells (Mertensia paniculata). The most striking feature of Horseshoe Lake, apart from its shape, was a large beaver dam, and around the lake there was ample evidence of trees felled by the beavers. Later we walked to the campground along Riley Creek Trail in the unusually warm sunshine, considering that the Park had only really be open for summer visitors for a week or two. In the more open areas, there were large stands of fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium, also known as Chamaenerion or Epilobium angustifolium, and in the UK as rosebay willowherb).

The drive north to Fairbanks was mainly through white spruce forest and not particularly interesting botanically. The main flowers here, and in much of Alaska, were dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) which were so dominant that we thought they should replace the alpine forget-me-not (Myosostis alpestris) as Alaska’s state flower. Fairbanks is supposed to be one of the drier areas of Alaska, but it rained most of the time that we were there. The long drive south along the Richardson Highway was punctuated by stops alongside the Tenana River, where we saw Eskimo potato (Hedysarum alpinum) and northern oxytrope (Oxytropis campestris), by Summit Lake (still partly frozen), to view the controversial 800-mile Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline (which runs from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez) and at the Copper River (more alpine lupin, Jacob’s ladder (Polymonium pulcherimum) and bird or tufted vetch (Vicia cracca)). Eventually, we branched off onto the Edgerton Highway and made for the airstrip at Chitina. The 59-mile gravel road from Chitina to McCarthy is off limits to hire cars, so we had to take a small aircraft to McCarthy and leave the hire car (and the bear spray!) at Chitina. The flight through the Fourth of July Pass was spectacular, with good views of the volcanic Wrangell Mountains and the Kennicott and Root Glaciers. The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest national park in the USA at 20,587 sq miles, and nine of the 16 highest peaks in the USA are found in the park, along with the largest sub-polar icefield. From McCarthy airstrip we were picked up by the Kennicott Glacier Lodge shuttle.

Kennicott (sometimes spelt Kennecott) is a partly restored abandoned copper mill that operated from 1906 to 1938. It processed malachite and chalcocite ores from five mines on Bonanza Ridge in the hills above the mill, the ore being transported to the mill by ropeways (aerial tramways like the blondins of our local slate quarries). At the bottom of the 14-storey wooden mill building, the crushed and concentrated ore was packed into sacks and loaded on railway wagons of the Copper River and Northwest Railway for transport the 196 miles to Cordova on Prince William Sound, and then by sea to Tacoma, Washington. In the short time that it operated, the Kennicott mine and mill made over $100 million in profit from copper and silver, but when the price of copper fell in the 1930s and the economically extractable ore ran out, the site was effectively abandoned. It is now a tourist attraction, featuring both the mill and the nearby glaciers.

At Kennicott Glacier Lodge, we found dwarf Canadian dogwood (Cornus canadensis), an as yet unidentified Rheum, and what initially looked like a Rhododendron with pale yellow flower buds (when I saw it again further south it had white flowers and turned out to be Labrador tea (Ledum palustre)). The weather was fine when we set off along the trail at the base of Bonanza Ridge to Root Glacier. Along the way we found plenty of bluebells, alpine lupins, dandelions, windflowers, large-flowered wintergreenPyrola ( grandliflora), mountain avens (Dryas octopetala) and yellow dryas (Dryas drummondii). On the moraines by the trail was prickly saxifrage (Saxifraga tricuspidata) – not the most compact or attractive of the saxifrages. The bulk of the moraines (from both the Kennicott and Root glaciers) looked as though someone had spent a lifetime dumping truckloads of rocks all over the valley. Photographs in the old mill office in Kennicott showed that when the mine was operational, the glaciers extended down the valley and past the mill. The photographs were taken from the glacier and at an elevation higher than the top of the mill, whereas now the moraines are considerably lower than the base of the mill. Also, in the last 100 years, the glaciers have retreated and the front of the Root Glacier is now about 2.5 miles from the mill. Root Glacier was covered in small stones, almost as though it had been deliberately gritted to allow us climb on to it without needing crampons. Once on top of the glacier there were fewer stones, but the surface was still pleasant to walk on, with superb views towards the stairway icefall (at the top of Root Glacier) and the snow and ice- covered Mount Blackburn (at 16,390 ft it is the highest in the Wrangell Range). On the way back, I saw a couple of inflorescences of coralroot (Corallorhiza trifida). Just past Jumbo Creek, a bush about 25 ft up the hillside began shaking and out popped a large male black bear. Fortunately, it just gave us a disdainful look and ambled further up the hillside. As we neared Kennicott the rain started and reminded us how changeable the weather can be in the mountains. The next day was damp with light rain and low clouds (no flights from McCarthy that day!), and we took a tour of the mill, starting with a walk up the hillside to where the ore arrived from the mines up to 5 miles away. Several of the wooden buildings were in a precarious state, but some had been partly restored and gave an idea of what life and work must have been like in the 1920s and 1930s. It must have been quite a

lonely existence with only 300 inhabitants, mostly male workers, and only a few families, and with the railway the only transport in or out. Prickly rose (Rosa acicularis) was spotted on the walk back to the Lodge.

