THE FRIENDS OF THE CRUICKSHANK BOTANIC GARDEN

Newsletter

September 2011

In this issue :-

• Programme of events for the year

• What’s going on in the Garden

• Volunteers in Gardens and Arboreta - report of a recent PlantNetwork Conference

• Synopsis of two recent talks: Geraniums, restraint and discrimination Fungi in the Garden

• Origanum, a mountain of joy

• Our Autumn Plant Sale on October 29

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Autumn Plant Sale

Saturday October 29, 10.30 until noon by the potting sheds

Can we raise over eight hundred pounds again this November?

Please deliver your clearly labelled plants the day before, or well before 10am on the morning of the sale. House plants can be left in the glass corridor by the potting sheds.

There is no need to pot up large herbaceous divisions, as long as you dig them just a day ahead, wrap in damp newspapers, pop in a carrier bag and tie on a label securely. (see below)

Do tell your friends and neighbours about the sale and bring them along, armed with baskets, boxes and bags to carry home the many desirable plants on offer.

Let a committee member know if you can advertise the sale, perhaps in a community newsletter or put up some posters supplied by the committee in local halls or community centres.

Hot drinks and food can be bought at the nearby Hub (formerly the University Refectory) on St Machar Drive.

Plant labelling Committee members and volunteers who staff the stalls at our Plant Sale can be hampered when plants are not well labelled. With blooms long gone and most foliage died back, identification can only be guesswork. We offer these suggestions:

• Prepare plastic (not paper) labels in advance. Most 500g yoghurt pots and litre ice cream containers can be cut up into labels. Use a paper perforator on the former if you want to add ties. • Use a waterproof marker pen in case there is rain. • Masking tape is strong enough to secure unwieldy herbaceous plants in carrier bags. If short of labels you can write on it as well. • If you do not know the full name of the plant, please add a description including colour and height.

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Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden Programme 2011-2012

October 13 Ken Thompson Don’t judge a plant by appearances October 29 (Saturday) Plant sale in the Garden – 10.30am to noon November 10 Dick Birnie Replacing Food with Fun: Understanding changes in the Scottish countryside since 1945 December 8 Ian Young Woodland Bulbs

More dates for the diary

The Scottish Rock Garden Club, North East Branch Meetings are on Tuesdays at 7.30pm in Rubislaw Church Centre, Fountainhall Road. Guests and visitors will be warmly welcomed and a £3 donation requested.

September 27 Stan di Prato Greenland and Svalbard: the Scottish connection October 25 Jim Jermyn New ways of growing Himalayan plants November 29 Rod Begbie Galanthus January 31 Mike Hopkins Mike’s tulips Website: www.scrg.org.uk

Royal Horticultural Society, Aberdeen Meetings are on Tuesdays at 7.30pm in the Girls Brigade Hall, 19a Victoria Street.

October 4 Alison Goldie and Mark Hutson: The Auricula October 28 Race night at the Cloverleaf, Bucksburn November 1 Seed swap and hints and tips for seed germination December 6 Judith Lorimer: Floral art demonstration January 10 AGM and Gardeners’ Question Time February 7 Ian Young: Inspired to rock Website: www.rhsofaberdeen.co.uk

National Trust for Scotland

September 10-25 Castle Fraser Annual sale of spring bulbs and garden produce at weekends September10,11,17,18, 24 and 25 from noon until 4.30pm. September 25 Pitmedden Apples and Cornkisters event from 11 until 5pm, with home-grown apples and pears for sale and musical entertainment.

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Cruickshank Garden Notes - Autumn 2011

So that was summer? Summer’s lease has had a rather short day this year. The horse chestnut trees alongside the Alford road by Dunecht are displaying the yellows of autumn, colchicum, cyclamen and autumn crocus are starting to bloom, flowers are already appearing on Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ and I’m looking for recipes for green tomatoes. On the upside, the sweet corn from our tunnel is ripe and deliciously sweet, and there are 15 large ripening fruit on the true quince tree, Cydonia oblonga, also grown with benefit of polythene! The ample rainfall has brought considerable growth to many trees and shrubs though the lingering effects of the cold winter, as well as completely killing some conifer hedges, has meant that many remaining ones have only made half their usual extension growth.

