Newsletter Cylchlythyr

THE FRIENDS OF TREBORTH BOTANIC GARDEN

CYFEILLION GARDD FOTANEG TREBORTH

NEWSLETTER CYLCHLYTHYR

Number / Rhif 61 January/Ionawr 2018

Fig. 1. Seed sowing by Anheddau Outdoors Walking Group [p. 11]

Fig. 2 Anheddau Outdoors Walking Group by a waterfall [p. 11]

COMMITTEE

Sarah Edgar ([email protected]) Chair Angela Thompson ([email protected]) Vice Chair, Joint Membership Sec Cath Dixon ([email protected]) 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 ([email protected]) Committee Member Dr David Shaw ([email protected]) Committee Member Tom Cockbill ([email protected]) Committee Member Dr Ann Illsley ([email protected]) Committee Member James Stroud ([email protected]) Committee Member Jen Towill ([email protected]) Committee Member Tom Morrisey ([email protected]) STAG Representative

Newsletter Team

John Gorham email as above (layout, photos) Grace Gibson [email protected] (adverts, articles) Angela Thompson email as above (commissioning articles, planning, editing)

Cover Photos:

Front: Coelogyne mooreana from Vietnam [p. 16]

Back: Prosthechea cochleata from Belize [p. 16]

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: http://www.friendsoftreborthbotanicgarden.org/friends.htm or write to: The Secretary, Friends of Treborth Botanic Garden, Treborth, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2RQ, UK

Issue No. 61 January 2018

Contents

Chair’s Introduction, January 2018 3

News in Brief 4

Chair’s Report to the AGM, 2 November 2017 5

Curator’s Report: September—December 2017 8

Book Review : A Guide to Britain’s Rarest Plants by Christopher J. Dixon 10

Anheddau Outdoors Walking Group and Gardening at Treborth 11

Internships at Treborth – the Bangor University Employability Awards 14

Orchids and Treborth 16

Winter Quiz 19

An Anglesey Garden - Mid-Winter and Early Spring 21

France, Switzerland, a Bicycle, a Tent and Boundless Nature for Company 30

Wildlife and Gardening at Siambra Gwynion 32

Sophie Williams 35

Shorelines 38

Gait Barrows, National Nature Reserve, Lancashire 41

Of Mice and Men 46

Winter Quiz—Answers 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, January 2018

The University runs an intern programme under which departments can submit bids for student internships; Treborth always seems to be a popular place to go! So last summer we were fortunate to have several excellent students doing various projects. In the last newsletter, there was an article about the arboretum work, and in this one you can read about Georgina Archer’s mindfulness project, Kerry Macdonald’s study of slug nematodes, Grace Lawson’s work on education and interpretation, and Tom Morrissey’s and Jemima Letts’ woodland mapping project.

Jen Towill has written about another project at Treborth, Anheddau, that introduces gardening to vulnerable adults. Our neighbour, Wild Elements, has been involved in all sorts of different work over the past year and has won a Small Business Award: Claudia Howard writes about this. Andy Macfarlane has been helping to look after the orchids at Treborth; his article is about our collection and he gives some advice on suitable orchids for the home. Natalie Chivers updates you on other activities at Treborth in her Curator’s report.

It is always good to read about people’s trips to foreign lands, especially in the depths of a Welsh winter here. One of our volunteers, John Keymer, is a keen cyclist and writes of his summer expedition to France and Switzerland where, despite some punishing ups and downs, he was able to enjoy some spectacular landscapes and wildlife. Further afield, John Gorham tells you about his trip to South Georgia, where he saw many species of penguins, seals - and quite a bit of weather – and discusses the habitat restoration work going on there.

Nearer home, Angela Thompson writes of her visit to the amazing limestone pavement of Gait Barrows National Nature Reserve in Lancashire, and explains how limestone pavements are formed. We are pleased to have another report from Nigel Brown on his wildlife observations and the development of a woodland garden at his home, plus an account of the effects of torrential rain on Anglesey in November and his discoveries on the shoreline near Newborough. David Shaw’s article also mentions wildlife in his garden, some welcome and some not so much; but a fascinating account of how we learn from experience how to manage our own gardens.

So, light the fire, pour yourself a mug of something hot and enjoy this newsletter! You have even got a quiz to challenge the little grey cells. Sarah Edgar

News in Brief

· Donations

We should like to thank Amy Walker, John Good, Jackie Lomax, John and Jackie Wootton, Mr and Mrs John Farmery, and Elizabeth McLelland for kindly donating to the Friends’ finances, and to Frances Simpson and others who responded to our spring bulbs and labels appeals.

· Spring Bulbs (with thanks to Hilary for details)

At recent work parties, students from STAG, and many Friends (including Hilary Miller, Marion Gash and Chris Howard) on volunteer days have been busy planting spring bulbs in various parts of the Garden and in large pots and tubs, all with very clear labelling. This activity has, in part, been made possible by donations to our special appeal. Once the bulbs have flowered next spring, the bulbs in containers will be planted out in the Garden.

Many favourites have been planted and there should be a vibrant display of colour and form in the first half of the year. We shall see varieties of Allium, Anemone, Chionodoxa, Crocus, Eranthis hyemalis (winter aconite), Eremurus bungei (foxtail lily), Fritillaria, Hyacinthus, Iris reticulata, Narcissus including the Tenby daffodil, Ornithogalum and Tulipa.