Fortunately, the clouds lifted to 5,000 ft the next day and we were able to take an early flight back to Chitina and make our ferry crossing from Valdez the next day. We saw our first moose (Alces alces), a mother and calf, calmly walking along the runway, but by the time six of us had squeezed into a small plane they had wandered off into the scrub. This time, I had a view across the Chitina River valley towards the Chugach Mountains, still within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (and part of the same range of mountains that we saw from Anchorage nearly 200 miles away). From Chitina it was a pleasant two-hour drive back to the Richardson Highway and down to the port of Valdez, with stops along the way to view the Worthington Glacier (quite small compared with the Kennicott and Root Glaciers) at Thompson Pass (2,678 ft), and at the Bridal Veil and Horsetail Falls in Keystone Canyon. At Thompson Pass we saw hairy (or villous) cinquefoil (Potentilla villosa), arctic willowSalix ( arctica) and fir club moss (Lycopodium selago) among other alpines, and at the waterfalls red elder (Sambucus racemosa) and Geranium erianthum. The small port of Valdez provided an interesting overnight stop while we waited for the ferry to Whittier. It was rebuilt after the massive Good Friday 1964 earthquake. There was at least one sea otter in the small-boat harbour, but it dived as soon as it was spotted and I did not manage to photograph it. There were also a couple of bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) around the harbour, and we were told that they would be fed late in the afternoon at an RV park

Fig. 25. Kennicott and Root Glaciers, Wrangell—St. Elias National Park, Alsaka. [p. 33].

(RV=Recreational Vehicle, the American for motor home). When we found the right RV park, we were told that one person had a licence to feed the bald eagles, but that he would not be there that day. Apparently, nobody had told the eagles, and they perched in the tree above the park office. In the marsh next to the RV park there was Norwegian cinquefoil (Potentilla norwegica) and a Ranunculus. A feature of Valdez and other Alaskan fishing ports are the fishing derbies. Halibut is the main species, and the record for a single halibut is 374 lb!

The three-hour ferry trip to Whittier across Prince William Sound through changeable weather and mountain scenery produced little wildlife – just a few sea otters looking cute, but too far away for a decent photograph. We were very scornful of the tiny icebergs in the sound. Whittier, at the end of Passage Canal (an inlet of Prince William Sound), is a strange little town, with the only land access through a one-track tunnel that has to accommodate road traffic in both directions and the Alaska Railroad. The latter is mainly used to transport freight and military supplies to bases further north in Alaska. Unfortunately, the timing of leaving the ferry meant that we had a 30-minute wait while traffic came into Whittier through the Anton Anderson Tunnel. We were very glad to exit the tunnel as driving on the rail track was quite unpleasant. A short drive after the tunnel brought us to Portage Lake and a view of the rapidly receding Portage Glacier. The road joined the Seward Highway a few miles further on, and this took us south to the port of Seward. The port is named after William H. Seward, the US Secretary of State who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. Just after joining the Seward Highway we passed over the Placer River, where there was a dead whale on the banks.

Our accommodation just outside Seward was at the Exit Glacier Lodge, a wooden building looking as though it could have been built in the 19th Century. Seward is bigger than Valdez, but still only has a population of less than 2,800. It is also a fishing port, but in addition there is a busy day-cruising industry visiting the Kenai Fjords National Park (there is no road access through the Kenai Mountains). There is also a cruise ship terminal and the start of the main branch of the Alaska Railroad (Seward to Fairbanks via Denali). After finding the Lodge we drove into Seward and had a Chinese meal, although we should have learnt by then to only order one meal and two plates. Food is expensive in Alaska, but the portions are enormous!