There were no mists, but some mellow fruitfulness on the day I visited the Cruickshank Garden; there are many different sorbus - rowans, whitebeams etc. in the garden with a splendid variety of coloured berries. On the left as you come through the Chanonry gate, is a blush pink-berried Sorbus cashmeriana next to a white berried Sorbus forestii while at the far side of the courtyard is a more usual white-berried Sorbus cashmeriana, excellent as a multi-stemmed small tree. A number of plants in the ‘noticeboard bed’ are still showing the effects of the winter. There is a moribund Phormium tena x- New Zealand flax, with a few straggly leaves - one of many to have suffered mightily in and around Aberdeen, and an Olearia ilicifolia which is a shadow of its former self though agapanthus in both white and blue is flourishing. The self-seeding biennial / short-lived sea holly, Eryngium giganteum, Miss Wilmot’s ghost, enlivens the beds around here while a small-leaved rhododendron in one of the peat beds, is unseasonally covered in blue flowers. Round the corner, the west wall of the Cruickshank building is resplendent to the top in the deep reds of the magnificently vigorous self-clinging Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia.

The bed on the eastern lip of the sunken garden is full at the moment of dinner plate sized light brown fungi ( species?), whilst the nearby red berries of the red baneberry, Actaea rubra and the pale yellow ones of Daphne mezereum f. alba provide alternate sources of poison! While further on from here, in the shrub border leading to St. Machar’s Drive, the very shade tolerant Skimmia japonica has this years red berries (not edible but less poisonous than the above) and next year’s buds simultaneously. Nearby the excellent evergreen Eucryphia x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’, a hybrid between two South American species, is wreathed in large multi-stamened white flowers. This, though hardy in Aberdeen where it flowers best with some sun, is not a good long term prospect for higher, more inland gardens where severe winters will finish it off. I grew its much smaller Tasmanian relative E. milliganii successfully at Craigievar till the winter of 1999 took it out, since when despite several attempts I have failed to re- establish it.

Though the well cut hedges and hips on the species roses please, there is not much flower power in the rose garden at the moment. The floribundas in the sunken section which might be expected to keep the rose flag flying through late summer, are at the end 4

of their useful life and their flowering is desultory at best.

In the sunken garden, the bulb lawn is shorn waiting for the autumn bulb display of colchicum and crocuses, whilst in the bed nearby the impressive bright red dangling fruits of the Himalayan damp-lover, Podophyllum emodi, stand out. A large patch of the North American woodlander, Disporum smithii can be seen under a nearby rhododendron, a member of the lily family, with white Solomon’s seal flowers in spring, now showing off a fine crop of orange berries. The late flowering willow gentian, Gentiana asclepiadia is also here with true blue flowers along the length of its arching stems. Though mainly a plant of woodlands in the wild, it is thriving with me in an open meadow holding its own among the surrounding grasses. The South African bed on the north side of the sunken garden is pleasantly multi-coloured with blue agapanthus, pink Tritonia rosea, green Eucomis comosa and Cape figwort, Phygelius capensis in a variety of colours.

The herbaceous border is still a mass of colour, showing or rather not showing the benefits of early and comprehensive staking. Border phlox in shades of pink, white, lilac and a splendid deep purple, eupatorium two metres and more tall with heads of flowers in white and shades of pink, and much else besides.

The rock garden, always pleasing for its arrangement of beds, trees and rocks - a strong structure enhanced by the many evergreens, has few but charming flowers at this time of year. Enjoy the cyclamen in the dawn redwood bed, the ‘Angels’s fishing rods’, Dierama pulcherrimum waving in the breeze and the delicate flowers of the Autumn snow flake, while in the shady bed at the bottom of the slope, various forms of Hydrangea aspera, with lace-cap heads of subtle deep lilac are thriving in the moist, cool conditions.

So with only the chance of an Indian summer to look forward to, it is time to put some more logs on the fire and hope for a dry day tomorrow! David Atkinson Can you help?