For the tubs and pots, the planting mix was based on the peat-free Melcourt Treborth Mix potting compost (which includes loam) with a generous addition of gravel and Perlite, and Osmacote slow-release fertiliser. This ensures a well-drained planting medium with fertiliser to support growth over several months. Angela Thompson

Chair’s Report to the AGM, 2 November 2107

I’d like to start with looking at the events we’ve held over the past year. There were three successful plant sales that always have such a good atmosphere and are as much social events as for fund raising. The May plant sale was registered as an event in the North Wales Festival of Gardens so we made it an open day with guided walks in the afternoon, in the hope that the advertising in the Festival brochure would bring in lots of new visitors. We sold plenty of plants in the morning, but the afternoon was not particularly busy and certainly didn’t justify the cost of being in the Festival. We also tried holding our autumn sale this year on the same day as the fungus foray. Both the plant sale and the foray went well but it was very tiring for those volunteers who were here all day. However, what has been great to see is the number of volunteers who are happy to help with these events. We were a bit worried before the autumn sale because several of us were not available on that day, but we have such a good pool of people now that there are plenty who cheerfully put their hands up when we’re asking for help.

I’ve been particularly pleased with one new initiative this year - the botanical seminars. Tomos Jones came up with this idea at one Committee meeting, when we were lamenting the lack of botany teaching in the University. Why don’t we fill this gap, he said; we have a wealth of knowledge amongst our members and other contacts. So he and Jen Towill have set up a programme of monthly seminars in the autumn and spring terms. These are primarily aimed at students but also are very popular with our older members. They are putting together the 2018 programme now so if you have any suggestions for speakers please let one of them know.

Nigel gave the first seminar in January, and we also prevailed on him to do a couple of his nature walks, one bird watching in Newborough, and the other to the Dingle local nature reserve in Llangefni. Actually, I’m glad to say we don’t have to persuade Nigel very hard – his natural enthusiasm for sharing his love of nature seems to spill out of him - as you will have also seen in his wonderful articles for the newsletter.

Our partnership with the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust has continued. We visited Ty Fry on Anglesey last February to see their spectacular snowdrop display, and we had a coach trip to Biddulph Grange – a most extraordinary garden near Stoke on Trent. Our annual coach tour with them was to gardens in the Midlands; we all came back from there inspired by the gardens we saw and with a coach full of plants we had bought.

As well as organising plant sales and other events in the garden, members have been busy doing practical gardening. Just a few examples of what we have

done: the bulbs and other pllants that were planted last year have produced a magnificent display throughout the year as the seasons have changed, and every volunteer day you can find Ann or Mary or Hilary, or one of the other volunteers, dead-heading away to encourage even more flowering. A pleasant whiff of bonfire, or very occasionally a cloud of billowing smoke if the wind changes direction, shows that Erle or Andrew is busy at the bonfire site. This has been redeveloped this year by the Friends and now has new compost bins on one side and areas for the bonfire and for material to be burnt on the other. Woe betide anyone who puts new material in the wrong place! It has been wonderful to see the Chinese garden being planted up now, with much input from Berta. It was she who had the idea of very simple, but solid, oak benches that were a made by Peter Boyd and look so effective in the centre of the garden. It is lovely to see how visitors are drawn towards that area on a sunny day to sit and chat, or eat their lunches, or just experience a quiet moment of contemplation. The woodland is often buzzing with the sound of Gerry’s chainsaw as he, with Dave or Paul or Mark, clears the laurel. We get paid for this work under the Glastir scheme which brings in very useful income. The bird hide has also been treated with wood preservative and some repairs done – thanks to Paul and Mark.

The Friends also give support to the Garden in other ways. Several of us worked with Natalie to design the three new interpretation boards that you can see in the garden. The Friends paid for most of the production of the boards, and Doreen’s amazing drawing skills feature on two of them. And of course, if you want a piece of Doreen’s artwork you can buy her cards and prints here at Treborth. The Friends have paid for boxes of labels for the garden and Erle has made and erected some sturdy wooden posts for the arboretum tree labels to be mounted on. Labelling is such an important feature of a botanic garden so we are very pleased that the Friends are able to help make this happen at Treborth. Andrew has put a lot of work into redeveloping the Friends’ website to complement the redesign of the Garden website. Paul helped out when John was not able to do the layout preparation of the last newsletter. There was this rather bizarre period in late August when Angela was in a caravan in the Lake District trying to help Paul, who was in the east midlands and then in Bangor, with some issues with photographs, and I was in Sussex emailing Angela about what we would do if the newsletter wasn’t ready to go out until October which would be too late to notify people about the plant sale … but it was all fine and the newsletter was, as ever, beautifully produced and got out in time, thanks to Angela, Paul and all those who came in to stuff envelopes.

There are some projects that we have discussed that haven’t got off the ground. For example, we explored the possibility of the Friends being a partner in funding a PhD project. That didn’t work out in the end, but it was very interesting

to think about funding research and it gave rise to all sorts of discussions about different ways in which the Friends could support Treborth’s aims and objectives. We had hoped to get another contract with the University to set up a garden, and maintain it, at the new SEACAMS building in Menai Bridge. After Jen Towill put in a lot of work in designing the garden and preparing plans, we heard nothing from the University and had to assume that they didn’t want to proceed. I mention these two projects just to show that the Friends are always looking for new opportunities to help the Garden – sometimes these initiatives work out and sometimes they don’t. But it is important that we have new ideas and try new things – even if we sometimes conclude that the old tried and tested method works best!