The drive up Exit Glacier Road was longer than we expected but gave a good distant view of the Exit Glacier across the Resurrection River. At the end of the road, there is a trail that leads to the bottom of the Glacier and continues up the side to a viewpoint overlooking the large Harding Icefield. Including the 40 glaciers it produces, it covers an area of over 1,000 sq miles. On the trail there is a notice showing the extent of the Exit Glacier over the last few decades, and there are markers showing where it was in various years and leaving no doubt that it is retreating rapidly. In the afternoon we went back into Seward and walked around

the Two Lakes Park. Here there were quite a few interesting plants including marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanum), Canadian dogwood (Cornus canadensis) and salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis). The following day we had a cruise around Kenai Fjords National Park, travelling down Resurrection Bay (with a view of the large Bear Glacier) and up Ailik Bay to see the Holgate, Pedersen and Ailik Glaciers (all originating from the Harding Icefield). The wildlife did not disappoint, even if the weather was dull, with sightings of bald eagles, harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) on the ice just below the glaciers, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), killer whales (Orcinus orca), red-faced and pelagic cormorants (Phalacrocorax urile and P. pelagicus), horned and tufted puffins (Fratercula corniculata and F. cirrhata), black- legged kittiwakeRissa ( tridactyla) and common murre (guillemot) (Uria aalge). The number of humpback whales was quite impressive, with occasional displays of fin slapping and breaching.

The next day, we drove back up the Seward Highway until it joined the Sterling Highway, and west and south along the much gentler west coast of the Kenai Peninsula. Apart from an abortive attempt to find a salmon processing factory in Soldotna (it was closed on a Sunday), our first stop was at the village of Ninilchik to see the Russian Orthodox Church. It was a quite small wooden church with onion domes, but the surrounding graveyard was full of flowers (mostly dandelions!), and here we saw wild geranium and the delightful chocolate or Kamchatka lily (Fritillaria camschatcensis). Across Cook Inlet we could see the snow -covered Redoubt and Iliamna volcanoes, at 10,000 ft standing clear above the Chigmit Mountains. These are part of the Aleutian Range and typical of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Redoubt erupted in 1966, 1989 and 2009. The 14th December 1989 eruption ejected volcanic ash to 45,000 ft and disabled the engines of a Boeing 747

Fig. 26. Killer whales (Orcinus orca) in Resurrection Bay, Alaska. [p. 33].

aircraft. After descending several thousand feet and clearing the ash cloud, the pilots were able to restart the engines and land safely at Anchorage. On 15th March 2009 steam and ash were ejected to 25,000 ft. Earthquakes and gas emissions were reported from Iliamna Volcano in 1996-97 and 2011-13, and it is ranked as the 20th most hazardous volcano in the USA. The church at Ninilchik is on high ground above the small village, which is quite quaint, but not obviously Russian. The population of 800 is mainly derived from Aleut and Alutiiq Native Americans with some Russian influence. There were bald eagles in the trees by the shore, and an immature bald eagle on a rock in the sea. From Anchor Point, we took the North Fork Road inland to Nikolaevsk, a Russian Orthodox Old Believers village of about 300 people settled in the 1960s. The Old Believers split from the main Russian Orthodox Church in 1666 after the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow and tend to live in isolated communities away from modern influences. The church was similar to the one in Ninilchik, but there was evidence of new building as well. Again, the village did not look particularly different from other Alaskan villages, except for the church and the famous Samovar Café (featured in a recent TV programme with Martin Clunes).

Our bed and breakfast in Homer was on high ground next to the salt marsh at the start of Homer Spit. The town is named after Homer Pennock, a gold miner and con man who arrived on Homer Spit in 1896 to prospect for gold. This was never profitable, but the town developed as a coal exporting port until the second world war, and today thrives on fishing and tourism. It lies at the end of the Kenai Peninsula and Homer Spit is a 4.5 mile-long sand and gravel spit that juts out into Kachemak Bay. It may be the remains of an ancient glacial terminal moraine, or it may have been formed by currents in Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet. When we arrived at the bed and breakfast, there was no one in except another guest and so we started to look around the garden. The owners arrived a short time later and asked, ‘Have you seen the moose?’, followed by, ‘Oh there it is!’ It was in the next but one garden. Early the following morning the female moose and her two babies were in the back garden of our bed and breakfast, and we were able to get a close look at them. Moose with young can be very protective, and moose are responsible for more injuries in Alaska than black and grizzly bears combined. Size (up to 1,500 lb) and numbers (120,000 in Alaska compared with 100,000 black bears (Ursus americanus) and 55,000 grizzly (brown) bears (Ursus arctos)), combined with a closer association with civilisation, are responsible for these numbers, but inappropriate human behaviour also contributes.