The Woodland Trust is looking for people to take part in their ‘Nature’s Calendar’ surveys which seek to monitor climate change. This involves observing the timing of events that denote the onset of Spring and Autumn over the whole of UK. All one has to do is to note the dates certain events occur in your area e.g. when you see the first primrose in Spring, and when birch leaves begin to colour in Autumn.

Forms and helpful advice are supplied by the organisers. Records can be sent in on the form or online. Even one or two observations are welcomed. The results are collated and you receive an interesting report on how the year has fared. They are short of observers in NE Scotland so please contact them to set up for next Spring.

Nature’s Calendar, The Woodland Trust, Kempton Way, GRANTHAM, Lincolnshire NG31 6LL or E-mail: [email protected] Esther Woodward 5

Words from the Garden, late August 2011

How has your Summer been? Mine was very busy starting off in July with Cameron’s graduation, when he received his Honours degree posthumously. It was sad time but also good when the applause he received lifted our spirits. The next day our family presented an award in Cameron’s name to the top 4th year media student. It was won jointly by his best friend and another, as you may have read in the P & J.

In August I went with my family down to the English Midlands and while there visited Birmingham Botanic Garden, Winterbourne House and Garden (formerly University of Birmingham Botanic Garden) and Oxford Botanic Garden. I gained a lot of useful information about their maintenance and funding. The one thing that did come across was that they all have either completed a full renovation or are in the process of doing so. They all seem to suffer from the same problems of trying to return the gardens to their former glory.

Birmingham Botanic Garden, which was laid out by J.C.Loudon, has had landscaping carried out which was not in keeping with the era, though ‘in fashion’ during its construction in the 1960s. For example a ‘new rock garden’, and its crazy paving path, which I would describe as a dog’s dinner, is now being removed to show off the original classical waterfall adjacent. I also visited the National Trust garden at Hidcote, which was trying to reinstate some features such as the swimming pool and a conservatory that had rotted over the years. It was disappointing to see that the famous Hidcote lavender had been reduced to two specimens due to bad winter conditions.

You are probably wondering what has been happening here in the Cruickshank Botanic Garden here in the summer. Well, let me take you on a short tour: Firstly at the Chanonry entrance the new sign giving details of longer opening times (see opposite) is now in place, directly opposite the Sorbus cashmeriana which is heavy with berries. As you make your way towards the Cruickshank building you will notice that the oleria which was killed right down in the winter, is now re-growing from the base. The white and blue agapanthus are now looking brilliant against the backdrop of Miss Wilmott’s ghost, which is certainly living up to its name as it turns up suddenly and silently. As you look towards the building you will notice the square bed filled with dahlias, my favourite being Black Moggy, (actually it is Black cat), deep almost black- red in colour. On the side wall of the building the Virginia creeper is coming into full autumn colour.

Now, as you go along to the Rose Garden you will see the hedges have all been cut by George who has achieved a fantastic result. The roses themselves are starting to produce hips which will soon be quite stunning. As you head past the Sunken Garden, the meadow having been given its annual cut, you will notice the flowers in the new beds looking really bright. If you look to your right you will see the herbaceous border in its full glory, including the statuesque and wonderfully named Silybum marianum, illustrated by Hazel Carnegie on page 15.

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Now head towards the Rock Garden through the Iron Gate and you will see we have done some radical pruning, removing some lower branches off the sweet chestnut tree and hollies, as well as removal of the ground ivy. Viktor and William also moved the old granite roller and the stone kists to help create a new depth to the bed.

Audrey, as well as battling the weeds in the Rock Garden and elsewhere, also replanted this area with hellebores and snowdrops. The snowdrops were the ones split and transplanted into our nursery area two years ago by a couple of Friends. The bulbs themselves had grown so well they were almost the size of daffodil bulbs. Now head up to the back of the second pond, and you will see the route where the planned new path to the Arboretum has had all the shrubs cut back. The actual path will be built by volunteers from the University office staff.