In fact, we are trying some new things next year. Strictly speaking this shouldn’t be part of my report on the past year, but I will briefly mention a few things that I am very excited about. We will be opening under the National Gardens Scheme next September. There will be guided walks and tours of the glasshouses, and also plants to buy. We won’t be having a separate autumn plant sale, so we hope that people who normally come to the autumn plant sale will still come to the NGS day. There will be a charge for entry which goes to the very worthwhile national charities that the NGS support, but all the plant sale and refreshments income will go to the Friends. We have also got a well-known speaker for the Len Beer lecture next year – the garden designer Adam Frost. The lecture will take place in the big lecture theatre in Pontio which will be an interesting departure from the norm. We will be charging for entry instead of asking for donations, and Pontio will handle all the ticket sales. Again, this is something new, and we may go back to the Main Arts Lecture Theatre the following year, but we’ll give it a try.

Finally, we will also be celebrating our 21st anniversary next year. We did talk about having tea and cakes here in the lab but then we thought – this is more work for some of us, so why don’t we have a treat and go out somewhere. So we are going to Plas Cadnant for a celebratory light lunch and a walk round their garden. So please put April 20th in your diary, and let’s put away our boots and secateurs and look back on what we have done, not just in the past 12 months but in the past 21 years. Jennifer Rickards made a lovely comment to me just last week. She said that she tells other people that Treborth is an example of a small organisation that works well because it has created a vibrant and caring community. I think that’s because we are all made welcome by the staff and feel that our respective skills, whether in tending bonfires, propagating rare plants or drawing red squirrels, are valued.

Sarah Edgar

Curator’s Report, September – December 2017

Most of the leaves have now fallen from the trees in the Garden, revealing architectural silhouettes of the bare branches, and, taking a walk along the coast path, the woodland now exposes the turbulent waters of the Strait and glimpses of Anglesey. Not all deciduous trees drop their leaves so readily, and we have a new example here in the Garden: Quercus dentata (Korean Oak), native to Japan, Korea and China, has deeply lobed leaves, sometimes reaching up to 30cm long. These striking leaves turn a warm apricot-brown in autumn and often remain stubbornly on the tree late into winter, before falling. You know when you are in the presence of this oak, because you can hear the leaves furiously rustling in the wind while everything surrounding it is bare. This interesting tree is part of the Chinese Medicinal collection, but we have planted it adjacent to the garden in the lawn, to give it ample room to grow to 25m.

As we reach the end of another season, I wanted to update you on the autumn activities and plans for 2018.

We started the term with a successful STAG and BFSA (Bangor Forestry Students Association) work party, which helped to plant many of the 5000 bulbs for the spring display next year, and continued to clear the invasive species in the woodland and arboretum. STAG and BFSA joined forces again in November for another work party, this time helping the Friends to open up and clear the limestone end of the Rock Garden. The team cleared an impressive amount of material, and we will start to improve and replant this space in the New Year. The party also continued their quest to rid the woodland of invasive laurel and rhododendron and helped to erect a new leaf mould bay, which will increase our capacity to compost the many tonnes of leaves we collect over the autumn months. As always, the students from both groups were well-fed with sumptuous lunches provided by the Friends, which certainly helps keep us all going strong!

We welcomed the help of external contractors Kehoe Countryside this September, who very kindly cut our meadow plots for us with their large farm machinery and used the cuttings to enrich donor meadow sites at Penrhyn Castle. As you know, Treborth is home to 12 or so extremely diverse meadow areas, with over 140 species of native wild flowers which have been carefully managed over 60 years. Cutting the meadow plots at the end of each summer is an arduous task, involving many volunteers, strimmers and rakes, a job that we didn’t mind handing over to the machines! Although it looks extreme, the tractors benefit the plots by stripping away some of the thatch that has built up over the years, leaving patches of bare earth for seeds to germinate in. We are excited to see what colonises these areas in the spring onwards.

Treborth hosted a PlantNetwork training day in October as part of the Garden Management Forum. The workshop was titled ‘Managing gardens and plant collections within universities and other institutions’ and staff from Sheffield Botanic Garden, Winterbourne House and Garden and Treborth shared their experiences which prompted broad discussions on how we manage our gardens and often need to justify their existence to their owner bodies. It was a very positive and useful day and we plan to be a venue for another training day in the future.

The Garden has also welcomed many university lectures and practical classes this term, including small mammal and bird monitoring practicals, lectures on ex-situ conservation, lichen and liverwort workshops, and fungi and forestry sessions. We are delighted that the Garden is continuing to be utilised for university modules and we look forward to more plant diversity practicals in the spring.

We have secured another four Bangor Employability Internships for spring 2018, which give students the opportunity to gain paid, graduate level work experience in the university's academic schools and service departments. The internships at the Garden will involve working to develop the university’s Biodiversity Action Plan, researching uses for our Chinese medicinal plants to interpret to the public, working on a new garden leaflet, developing our photographic portfolio and archiving our historical images.

We are continuing to improve the interpretation throughout the garden; and thanks to donations from the Friends of Treborth Botanic Garden label appeal we have been able to increase the number of plant labels across the site. We are working with local designers on new interpretation boards and self-guided garden trails, so visitors can learn about the history and uses of plants, as well as interesting botanical facts, tips and tricks on how to care for their gardens. If you would like to donate to this important project, please get in touch.