The next day we went to the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center. Like many of the National Park centres, it was a triumph of architecture over content and you had to work hard to find any really useful information, but we did discover that Homer had an annual Shorebird Festival in early May. The Center was, however, the start of a trail leading down through Beluga Slough (a wetland area close to Beluga Lake where seaplanes were based) to Bishop’s Beach. In the Slough, we were entertained for a while by the song of a savannah sparrow (Passerculus

sandwichensis ), while on the beach we found beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus ssp. maritimus) and sea sandwort (or beach greens, Honckenya peploides) amidst the washed-up tree trunks, and Fucus gardneri and a Sargassum species on the shore. After a stop at the famous Two Sisters Bakery on the way back up to the Visitor Center and a stop to listen to an American robin (Turdus migratorius), we drove up the hill behind Homer (Diamond Ridge) to a viewpoint on East End Road overlooking Katchemak Bay, Homer Spit and the Kenai Mountains and their glaciers. Further along East End Road, we stopped at the Carl E. Wynn Nature Center and walked for an hour and a half along the nature trails. We missed the moose that had left hoofprints in the bog area and had wandered past the ranger’s huts, but there was plenty of plant life to see, much of it conveniently labelled! This included cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum), chocolate lily, high bush cranberry (Viburnum edule), salmonberry, nagoonberry (Rubus arcticus), Labrador tea, cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus), bog blueberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), stinging nettle (Urtica lyalii), Indian paintbrush (Castilleja unalaschensis), chickweed-wintergreen (Trientalis europaea) and green false hellebore (Veratrum viride var. escholzianum).

The following day we were up early for a flight to Katmai National Park on the other side of Cook Inlet. Getting into a small plane with four other people, all wearing waders, was a bit of a struggle, but we had excellent views of Homer Spit, the southern end of the Kenai Mountains, Katchemak Bay, the island volcano of Augustine, Kamishak Bay and the northern part of Katmai. The flight took us close to the top of Mount Douglas (7,000 ft), another Ring of Fire volcano. The summit lake is reported to be warm but was frozen over when we saw it. Further south is the slightly lower (6,716 ft) Katmai volcano. In 1912, the most powerful eruption of the 20th century produced the associated Novarupta volcano. We landed on a beach a little north of Mount Douglas, and spent a pleasant three hours admiring the scenery, the peace and quiet, and the grizzly (brown) bears. Katmai, and Lake Clark National Park further north, are some of the best places to observe grizzly bears. They are not hunted here and seem to take no notice of humans. We saw about eight bears in total, the first was crossing the sea from a small island near where we landed. Most of the males seemed to be more interested in the females than in eating the sedges (including Carex praegracilis) and grasses of the salt marsh (it was a little too early in the season for salmon). Four of the bears passed within 30 ft of us, allowing us to capture good images and video of their behaviour. They were certainly browner than the very light-coloured grizzly bears that we saw in Denali.

We could not leave Homer (the self-styled Halibut Fishing Capital of the World) without trying the local catch, but it turned out to be the most expensive fish and chips in the world (they even charged an extra $12 because we asked for one meal split between two plates!).

On our penultimate day, we drove to Anchor Point (Captain Cook is reputed to have lost an anchor there), where we had been told that there were several bald eagles. When we got to the beach, there were some bald eagles in the adjacent marsh and on the beach, but the main activity was the launching of local fishing boats (on trailers) with the aid of giant tractors. We were able to get good close-up shots of mature and immature bald eagles scavenging on the beach (for all their impressive appearance they are mainly scavengers rather than hunters). Our final night was spent at the Inn on Tern Lake, just south of the junction of the Sterling and Seward Highways. This was in a valley and quite boggy in places. The bog yielded Labrador tea, lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), bog rosemary (Andromeda polifolia), and round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), while the drier areas had dwarf fireweed Epilobium( latifolium), windflower and Canadian dogwood.

So, after this brief visit to Alaska, what were my impressions. Well, it is big. At 663,000 sq miles it is over 80 times the size of Wales (but with less than one third of the population) and 2.5 times as big as Texas (Alaskans make jokes about how small Texas is!). Most of it is not easily accessible – there are very few roads away from the main population centres – hence the extensive use of bush planes and floatplanes, and much of it is mountainous and/or covered in coniferous forest (apart from the high arctic). The flora was a mixture of the familiar (perhaps just slightly different species) and some plants we had not encountered before. On the other hand, the fauna, both on land and at sea, was impressive, both in size and numbers. The slogan ‘The Last Wilderness’ seems fully justified.

Fig. 27. View from Polychrome Pass, Denali National Park, Alsaka [p. 33].

UN Assessment Report, May 2019: Human Activity threatens Nature’s Sustainability

Angela Thompson

It has long been recognised that over-exploitation of the Earth’s resources through intensive farming and over-development, loss of habitat, pollution, climate change and short-term, gung-ho attitudes towards the non-human species of the planet by people undermines the ability of nature to sustain life on Earth. Because of the unprecedented speed of these changes, future generations risk severe shortages of food, water, living space and other essentials, and reduced quality of life.