As you reach the Arboretum I have some bad news. There five more elm trees dying from Dutch elm disease. As in all gardens nothing stays still, all plants grow and die so their removal gives us the chance to plant new types. I have obtained young tree and shrub seedlings from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) for the Cruickshank. These have been grown on in our nursery beds in pots and are ready to go out into the Garden itself. The wildflower meadows are now well established and looking very mature with lots of different plants flowering at the moment. The tall nettles and cow parsley have been cut back making the whole area look brighter and more cared for.

Well, this concludes a swift tour of the Garden. I do hope you will make time to come and visit in the near future and wish you all the best for your own gardens through the autumn. Richard Walker, Head Gardener

Opening hours of the Garden

October to March Monday to Friday 9.00 to 16.30 April and September Daily 9.00 to 18.30 May and August Daily 9.00 to 20.30 June and July Daily 9.00 to 21.30 Closed December 24 to January 5

Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden calendar Our calendar of monthly photographs from the Garden, will be available at evening meetings from October. It is A4 size with the lower section in grid form to enter your appointments. If you are unable to attend and would like to order some, please contact Kathleen Bull, 3 Donmouth Terrace, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen AB23 8DN Tel: 821886 E-mail: [email protected] Costs are £6 or £7 if it is to be posted. Cheques should be made out to ‘Friends of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden’.

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Volunteers in Gardens and Arboreta 12–14 July 2011 University of Bath

The three-day conference was a grand mix of gardeners, botanists, horticulturalists, plants people, heritage, HR, trainers, managers, and motivators engaged in a busy programme of presentations and discussions covering all aspects of volunteers in gardens including: strategies, systems, policies; recruitment and retention of volunteers; expectations, agreements and motivation; training and support for volunteers and staff; management, supervision and responsibility; exploiting diversity and skills of volunteers; evaluating and monitoring volunteer schemes; costs and mutual benefits; employer-supported volunteering and corporate schemes. This cornucopia was efficiently delivered in three sessions over three days each with five or six 20-minute talks policed politely by encouraging chairpersons and each concluded with a lively panel discussion, giving the audience time and opportunity to question and contribute. The conference provided inspiration and encouragement in this Year of Volunteering and all presentations are online at http://plantnetwork.org/meetings/conferences/ volunteers-in-gardens-and-arboreta/

There were 17 speakers (see the programme of speakers and topics), 4 panel discussions, guided tours of Westonbirt Arboretum and Bath Botanical Gardens, dinners, a silent auction raising £800 for PlantNetwork, tea, coffee and genial conversations. Seventy four delegates came from a wide range of gardens, heritage sites, horticultural organisations including the RBG Kew, LANTRA, Westonbirt National Arboretum, RBG Edinburgh, The National Trust, Bristol BG, GreenSpace, English Heritage, Dundee BG, Treborth BG, Royal Horticultural Society, Eden Project, Explorers Garden Pitlochry, Royal Parks, Paignton Zoo, Cruickshank BG and more. The University of Bath hosted the conference where the pleasant landscape of the campus outshone the cuisine. PlantNetwork have organised two previous conferences on volunteers: at Ness in 1995 and at Ventnor in 2000, as some members of the Network, such as the National Trust, have had volunteers working for them for years while others have only recently started volunteer programmes.

The collective experience of PlantNetwork members is that volunteers do many different types of work and give many hours of labour. They assist with guided tours, education programmes, interpretation, gardening, horticultural tasks, publicity, fundraising, and serve in shops or at entry points. At Kew in London 600 volunteers clock up 86,000 hours of work a year. Having volunteer workers is not all plain sailing though and the conference explored both positive and negative aspects of volunteers working with garden staff. The discussions and contributions of PlantNetwork members’ experiences allowed us all to understand more about encouraging partnerships, harnessing enthusiasm, exploiting skills while not exploiting persons and learning and coping with different perspectives on the value of volunteers.

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A taste of the talks There are around 1.2 million employed and 0.5 million volunteers in the land based sector. LANTRA (the land based skills organisation that sets standards for the industry) surveyed staff and blew a few myths as they found only 18% had no horticultural qualification. Pam Smith, who carried out the survey, was very optimistic saying it was a “good time for horticulture”.