We will also be increasing our infrastructure here at Treborth in the New Year: we are installing a polytunnel to assist with plant sale propagation and project work, and erecting a potting shed, which will be a more comfortable potting area for volunteers and students and it will increase and improve our storage space too.

Thank you to all for another fantastic year, and happy gardening! Natalie Chivers

Book Review : A Guide to Britain’s Rarest Plants by Christopher J. Dixon (Pelagic Identification Guides, Pelagic Publishing, Exeter 2017. 153 pp, colour illustrated ISBN 978-1-78427-146-6, pbk £19.99: see page 37)

Rarity is a natural phenomenon in time and space, increasingly influenced by man. The rarer a species becomes the more attention it generates. This attractive guide takes full advantage of our inherent interest and concern by highlighting the current status of some of the rarest native British plants. A 1,500-word introduction clearly explains the rationale of the book and there follows species accounts of 66 carefully chosen rarities, all of which are found in three or less hectads in Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). A hectad is an area 10km x 10km widely used as a recording unit – there are over 3,000 hectads in Britain.

The species accounts are well written and informative, presenting an interesting variety of relevant information covering ecology, distribution, history and conservation written in a straightforward and engaging style. Each account is accompanied by two colour images, one a good plant portrait, the other an equally welcome habitat/site shot. Distribution is indicated by a clear map of Britain in each case. Other rare plants growing in the highlighted areas are also mentioned.

It is not surprising that Snowdon Lily (Gagea serotina) receives due attention though other local rarities such as Great Orme Berry (Cotoneaster cambricus) and South Stack Fleawort (Tephroseris integrifolia ssp. maritima) are given just brief mention, and Western Spiked Speedwell (Veronica spicata ssp. hybrida) is not considered. These last two taxa are represented by more widespread subspecies elsewhere in Britain as explained in the introduction and C. cambricus is subject to ongoing research and discussion regarding its taxonomic and native status.

Family names are not always provided and frustratingly not all the plant portraits are taken in Britain, which means that for some species such as Ghost Orchid (Epipogium aphyllum) and Radnor Lily (Gagea bohemica), the illustrated overseas versions are far more vigorous than their British counterparts which can be rather misleading. References are not provided, even though the author has clearly researched his topic well and has included some fascinating recent genetic findings which enhance the individuality and conservation status of many of the species in the book.

Despite some shortcomings, this is an attractive and informative publication based upon a great deal of field work and research by a well-travelled,

experienced conservation botanist. Its neat, colourful format and concise, authoritative, readable text will appeal to a wide audience many of whom like the reviewer will be motivated to find out more about our rarest plants. And that is the point – conserving Britain’s diversity will only succeed if more and more people care and understand, and books like this focus our attention on species of highest conservation concern. Nigel Brown

Anheddau Outdoors Walking Group and Gardening at Treborth

In 2010, I started working for Anheddau Outdoors Walking Group, one Wednesday a month, taking individuals with supporting needs out for a leg-stretch over the Bangor locality, ambling around all the local classic walks many a time. The group meets every Wednesday and there are always two instructors with them. Most of us have been doing it for years and I’m sure it’s as therapeutic for us instructors as it is for the clients. Anheddau (derived from a Welsh phrase for ‘our dwelling’) is a registered not-for-profit charity whose purpose is to assist adults with supporting needs to live ordinary lives and access the community.

As we all know, Treborth too is a very therapeutic place to be, and early in 2017 with the help of Tom Cockbill from Wild Elements and the support of all the Treborth staff, we were successful in obtaining funding from The Widening Access Centre (Bangor University) and The North and Mid-Wales Reaching Wider Partnership. These are growing partnerships which have worked with Wild Elements at Treborth for many years and offer a range of opportunities for both school children and the general public. This funding was for a pilot project to have gardening sessions at Treborth with the clients from Anheddau in mind, as well as any others who wished to join the group alongside them.

Tom Cockbill teamed me up with Lisa Mundle from BusyBees, a smallholding and demonstration site for integrating sustainable food production with enhancing the wildlife value of the land. She has 30 years of experience in 1 growing produce organically and currently grows all her own produce on a 1 /2 acre plot on the outskirts of Bangor. Busybees are passionate about encouraging others to do the same and run several courses throughout the year including beekeeping, vegetable and fruit growing courses. She also is very experienced in working with all

manner of groups in a horticultural setting and was the perfect person to have working on the project.

Natalie and Rosie kindly said we were welcome to use the veg garden area to conduct the basis of the gardening sessions, and Peggy who has tended the beds over recent years also welcomed us to the area. Natalie and Rosie also supported us by allowing us to help with other jobs that needed doing if we needed additional activities or the weather was poor. The funding paid for us to use the lab, and it was important for this group to feel at ease, and they most certainly did.

We started in March, sowing seeds of radish, beetroot and salad leaves from the brassica family outdoors, and cress and Swiss chard undercover Figure 1). We also planted potatoes in that first week which gave us several weeks of fun digging them up later in the year. We found that sessions on a Tuesday morning from 10am – 1pm worked well and we were able to do these on a roughly twice- monthly basis. We would have time for a cuppa and a chat, some gardening activities, and as the year progressed and we began to harvest we would spend half an hour or so cooking and eating our produce in the lab.

The gardening activities we carried out ranged from sowing seeds, potting on, planting out, weeding and clearing, building supports for beans and mangetout (Figure 12), netting and picking strawberries and currants, cutting back, collecting seeds, to chopping, cooking and eating!! All these activities gave people a chance to build on skills that require thought, concentration and creativity, as well as being physical and providing an outdoor activity that brings people closer to nature and gives them an understanding of where our food comes from. It also importantly, gives a chance to have fun with others, to spend a couple of hours feeling part of a friendly team, all working towards the same purpose.