On 7 May 2019, the i newspaper (amongst others) printed a large article on the findings of the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services. The UN’s report on the state of the world’s nature is massive and detailed, based on the collaborative work over many years of experts from across the world. IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson, states, “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

The i produced a summary of the main findings which is reproduced here with kind permission of the newspaper:

The report finds that around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.

The average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900.

More than 40% of amphibian species, almost 33% of reef-forming corals and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened. At least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century and more than 9% of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with at least 1,000 more breeds still threatened.

Other notable findings of the report include:

· The value of agricultural crop production has increased by about 300% since 1970, the raw timber harvest has risen by 45% and approximately 60

billion tons of renewable and non-renewable resources are now extracted globally every year, having nearly doubled since 1980;

· Land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23% of the global land surface;

· Up to £441bn in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss; · IN 2015, 33% of marine fish stocks were being harvested at unsustainable levels;

· Urban areas have more than doubled since 1992;

· Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980;

· 300-400 million tons of heavy metal, solvents, toxic sludge and other industrial wastes are dumped annually into the world’s waters;

· Fertilisers entering coastal ecosystems have produced more than 400 ocean ‘dead zones’, totalling more than 245,000 km², a combined area bigger than the UK.

Although the report’s findings are stark, the researchers conclude there is still time take steps to avoid the worst consequences, but it will only happen if governments, organisations and people adopt immediate and far-reaching measures to change human behaviour.

With the concept of ‘every little helps’ in mind, Treborth is trying to do its bit! The staff and Friends are acutely aware of the need to help nature wherever possible and to demonstrate to the public that much can be done to mitigate past practices:

· Areas of grass in the Garden have for many years been roped off and allowed to become wildflower plots, unmown except for one cut in the autumn. This has maintained many plants being lost elsewhere due to intensive farming practices. The cuttings, including seed-heads, are gathered up, transported to other areas outside the Garden and spread to establish new meadows;

· People are encouraged to walk, cycle, or at least to car share when attending events arranged by the Friends;

· When we provide refreshments at Treborth, we don’t use disposables but actually wash-up and reuse real crockery and cutlery, or buy recyclable items;

· We raise plants for plant sales in peat-free composts, we reuse plastic plant pots and try to find compostable alternatives (in fact, the Garden staff use peat-free wherever possible);

· Over the years, the staff have drastically reduced the amount of fuel used to heat the glasshouses, lowering the thermostats and insulating where possible;

· Rain-water run-off from the glasshouses is collected in butts;

· The Garden propagates and raises rare and threatened species: these include the wild cotoneaster Cotoneaster cambricus (found in only one place in the world, the Great Orme in Llandudno), and meadow clary Salvia pratensis (which was once found in only one location in Wales but now has been re-introduced into the wild in selected areas);

· The Garden’s curator, Natalie, now sits on the university’s sustainability committee and has important input into the ‘greening’ etc of the estate .

Hopefully individuals will come up with their own ways of trying to reverse the trend and reduce the damage already inflicted. If you have any handy ‘green’ gardening tips to pass on, please get in touch and we shall include them in a subsequent issue.

The effects of Anthropogenic Noise on Bird Foraging and Vigilance

Jessica Baggott

My name is Jessica, and I’m a student at Bangor University on a Master’s by Research (MScRes) degree. I am currently investigating how anthropogenic, or human-made, noise may be affecting our much-loved wild birds, and in this article, I will hopefully show you why this is so important and how Treborth Botanical Garden played a vital role in my study.

With a growing population, the world is becoming an increasingly noisy place. These noises are often emitted from human activities such as resource extraction, industry and transportation. Road networks especially are spreading rapidly across the country and indeed the world, as we continue to insist on access

to more far-off and secluded areas. There are now thought to be no places which are truly free from traffic noises, as the sound can permeate for great distances from roads themselves, and flightpaths and shipping lanes are becoming busier to keep up with the demand for recreational travel and goods haulage.

Not only does this increased volume of traffic pose physical risk to our wildlife, such as road mortalities, shipping strikes and pollution, but the disturbance of the natural soundscape may be causing greater issues than we are aware. Many animals rely heavily on vocal communications, birds particularly so. It has already been found in past studies that birds are not only capable of being startled by loud, infrequent and unpredictable noises, causing them to flee as though from a predator, but they can be just as affected by chronic, low-frequency sounds. Although continuous, dull noise may not cause sudden fleeing and hiding, it can mask communications, distract and increase the level of perceived risk.