Kew has 600 volunteers and about 800 paid staff. Amanda le Poer Trench showed that volunteer-hours-money-equivalent matched the income from their shop. Kew have a comprehensive volunteer strategy with management and resources dedicated to volunteers and every £1 invested in volunteers returns £7 for the garden. Traditionally Kew used volunteers to relieve the workload of gardeners but now 300 people are waiting to volunteer at Kew, so their volunteer action plan responds this public demand. Horticulture volunteers at Kew are capped at 165. In contrast to Kew’s strategy of coping with demand Westonbirt Arboretum has started to purposefully address inequality with their volunteer programme. Cheryl Pearson described how they were encouraging volunteering among the young, excluded, drug dependents, Alzheimer sufferers and the public outside their visitor demographic from affluent Gloucestershire of socio-economic groups A,B and C1. Jan Hoyland and Gill Gribben at Castle Howard endearingly related the story of Ray Wood and their Arboretum Trust established in 1999 through a community of volunteers. These three talks from Kew, Westonbirt and Castle Howard nicely illustrated contrasting ways of working with volunteers.

The National Trust, described Andrew Dixey as “the grand daddy of volunteers”, has 5,000 paid staff and 61,200 volunteers, with 5,600 of these in the gardens. Mike Calnan estimated that the 3.5 million hours given freely by volunteers was worth £30m and The

Morning by the lake at Bath University campus

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Trust will take on more volunteers as it moves to all year round opening. Volunteers, particularly corporate groups, benefit from distinct projects such as replanting orchards with heritage apple varieties. Ed Ikin from Nymans NT described how he purposefully established a volunteer programme for trainees from the local colleges who wanted practical experience and he recruits only nascent professional gardeners. Kevin Reid had a salutary tale of bringing volunteers in line at Ness, Liverpool. The lesson was to always interview volunteers and to be choosy.

Nick Wray at Bristol Botanic Garden described their training and support programme for 30 volunteer guides who take public and professional groups round the gardens and who also promote the garden at local events and exhibitions. Mark Restall informed us about volunteers and the law saying he had enough time to scare his audience and not enough time to reassure them. But Mark has a helpful leaflet that can be downloaded from www.volunteering.org.uk/law. Mark Wallington from Bridgewater College reminded us all of an obligation to play our part in fashioning rounded employees for the industry. Corola Vorlop introduced highly practical tick lists for taking on volunteers, including the why, how, who, where, legal, and benefits. And finally Kate Davies, from English Heritage gave an energetic and enthusiastic presentation on how to monitor and evaluate all of it.

At the end of the conference on a sunny Thursday afternoon Glen, the Parks Manager for Bath gathered a group of us stragglers together for a tour of Royal Victoria Park. A posse of four cars managed to tail each other through elegant Georgian Bath negotiating traffic lights, tourists, one ways and traffic to line up inside the magnificent lion gates of the Park. Glen proudly pointed to shrubs leading from the gates: replantings of the precise species from the 1829 layout when the park opened as the first public subscription Park with MacAdam’s new surface for carriages. Nearby the summer bedding of begonias and cannas glowed all colour in the sun; a perfect end. Colette Jones

Head Gardener Richard was unable to attend this conference, so the Friends agreed that the opportunity to send a representative should not be missed, and provided the funds. Colette volunteers regularly as she described in the July issue, and her report will be of particular relevance once the Garden Curator is in post, since organisation of volunteers will be among his/her responsibilities. We are grateful to Colette for using some of her holiday to gather so much information on good practice, which should be of great help to the Garden in future.

See the full conference programme on the opposite page

Thanks to the eight Friends who took turns to attend our pictorial display at the Royal Horticultural Society of Aberdeen’s Summer flower show at Hazlehead on August 27 / 28. Our aim was to raise the profile of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden, and to a lesser extent, the Friends We met lots of interesting, and interested folk, many of whom did not know of the Garden’s existence.