Lisa and I always explained all the processes we were undertaking as a group, and the reasons behind them. We told the group about plant families and growth habits, pests and diseases, and life cycles. Some of the veg we grew they had never tried before, and none had ever eaten their own grown produce, something they were thrilled to achieve. Through the summer period there was often a bounty, and participants were able to take home some goodies that had not been devoured at lunchtime.

Throughout the summer we grew mangetout, field and runner beans in the legume bed, a bed full of potatoes, radishes and kale in the brassica bed, and chard, beetroot, and courgettes in the remaining free beds. We also sowed and potted on annual flowers such as cosmos, nasturtium and sweet peas which we

placed in pots in front of the veg garden area. Having access to the veg garden meant this group had their own little space at Treborth, a space that everyone in the group could feel proud of.

Occasionally, we finished our gardening chores early and we carried out ‘sensory activities’. During the summer, we played ‘photographic eye’ by the butterfly border, where one person directs another (who has their eyes closed) to a place where, when instructed, they open their eyes for a split second to take a ‘photo’. It is quite amazing how vivid the image of a bergamot flower is when you see it up close but only for a split second between the blackness of your closed eyelids. Another day we did a ‘touch and feel’ exercise in the Maize House with all the wonderful scented plants that we found that day.

As the season drew to a close, we tidied up leaves, cleared beds, and planted daffodils and crocus under the orchard by the new pond. We will be ending 2017 with a morning of Christmas wreath and candle making, which will of course be accompanied by a mince pie or two. This has certainly been an enjoyable and productive project for myself, Lisa, and for all the members of the group that joined us throughout the growing season.

We are very grateful to Widening Access and Reaching Wider for the funds for 2017. We had very much hoped to gain funding again for 2018, and whilst we have received some funds from The Widening Access Project for this financial year (University financial year runs from August-July), these funds have only covered us until December 2017. We are very keen to secure funding from other sources in 2018 but have not, as yet, managed to do so. I hope I will be able to write another article towards the end of 2018 to tell you of our gardening antics next year.

Jen Towill

Internships at Treborth – the Bangor University Employability Awards

Bangor University has recognised that simply having a degree does not in itself guarantee employment for its graduates: they must have experience and additional knowledge to stand out from other job applicants. For a year or two now, the university has been operating an internship scheme for students to improve the likelihood of employment. Academic departments identify discrete areas of paid work which can be carried out by students. These are advertised, and students submit applications to carry out the work which is usually associated with their field of study. After several weeks’ work, the university recognises their efforts with an Employability Award, and hopefully this augments their qualifications.

Treborth has recently hosted some successful internships, and their experiences are outlined here.

My name is Kerry McDonald-Howard and I am a zoology student at Bangor University. I applied for a summer internship at Treborth as I was hoping for the chance to work during the summer in a physical and outdoors job. I also wanted to bridge a bit of the gap in knowledge I have in the plant ecology of Britain, as I am a South African and I lacked the ability to identify British trees and plants etc. Treborth was perfect for this and so much more. I got a place on the internship programme, mainly working with some very knowledgeable forestry students (Sarah Ellis principally) who taught me vast amounts in a limited time. It really helped to learn on the ground, with examples providing further understanding of all I’ve been taught.

During my time at Treborth I was also encouraged to focus on some projects of my own, drawing on my interests. I started looking into what green biological pest controls are available and how to make them more adaptable to be utilised at Treborth against the pest problems. One of these projects is the production of Treborth’s very own farmed nematodes Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita. This tiny microscopic worm parasitises and controls populations of slugs (always a massive problem in a gardener’s world). I am now also using these projects in my third-year research for university and the work I have done in Treborth has really given me a much better insight into how these pests live and work. I also had the pleasure of meeting, learning from and working with loads of volunteers who were all very welcoming and knowledgeable in their own right. The staff at Treborth were remarkably good at teaching and managing me whilst getting me to do work. A good team all round!

Lastly, I must mention one of the perks of interning at Treborth - the cakes, strong coffee (watch out if Rosie’s making it) and lunch; socialising is a big part of Treborth and wow, you do it well! Thank you all so much for the time and the valuable knowledge that all of you have given me in the short time of my internship.

Grace Lawson also completed an internship at Treborth over the summer, developing some Interpretation and Education Materials for the Garden. She says that while at Treborth she ‘met lots of lovely people including Wild Elements staff that I also got to help during their events in the summer. The internship gave me everything from gardening experience and knowledge to allowing me to create my own materials for the Garden.’

Gina Archer completed an eight-week internship at Treborth on surveying and enhancing the exotic glasshouse collection. She says, ‘I thought this would be a great way to learn more about plants and their natural environment, plus allowing me to spend some time in a great location. I am currently studying Sport and Exercise Psychology, where gardening can be seen as great physical exercise that gets you out in the fresh air, but there is so much more to it than that.’ She worked on plant husbandry, watering, propagation, pruning, weeding, feeding and pest control, and spent a lot of time working with the team in the Arboretum (clearing brush and Carex) and in the glasshouses. ‘The technical skills in applied horticulture helped me to fully understand the benefits of using gardening activities to support and enhance wellbeing’, she added. ‘This is useful because after graduation, my plan is to apply my knowledge through mindfulness and wellbeing to help improve life for both the young and the old in the community.’