Birds vocalise at particular amplitude (volume) and frequencies (pitch) to ensure their messages can travel as far as possible without being distorted or lost. However, in areas of high traffic noise, particularly road noise, it has been found that birdsong can be “masked”. This occurs by an overlap in the two sounds, with traffic noise successfully covering the amplitude and frequency of the bird calls. This can therefore cause bird calls to go unheard, as their communications are drowned-out by the traffic. We have already seen some consequences of this issue: birds such as robins (Erithacus rubecula) are altering their times of calling to avoid times of heavy traffic, such as during people’s morning commute to work, and other species such as nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos) are increasing the amplitude of their calls in an attempt to be heard. The greatest potential issue however is that some species living in urban environments, such as the great tit (Parus major), have been found to be increasing the frequencies of their calls to be heard. By changing the pitch, over time the song may become unrecognisable to others, and when attracting mates or defending territory, the song may be less effective. This difference between the calls of birds living near traffic and those which do not, may therefore lead to reproductive isolation between populations, meaning birds in the countryside may not be able to understand those in the city, preventing breeding.

Aside from masking, distraction is caused by the sound of traffic providing too much stimulus to the birds, preventing their concentration on other behaviours. These other behaviours could involve mate pursuit, feeding, territory defence, offspring rearing and predatory evasion. With individuals focusing on the increased background noise caused by traffic, they are more likely to remain vigilant, scanning the environment for potential risk. This ties in with causing an increase in their perceived level of risk. When individuals feel they are in a safe or dangerous environment, they behave accordingly. When at risk, this will include

demonstrating higher levels of vigilance, often feeding less frequently and increased levels of stress. Over prolonged periods of time, this effect on the individual can be physically damaging, leading to issues such as weight loss and poorer chance of survival. In a past study, it was found that birds living alongside road noise were found with higher oxidative stress levels, their offspring left the nest at lower body weight and took longer to fledge.

What I am therefore investigating is that, if bird behaviour can be affected to this degree by road noise, altering communication, increasing stress and impacting fledgling health, can anthropogenic noise significantly change the amount of time birds dedicate to being vigilant whilst feeding? If this is the case and noise is seen to negatively impact the proportion of time a bird is looking for threats rather than feeding, it may be that in areas of high traffic, our wild birds struggle to survive. In conjunction with this, I am investigating whether an increase in vegetation around feeding areas may dilute the effects of the traffic, providing security to the birds and reducing their perceived level of risk. The bird species focussed on in this study were passerines (small perching birds belonging to the order Passeriformes), with particular interest in blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), coal tits (Periparus ater) and great tits (Parus major).

To execute this study, I made 15 clips of motorway noise, each 12 minutes long, to play to the birds which feed from the bird feeders at Treborth. The reason I brought road noise to the birds as opposed to studying birds at an existing road is to reduce confounding factors; roadsides provide other issues which may affect bird behaviour – lack of trees, pollution and visual disturbance caused by vehicles. This way I could be sure I’d be testing the noise alone. I also made 15 clips of noise to ensure that the birds were not reacting to a specific sound in the sequence if only a single clip was used. I then proceeded to set up my hide, measure factors such as the temperature, weather and wind conditions etc, and played the road noise tracks to the birds at six bird feeders. Three of these bird feeders were in open habitat, and three in closed (surrounded by trees). I played all 15 of the tracks to both the open and closed habitat feeders at sound levels 0, 55, 60, 65 and 70 dBA, to try and determine whether there would be a threshold at which the birds began feeding less and being more vigilant. For reference, the background noise level at Treborth was often around 45 dBA, and, being at a roadside, can reach in excess of 75dBA, so no noise levels used were excessive or dangerous to the birds. Once finished, I had conducted 150 playback events between January and April and met a lot of visitors!

With my data, I hope to complete my analysis and determine whether road noise has a negative affect on the feeding of our wild birds, and whether an increase in vegetation in noisy areas may combat these effects. If this is the case,

there may be benefit in protecting areas of foliage by roadsides, and species lost in the past may be able to repopulate areas if the number of trees there are increased.

I would like to thank everyone at Treborth Botanical Garden for being so accommodating and for their patience during my fieldwork. I hope to update you with my findings soon.

Wild Elements

Claudia Howard

Local not-for-profit social enterprise and community interest company, Wild Elements, has had a very busy and successful 2019, with many events held at Treborth Botanic Garden. The team have delivered several environmental, horticultural and confidence-building training sessions for unemployed adults and young people, secured grant funding to deliver three STEM-based (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education projects and programmes for children in care and the John Muir Award for young carers, supported Draig Beats, and worked closely with Treborth to deliver Growing the Future (GTF) project in partnership with the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Growing the Future

The new partnership with Treborth, Busybees (local bee-keeping smallholding), Wild Elements and the National Botanic Garden of Wales has enabled Growing the Future courses to be delivered in north-west Wales. The sessions at Treborth included ‘Miniature Forests Discovery Day’ with Dr Shaun Russell, and ‘Gardening for Physical and Mental Well-being’ session delivered by Busybees, with more ‘Growing the Future’ courses taking place at Treborth over the coming months. Please visit https://botanicgarden.wales/science/growing-the-future/ for more information.