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Tuesday 12 July (pm) Wednesday 13 July Thursday 14 July (am) (am) Pam Smith Rob Jackson Jan Hoyland & Gill Historic and Botanic Garden Gribbin Rob Jackson Consulting Training and Development Ltd Advisor to Lantra Curator, Castle Howard Volunteer Rights Enquiry Lantra research on skills Arboretum Trust and Charter for and volunteering in the I'm a volunteer, get me Strengthening Relations historic and botanic garden out of here (Recruitment, Between Paid Staff and sector retention, management Volunteers Kelly Baker and recognition of Sarah Moore volunteers) Student in Botanical Ed Ikin Policy, Research & Horticulture Information Manager, Overview of volunteering in Head Gardener, Nymans, GreenSpace horticulture in the UK and National Trust Localism and communities: USA Growing your own: implications for public Cheryl Pearson developing professional green space gardeners from a Mark Wallington Volunteer Manager, volunteer scheme Westonbirt National Mark Restall Bridgwater College Arboretum Green fingered or just Diversity – the spice of life Consultant on green – challenges and Amanda le Poeur Trench volunteering opportunities in working Volunteers and the law with students Volunteer Co-ordinator, Nicholas Wray Mike Elliott Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Curator, University of National Volunteering Strategy rules – how and Bristol Botanic Garden Manager (Management why to develop a volunteer Guiding by volunteers – Development), National strategy the way ahead Trust Mike Calnan Kevin Reid A new approach to employer-supported Head of Gardens, National Director, Ness Botanic volunteering Trust Gardens, University of Carola Vorlop Sixty years of garden Liverpool volunteering – the National Managing change Trainer and consultant on Trust’s story through volunteers – the volunteering ultimate challenge? Volunteers – help or Visit to Westonbirt hindrance? Your National Arboretum (pm) volunteers are only as for tours and discussion good as your programme on managing and training Kate Davies volunteers. Head of Volunteering, English Heritage Assessing progress: where to start with monitoring and evaluation 11

Geraniums – Restraint and Discrimination

Bob Brown, founder of Cotswold Garden Flowers, kept a large audience well entertained and informed during the Noel Pritchard Memorial Lecture in June. Given the wide range of geraniums, he excluded low-growing varieties “the ones you trample on”, and encouraged informed selection of the taller species and hybrids. He suggested that any geranium should be chosen for impact, as seen from a distance. Colour, density of bloom, robustness, length of flowering and leaf colour should be considered.

Those he could not recommend, although a challenge for geranium ‘nerds’ include: G. ‘Prelude’, with tiny, pale pink flowers. G. x oxonianum ‘Hollywood’, pale pink sparse flowers which flops and seeds widely. G. x thurstonianum due to its deformed petals. All G. sessiliflorum subspecies, remarkable for their bronze leaves, but which succumb to winter cold and wet. G. pratense ‘Plenum album’, a very weak double white. G. pratense ‘Galactic’,’ Plenum Violacea’ and ‘Striatum’ - all prone to mildew. G. Pratense ‘Summer Skies’ as it balls in wet weather.

His recommended varieties were: G. x magnificum ‘Blue Blood’, a deep violet-blue which clumps quickly and has good autumn-coloured foliage, though in flower for only two weeks. G. sylvaticaum ‘Amy Doncaster’, royal blue with a white centre. G. pratense ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Variegated White’, both mildew-resistant. G. pratense ‘Marshmallow’ – a new form with white petals streaked with blue, red stems and red-flushed leaves. G. x oxonianum ‘Wageningen’, salmon pink with purple veins and ‘Rozenlicht’. G. ‘Rosanne’, a true blue with red stems which comes up in June, making it ideal to interplant with early-flowering varieties. G. monacense ‘Claudine Dupont’ for its yellow-green leaves emerging in late winter. G. nodosum ‘Silverwood’, with white flowers and pale green leaves, which grows in any conditions. Two varieties bred by Alan Bremner in Orkney were highly recommended: G. ‘Patricia’ with deep mauve flowers which blooms for four months, and G. ‘Solitaire’.

His recommendations for best foliage were: G. maculatum ‘Elizabeth Anne’, with glossy, reddish foliage. G. maculatum ‘Blue Sunrise’, with a red edge to the leaf. G. phaeum ‘Samobar’, with dark marks on the leaf.