She was encouraged to work independently on a project whilst an intern: she chose to create a folder of ‘Magical Sensory Mindful Walk Experiences’ to enable people to learn and practise mindfulness informally while exploring the Garden with maps and scripts (and hopefully an audio version). She gives guidance on how to breathe and a recommended pace to walk, how to observe and listen to the environment and to focus on one’s surroundings in real time using all the senses.

Jemima Letts and Thomas Morrissey worked together as interns on woodland management and mapping within the Treborth grounds. In 2016, Beth Powell-Morris had started mapping most of the gardens, even including the location of individual plant species, and Jemima and Tom continued Beth’s legacy and mapped the woodland areas of Treborth.

Jemima reports, ‘Tom and I managed to survey and map roughly 5 hectares of woodland, around half of the woodlands present at Treborth (we were unable to survey the donkey field and the old oak stand due to time constraints). We tried to use the same methods which were used by Nigel Brown in the survey that he completed in the 1970s so that we would be able to compare the data we collected to his earlier data sets (Figures 5 & 6). We surveyed the woodlands in 25 m grid squares, making a note of the dominant tree species, ground vegetation and the presence of invasive species such as rhododendron and laurel. We then used this data to assign each grid square a category, such as ‘Mixed wood with conifers dominant’, and were able to create a map showing the different types of woodland at Treborth.’

Tom and Jemima also made a few other maps showing the position of invasive species and noting the density of cover to inform future management. The map created by Nigel Brown in the 1970s has also now been digitised, which enables comparisons to be drawn between the woodlands then and today. They say they both thoroughly enjoyed their time at Treborth and wish they could apply again this year!

Angela Thompson

Orchids and Treborth

There’s no denying the popularity of orchids, as any casual glance around a present- day supermarket or garden centre will quickly establish. Advances in tissue culture techniques and hybridisation have ensured that there is a huge range of beautiful - and affordable - moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) in almost every branch of Tesco, and there seems to be no holding back the consumer demand. The interest is far from new. It dates from the nineteenth century, when intrepid Victorian botanists brought back exotic specimens from everywhere, from Latin America to the Far East, from rainforests to the Himalayas. The beauty and variety - and, sometimes, the sheer strangeness - of orchids were there for all to see, but it was rarely possible to reproduce in Victorian homes an environment that would keep them going. Temperatures fluctuated wildly - too cold in the house in winter, too hot in the conservatory in summer - and the perceived fastidiousness of orchids led to a reputation for difficulty, in the face of which even the most enthusiastic amateur would generally throw in the towel. But serious botanists saw the trickier aspects of orchid growing and propagation as a challenge, and therein lies another element to

the attraction of these plants. It is not just their beauty and elegance that appeal, it is the attention one has to devote to them: the badge of horticultural honour one deserves not just for getting them to flower, but even for just keeping them alive. To the average punter the successful orchid grower is a skilled practitioner of an arcane art, someone to venerate even more than those green-fingered adepts who can keep Christmas Poinsettias alive till Twelfth Night.

Is this reputation for difficulty deserved? Well, it depends on where you draw your proverbial line in the sand. Treborth has three rooms in its orchid house, providing three differing environments in terms of temperature and humidity. Most of us are unable to compartmentalise our greenhouses like this; certainly, my own has to accommodate the competing demands of seasonal seedlings, tomatoes, the odd cactus or succulent, and various orphan plants handed over for intensive care by despairing friends. Phalaenopsis, Cymbidium and Epidendrum species, however, are well within the capabilities of anyone who keeps house plants. Indeed, Phalaenopsis types are arguably ideally suited to modern, centrally heated homes and to people who work all week: as long as the plants are not stuck over a radiator that is on all the time, they need little in the way of extra humidity, and a position on a windowsill out of direct summer sunlight (which will scorch the leaves), with once-a-week watering and orchid feed every other time, will be perfectly fine. Peo- ple who have given me Phalaenopsis plants that are not doing well have usually over-watered them, which causes the fleshy roots to rot in the pot: even for orchids that need wetter conditions, the instruction “do not allow the plant to dry out” is not the same as “keep it thoroughly waterlogged at all times”. Coarse, freely- draining bark chippings are ideal compost for these plants, and the water should be allowed to drain through before they are put back on their saucers. There will come a time when the bark has broken down to a peaty consistency; it will then hold more water than is healthy for the roots and re-potting is indicated. Cymbidi- ums can be left outside for summer, even in north Wales, and brought in again around October. This alternation of cool nights and warm days helps set the buds for flowers which will be at their best in the depths of winter, when all outdoors is bare and brown. Epidendrums have less spectacular flowers than most other orchids but survive neglect rather better. A bathroom windowsill is a good place for them, again with once-a-week watering (though they do not seem to mind terribly much if you forget).