STEM Programmes

Huge thanks to the North and Mid Wales Reaching Wider Partnership and Bangor University’s Widening Access Department for funding 'Bridges, Buildings and Botanical Blueprints', and 'A Day in the Life of a Marine Ecologist'. The two projects

were undertaken by 1,317 local children and 907 adults, and 183 local children and 58 adults respectively. Sessions were attended by primary and secondary schoolchildren, home-schooled families, young carers, foster children and children with special needs from across Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy and Denbighshire, and feedback has been fantastic.

Bridges, Buildings and Botanical Blueprints is a physics and engineering programme examining the naturally occurring Fibonacci sequence in plants and how it relates to engineering design. Sessions started with a walk over Menai Bridge, observing structural features of both the Menai and Britannia bridges and the Fibonacci sequence in plants within the grounds and glasshouses at Treborth. Attendees built their own bridges from different materials, and then used the knowledge gained during the day – as well as a little imagination – to design new glasshouses for Treborth, producing some very inventive and original designs! One child summed up the day with: ‘It was absolutely brilliant. I have learnt about bridges, plants and more. I could never have asked for a better school trip.’

A Day in the Life of a Marine Ecologist involved spending the day on local beaches, examining the marine environment, marine life and the impact of pollution and plastics on the habitat and species.

A Day in the Life of a Botanist saw children and adults undertaking hands-on plant sciences activities, learning about plant evolution, pollinators, plant anatomy and plant uses, and examining plants under microscopes. With thanks to the John Andrews Charitable Trust, Wild Elements delivered 10 sessions, engaging with schools from the Llyn Peninsula for the first time and delivering the first STEM sessions in Welsh. Thanks also to the National Botanic Garden of Wales for funding 15 further sessions of A Day in the Life of a Botanist courtesy of the Growing the Future project. Each school thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on experience of learning more about plants and the opportunity to explore. Children’s feedback on the day included: ‘Amazing. I have learned about flowers and nature, and my day was terrific’, ‘I enjoyed today because of all the things we did. Today I learned a lot about plants, there's too much for me to say,’ and ‘Roeddwn i'n meddwl oedd y dydd yn profiad gwych o'r ardd fotaneg’ (I thought the day was a great experience of the botanic garden).

Furthermore, with thanks to the North and Mid Wales Reaching Wider Partnership, Wild Elements has been working closely with Children in Care and young carers, and helped young carers to complete their John Muir Awards at Treborth. The 7-week programme included activities such as camp-fire cooking, teambuilding activities, confidence building skills, an environmental project and nature connections, and ended with the young carers attending a 24-hour camp-out

at Treborth, helping them to build friendships, socialise with others and increase confidence.

Finally, Wild Elements has delivered 11 Woodland Birthdays, engaging around 230 children in exciting outdoor activities including den building, safe fire lighting skills, camp-fire cooking, natural arts and crafts, bug hunts, mud kitchens, woodland wood-fired pizzas and much more! If you would like to book a woodland birthday party with Wild Elements for you or your children (Wild Elements now offer woodland birthday parties for adults too!), please visit www.wildelements.org.uk / www.elfennaugwyllt.org.uk (the new, fully bilingual website!).

The Rhizotron Taking Root

Claire Duncan

(Claire is one of the graduate interns paid by the Friends to work in Treborth over the early summer of 2019)

With 32 bays, Treborth's rhizotron is the largest in Europe and unparalleled in its research potential. It makes Kew's look like a cupboard and has seen some outstanding work in its 30+ years. Each metre cubed plot has a viewing window opening onto a subterranean cellar. Three sampling bungs per window allow not only a worm's eye view, but the collection of samples, and to stick thermometers, pH probes, and for the brave, one's arm, into the rhizosphere. Alas, there is more to research than world class facilities. Since a PhD on tree species combinations three years ago, no projects have been conducted there. A private company expressed interest resulting in a spruce-up and some Mypex (a weed-suppressant ground membrane), but this was not to be. Damp, neglect, and a plague of bindweed had left Treborth's rhizotron in a sorry state. With so much else to attend to at the Garden, a dank, unused cellar is going to be left by the wayside. The numerous toads, newts and spiders are not very green thumbed, and more populous than house-proud.