Geraniums for dry shade: G. malviflorum, G. macrostylum ‘Leonides’ and the very best - G. libani.

Cotswold Garden Plants has a comprehensive website and does mail order: www.cgf.net Google ‘Alan Bremner Orkney’ for information on his geranium breeding. Hazel Witte

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Fungi in the Garden Although you can’t see most of them, your garden is full of fungi – probably several thousand species of them. Some of them are friends and some are foes, and your garden couldn’t exist without them. Fungi comprise a separate Kingdom of the living world, more closely related to animals than plants, but very different from both. Historically, they have been studied by botanists, because most fungi are associated with living plants or their dead remains. Fungal cells contain nuclei (like plants and animals, but unlike bacteria). These cells are usually joined together in a spreading network of very narrow, tubular, branching filaments called hyphae. The hyphae are about ⅟10 the diameter of a human hair. Fungi cannot photosynthesize, and depend on pre-formed sources of energy, so the hyphae exude enzymes which break down complex substrates and allow fungi to absorb food. Fungi reproduce by means of spores. Fungi evolved about 650 million years ago, and were therefore waiting for plants when they first colonised the land about 450 million years ago. The evolution and diversification of the three Divisions of ‘higher’ fungi, Glomeromycetes (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi), Ascomycetes (cup fungi and allies) and Basidiomycetes (mushrooms and allies) are closely related with that of green plants, which fix the energy of the sun by photosynthesis, and ultimately provide fungi with food. It is difficult to know how many fungi there are, because they have not been exhaustively documented and, of course, they are difficult to see. In the UK, which has one of the best documented fungal floras in the world, there are 2,000 described flowering plants and 12,000 described fungi – a ratio of 1:6. If you apply that ratio to the whole world there must be at least 1.5 million fungal species. However, only around 100,000 have been described. We know that most of these undescribed fungi are living inside plants, or in soil or water because molecular studies of these substrates reveal thousands of fungal DNA sequences which do not belong to known species. A teaspoon of your garden soil may contain between 300 and 1000 species of fungi and up to 3000m of fungal hyphae. There are three basic fungal lifestyles: Decomposers These fungi remove carbon from the cellulose and lignin in the cell walls of dead plant material. In so doing they release carbon dioxide and minerals (nitrogen, phosphorus etc), thus keeping the world’s biogeochemical cycles going. The by- products of this process form humus, which increases the soil’s ability to hold water and nutrients. Parasites Some parasitic fungi (e.g. honey fungus) attack living plant cells, kill them, and then live off the dead cells. They usually kill the plant. The ‘smarter’ones (e.g. rusts and mildews) don’t kill the cells, but derive nutrition from the living cells, without immediately or necessarily killing the plant. Mutualists The roots, stems and leaves of virtually all plants contain fungal endophytes, which may confer benefits (e.g. in herbivore resistance) or which may be asymptomatic. Almost all plants have mycorrhizal fungi in their roots. The main benefits are in nutrient uptake, so the plants which are most dependent are those with the most poorly- developed root systems, or which are growing in nutrient-poor soil. Ian Alexander’s summary of his presentation to the Friends in May

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Origanum - a Mountain of Joy

Origanum is the herb of joy and light-heartedness and I experienced its delight when chatting to my daughter over a pot of ‘mountain tea’ brought back from her holiday in Crete last year. As we drank and swapped stories we were caught up in the happiness of reunion and Origanum dictamnus became ‘happy tea’ in our household.

Origanum, planted by Aphrodite in a mountain crevice, eaten by monks in porridge, used as an antidote to snake bite and the flavour of fast food pizza; is a herb that holds surprising variety for the cook and gardener. There are about 43 species, 18 hybrids and 70 varieties that have been given over 300 scientific names in the last 150 years, and so it is no wonder that Origanum is a genus characterised by diverse appearance and taste. Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare) comes from the sunny Mediterranean but it is common in hedgerows of southern England and also happily meanders over my neighbour’s front garden here in Aberdeen city. O. dictamnus is our woolly-leaved ‘happy tea’ or Dittany of Crete and Turkey, is home to 21 Origanum species, producing two thirds of the world’s oregano. Oregano is best thought of as an aroma, not a plant, as oregano can be prepared from any of 60 plant species; mostly European Origanum and Mexican Lippia.