The orchid collection at Treborth was largely established by Professor Pe- ter Greig-Smith and Dr. Simon Retallick, whose meticulous instructions and spread- sheets are consulted with a certain degree of reverence, and my own nascent interest (I didn’t even have a greenhouse at the time) was piqued by a visit to the botanical gardens in Singapore in 2002. The orchid house itself underwent a Friends- funded renovation in 2015 with the work done by long-term supporter of the gar-

den Julian Bridges, and houses no fewer than 300 different species. Depending on how you classify them this is approximately 1% of all orchid species, and isn’t bad for a small botanical garden. Helping look after them as a volunteer under the guidance of horticulturalist Rosie Kressman has focused my attention on what I probably can and realistically can’t grow at home, and this year I am testing the water with Prosthechea, Liparis, Odontoglossum and Miltonia species, and with new dendrobiums. Anyone who visits the orchid house regularly will notice that there is pretty much always something in flower. The winter months are possibly the best of the year with, at the time of writing (November), beautiful yellow-and-white- flowered Coelogyne mooreana from Vietnam (see front cover), Goodyera schlechtendaliana and Ludisia discolor from east Asia, cloud forest Prosthechea gar- ciana, assorted paphiopedilums, rhyncosteles and the tiny, grassy, white-and- brown-flowered Ornithophora radicans all in bloom. Oncidiums and Laelias are in bud, and the weirdly octopus-like-flowered Prosthechea (formerly Encyclia) cochleata, the national flower of Belize, is just coming to an end (see back cover).

So, what needs doing on a regular basis? Using a surgical analogy, and leaving aside cymbidium-dividing where the roots of established plants can be hacked apart using a spade, orchid care generally needs the eye-for-detail approach of the ophthalmologist rather than the gung-ho, roll-your-sleeves-up intervention of the orthopod: the removal of ferns, lichens and perennial nuisance Oxalis stricta, all of which vie for nutrients, is a finicky affair. This summer, we also attended to those orchids whose re-potting was long overdue. Pest control is a Forth Road Bridge type of exercise, with dendrobiums particularly prone to mealy bug and scale insect, and dedicated removal by hand of the bulk of an infestation is a task that calls for a certain amount of mindfulness, or perhaps a pair of earphones and a pod- cast. Drenching affected plants from time to time with a standard insecticide also helps keep pests under control and, though total eradication is an unrealistically optimistic expectation, Rosie gratifyingly assures me that glass houses more prestig- ious than Treborth do less well than we on this score. Taking a step back and looking around at the end of autumn, the results of all this activity by staff and volunteers are obvious and rewarding: orchid leaves are green, pseudo-bulbs are plump, parasites are few and flowers are plentiful. You couldn’t really ask for more satis- faction than that. And you don’t have to go to Singapore to get it.

Andy Macfarlane

Winter Quiz (to test your Latin, of course !)

There are no prizes for getting the answers right. Instead, you can bask in the warm glow of your degree of botanical knowledge, and be re-assured your brain hasn’t hibernated too deeply like the rest of you over the cold months. But remember – the answers are in botanical Latin (with helpful common names), and they appear later in the newsletter.

Clue Your answer A Bears yellow flowers in early spring B Although not strictly a winter plant, its bark is unusual and used for Christmas decorations C Its fruit is used as stuffing at Christmas time D Although the flowers are long gone, its dried flower heads are pretty E These bright yellow late winter flowers cheer anyone F Mine is still flowering now (mid- November) and will continue as a colourful reminder of spring and summer G Had to be included in any winter flower quiz H Another must for winter gardens I From a favourite carol, it 'bears the crown' J An old wives' tale predicts the birth of a son if a woman dreams of the berries of this plant K Although the flowers can be seen in the summer, its leaves are interesting in early spring L In mild winters, this plant will flower

M This is a winter biennial N Look out for these happy flowers in early spring O Although it flowers in summer, its name is definitely associated with Christmas P Another favourite in spring Q This can be identified in winter by the bud clusters having 3 or more scales R The common name describes what you’d use to sweep clean the wooden block in this shop S Has frosty-looking foliage all year T Bright and jolly flowers but killed after the first frosts of winter U My father used to say that if this plant was in flower, it was kissing time - all year round V Unless the conditions are right, we can’t throw these, but you never know… W This tiny water plant lies dormant at the bottom of garden ponds in winter X With shortening hours of daylight, these plants will begin flowering Y This is 'the house plant for Janu- ary' according to one website Z Blooms in early spring, but only included because there is very little else beginning with 'Z'

Chris Howard (whose decisions are final)

An Anglesey Garden – Mid-Winter and Early Spring

A fine, silvery-pink dawn illuminates the frosty curves of central Anglesey. Brown hedge-lines contour and dissect the land, creating a mosaic of glazed fields twinkling in a quiet tide of light. Surveying this early morning scene from the terrace is akin to a private viewing. Here for the first time lies the artist’s work - there the stylised tree forms punctuating the rib lines of hedges, there the old cottage set in the palm of rock and copse, there the tracery of spent fern fronds randomly winnowed by the wintry months of winds, and there the final harvest of sycamore and ash keys. Winter-time, quiet time, cold time. Biology slumbering all around, every process slowed, every organic molecule of the poikilothermic world stood down.

A song thrush pipes, its chosen song perch illuminated by electromagnetic radiation. Dull backed, bright chested it has remained hidden and unheard for much of the year but now in mid-January, it seems more self-assured. A pure flute- like note echoes across the Garden and is quickly repeated. Time and time again, the song thrush sings its strident, simple chorus imbuing the time and place with an inspirational soundscape. Others soon interpose, the great tit’s metallic tones repeated in emphatic manner, a blackbird’s more mellow notes assembled deliberately and diversely, now soft and slow, now confidently entrained into the seasonal flow of energy streaming from the sun.