Waiting for a research team to write a proposal and successfully gain funding could take time. A Hallowe'en sleepover venue is too seasonal. Storing hose is below its potential, and hiding unwanted corpses could harm community relations. The most feasible suggestion was to use the rhizotron as an educational

Fig. 28. The Rhizotron at Treborth Botanic Garden. [p. 49].

Fig. 29. An amphibious squatter in the Rhizotron. [p. 49].

display. The below-ground parts of plants - roots, rhizomes and tubers - which are so little thought of, much less seen, could be clearly observed. A constant flow of school groups, current and potential Bangor students, members of the public and visiting dignitaries, would both befit and help preserve such an incredible resource. So, mop and bucket in hand, I decided to return the rhizotron to service.

Clearing the plots took longer than expected. Bindweed roots can be a metre deep, and bracken, nettle and enchanters’ nightshade had all carved out empires in the rhizosphere. The bracken was fascinating, with developing buds clearly visible on its rhizomes through the viewing window. These weeds depend so much on their root systems that I felt they warranted inclusion in the display. A few plots have thus been left as is or tidied. Remembering childhood reading about castle gardens with bindweed trained up arches and trellises, I put a bamboo wigwam up for ascetics and to distract it from invading the other 31 plots. Additionally, I've planted comfrey for its well developed, tenacious root system, and ferns for their more primitive, weaker ones. Various tree species pay homage to Relena's PhD, its most recent role. Much broken glass and an old hand fork were found, and I slew the grandmother of all brambles, which was growing in plots on both sides and in much of the lift well. The coming months should see dahlias, spring bulbs, nitrogen-fixing alder, gorse and peas, and root crops such as carrot and potato. Daffodil and potato roots are so familiar in their dormant, above surface state, that witnessing them alive and in action will be wonderful!

The interior windows give so clear a view it would have been a shame not to include soil horizons 1. The idea is that one will show woodland and another one grassland soil horizons. Woodland typically has lower bedrock, and broader O (organic surface layer) and A (topsoil) horizons merging into leaf litter. Grassland typically has higher bedrock, with shallower roots meaning organic matter content declining with depth far quicker than in woodland. Similarly, a third bay will demonstrate composting, showing the famed layers of 'greens' and 'browns' to those mastering this art. However, emptying the bays to achieve this has been tougher than anticipated. A cubic metre of soil can way a tonne and a half, so shovelling four and a half tonnes of stony, slightly whiffy soil into barrows and building up the bonfire embankment with it has been heavy work. Many thanks to Treborth Friends Jon Keymer, Marion Gash and particularly Mark Roberts for helping to tackle it!

There is still much to be done in terms of weeding, planting, shovelling and bindweed-bashing. Recent intern Paul Golding has nobly volunteered to fix the various latches, fixtures and loose window sealant, which will make a lotof difference. Damp will be a long-term problem, as water flows through the lower wall in high rainfall. It is hoped that leaving the doors open in the day will

encourage both fresh air and visitors to enter. It's hoped that none are arachnophobes, but if anyone would care to test the old wives’ tale about conkers deterring spiders?... I've also drafted a 'What's Where' sheet which can be laminated and kept in the rhizotron as a guide. The amount of people looking around, asking questions and really engaging as I've worked there has equalled any glasshouse or flowerbed. By incorporating our rhizotron in the centre ofthe collection, it should be better maintained, more fully utilized, and give more benefit than the winds of HE Sector funding can permit.

1 a soil horizon is a layer of soil parallel to the surface, whose physical, chemical and biological characteristics differ from the layers above and beneath.

Intern Paul Golding

As an often-overlooked area of Treborth, the woodlands here are a patchwork of interconnected different wooded habitats just waiting to be rediscovered. My internship has focused on helping with this. I have been combining a variety of different information on the woodlands in a bid to start a management plan designed specifically for the Treborth woodlands. As well as this, I have also been trying to map the woodland area using previous maps, GPS data and with the help of the staff, volunteers and Friends of Treborth. Hopefully, these maps will be the most detailed yet, helping to define the compartments at Treborth, and when coupled with the working document will provide a strong base for rejuvenating and preserving the woodlands for future generations.

The project has not been without its hurdles, but I have thoroughly enjoyed working on it especially getting to spend time at Treborth. I am about to start my third year as an undergraduate forestry student and feel that the internship has helped me to gain a greater understanding of managing a woodland and understanding the complexities of balancing a variety of tasks. These will undoubtedly be valuable skills in the upcoming year and help in future opportunities.

Fig. 30. Hide and Playback setup for monitoring the effects of noise on birds. [p. 44].

Fig. 31. Great tit on bird feeder observed during experiments on noise disturbance. [p. 44].