Judith Hann, President of the Herb Society, www.hannsherbs.co.uk, recommends O. vulgare ‘Compactum’ and ‘Nanum’ for cooking. They are both dwarf marjorams growing to 15cm, whilst ‘Kent Beauty’ is a good ornamental with its hop-like flower heads. I grow O. vulgare, O. onites (pot marjoram) and O. vulgare ‘Aureum Crispum’ for cooking and ornament, using O. onites and ‘Aureum Crispum’ leaves fresh in salads. O. vulgare has a stronger flavour and I use it fresh or dry in any recipe discovering, as Delia suggests, that marjoram has an affinity for many foods, www.deliaonline.com. I harvest O. vulgare regularly: hanging the stems in small bunches. When the leaves are thoroughly dry I gently rub them off into a bowl, crush them by hand and then press them through a sieve. The satisfyingly fine particles that result are stored in a dry, clean jar. Florence Ranson, Secretary of the Essex County Herb Committee from 1940 to 1946, recommended cooking with marjoram in a mix with mint, sage, parsley and thyme. Florence’s neat manual of herb recognition ‘British Herbs’ published in 1949 makes me long for those days when “waiting for buses in country lanes can be considerably brightened if one spends the time searching for wild flowers”.

The three Origanum in my herb garden needed very little attention last season. I cut them right back in January this year and they all had 10cm of growth by April. O. vulgare and hybrids with O. laevigatum as one parent are usually hardy. Other Origanum species will not survive winter and should be treated as annuals, such as O. marjorana (sweet marjoram), or brought indoors. Most like alkaline soils and dry, sunny spots. Cultivation needs of all the species and cultivars are meticulously described in Susie White’s beautifully illustrated booklet ‘Origanum’ (www.nccpg.com/ Shop.aspx).

Colette Jones 14

Tours of the Garden

Two committee members of the Friends have been tutored by Head Gardener Richard, so that we are able to show visiting groups round the Garden. We both learned a lot ourselves and have a greater appreciation of the seasonal changes and work required to keep the Garden in good order. Members of the Aberdeenshire Branch of the National Trust seemed to appreciate our efforts, and we enjoyed sharing our pleasure in the Garden as we took them around.

Aberdeen University has ceased to teach Agriculture, after 116 years; the last students graduated recently. To mark this event the Aberdeen Agricultural Graduates Association held a Valedictory Social Event on the evening of 7 July in the Foyer of the Zoology Building. Among the attractions was a guided walk in the Gardens. About twenty people joined the tour, about a third of the attendance. The weather was fine and the Gardens looked well. Since the audience were Agricultural graduates they all knew the Cruickshank from their student days. Jim Suttie

Milk thistle, Silybum marianum drawn by Hazel Carnegie

Cancellation of meetings There may be occasions where meetings have to be cancelled at short notice due to severe weather - as last December. When this happens it is not possible for the committee to contact all those who may be planning to attend, unless you have given the treasurer your E-mail address.

If you are in any doubt about possible cancellations, please contact any committee member whose phone number is on the back page.

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Office Bearers of the Friends, 2011-12

President: Hazel Witte Tel: 01224 732738 Secretaries: Evelyn Massie (General) Tel: 01224 310125 Leona Whiteoak (Programme) Tel: 01975 581248

Treasurer & Membership Secretary: Linda Grant E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 01224 861757 7 Earlspark Way, Bieldside, Aberdeen AB15 9BY

Subscription rates Non-earning £10.00 Ordinary £20.00 Life £200.00

www.abdn.ac.uk/botanic-garden

The next issue will be published in February 2012. Please contact the editor with ideas and any information which you wish to be shared with other Friends. Articles should be sent in by January 8 Hazel Witte, Monearn, Maryculter, Aberdeen AB12 5GT Tel: 01224 732738 E-mail: [email protected]

Scottish Charity Number SC004350

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