An hour later we pick up our tools in thick-gloved hands and tiptoe over the still frozen lawn to claim a new section of Garden – the Woodland Garden. It lies in waiting, a slice of hazel coppice with a central, longitudinal, limestone ridge and steep flanks, one angled SSE and the other NNW. Our first task is access and so over the last few days we have been establishing a path, intended to run the full length of the coppice. The relief of the land invites an undulating route with all the creativity that demands – short lengths of steps and easy-going places all sculptured from the country rock and soil with trusty mattock. The first swings of the morning are cold-clumsy as arm, torso and legs jostle for an efficient line. Then the eye takes over and hand tightens on the haft, legs gently bend, arms throw an ever wider, ever more confident arc and the broad blade sinks deep into the bank, on target. Suddenly all sense of cold evaporates in the fervour of excavation. The tangled bank yields. The cold, still air is drenched in the aroma of freshly exhumed earth as the first notch of substrate is removed, then again and again the aromas are unleashed and mix with visible breath. Mattock down, resting easy against the body, arms grasp the crowns of bramble and grass and strike them against the mattock’s blade, spilling their roots from the fertile soil.

I love to inspect such newly exposed ground rich as it is in the cryptic components of an ecosystem, criss-crossed with buried roots and rhizomes, bulbs, corms and tubers, the hidden engine houses of the plant world and so utterly different in their form and function from the more familiar aerial structures they support. The pale thread-like rhizomes of wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) ramify the surface layers of every exhumed clod along with equally long-lived, but usually deeper dwelling rhizomes of dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis). Shiny white, almost greasy-surfaced stolons of enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea lutetiana) are brothers-in-arms with the tough, well-branched roots of bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.). Ivy (Hedera helix) roots, flexible and thin, entwine with the fibrous rootlets of celandine (Ficaria verna) at shallow depths. Interestingly, celandine also produces small, off-white, potato-like perennating organs known technically as fusiform root-tubers and like seed potatoes, they have the capacity to grow forth and multiply! Deepest of all the earthly treasures are the smooth, pale tawny corms of wild arum (Arum maculatum), tugged down to depths of 30cm by contractile roots and deeper still, the ugly, sausage-shaped tubers of black bryony (Tamus communis). Interestingly, both species are the sole indigenous British representatives of their respective families.

Arums (Araceae) populate the warmer regions of the globe in large species numbers while black bryony is the only member of the pantropical yam family (Dioscoreaceae) that naturally occurs in Britain. Both families are somewhat atypical examples of monocotyledons, seemingly breaking the rules when it comes to leaf morphology. Wild arum has many alternative, rustic, vernacular names including Jack in the pulpit, cuckoo pint, and lords-and-ladies, and the starchy content of the tubers was used in the past as a substitute for arrowroot.

Enough of this edaphic inspection – back to work! Once each section of the path has been levelled, weed suppressant fabric is cut to size and fitted. The next stage, selecting suitable path-side logs, is made easier by the availability of a range of ash and sycamore limbs recently dropped to lighten the copse. Fitting them snug to the bank and to each other is rewarding and fun, from steps to bank retainers. Filling each new length with fresh wood chip completes the process and looks very natural. We can’t stop walking up and down it!

Over the next few weeks the happy task of populating our woodland garden with suitable shrubs and ground cover plants begins. Each specimen has unique demands and site selection in such variable terrain requires some patience and forethought. Acer davidii ‘George Forrest’ needs a slightly damp location and therefore sits most comfortably at the base of the northern slope. Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is planted in a pocket of deeper, leaf-litter rich soil half way up the northern slope. This is the commercial source of the astringent lotion known

by the same name and is an autumn flowering shrub from North America with fine golden-yellow autumn leaf colour as well as sweet scented yellow flowers. A lovely shrub rose raised by Dave Shaw from a cutting from my former colleague’s garden, Joan Morgan, sits proudly on a sunnier rise where the woodland path breaks out from the hazel corridor, and here there is room too for Leptospermum scoparium ‘Red Damask’ and Myrtus communis, both attractive evergreen shrubs in the myrtle family. The former is a deep-red, double flowered form of the common ‘Manuka’ or ‘tea tree’ of New Zealand, while the latter, the Common Myrtle (Myrtus communis) originates in southern Europe and SW Asia. Helleborus foetidus is one of several native woodland congeners that we wish to encourage, and the limey, well- drained upper slopes seem just right. Other species in this category include abundant primroses (Primula vulgaris) and common violet (Viola riviniana). In the shade of hazels, we promote and/or plant ferns and sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum). A fine clump of Chrysosplenium macrophyllum gifted to me by Treborth Botanic Garden occupies a discrete depression deep among the hazels for its own protection. This first stage is all about establishing a framework for the plant community we aim to nourish in our Woodland Garden, one which we hope will in time appear not dissimilar to a natural hazel coppice but enriched with some choice woodland subjects from other parts of the world, we hope in happy communion!

Beyond the western end of the Woodland Garden stretches a tiny and charming fern-rich dell of hazel and ash where for the moment we are happy for nature to continue unadorned by horticultural endeavour. It already boasts fine natural clumps of soft-shield fern (Polystichum setiferum) and hart’s-tongue fern (Asplenium phyllitis) forming a lush, low grotto and at this early time of the year I love to search for ruby elf-cup fungi (Sarcoscypha coccinea) there among the fallen, woody, winter debris. The bright red fruiting bodies hug the mossy ground and fallen branches, adding great sparkle to the scene. In Welsh, it is known as cwpan robin goch. In a few more weeks they will be joined by the emergent filigree of wood anemone shoots, with their fragile white blooms, a touching expression of late winter’s purity, like the snowdrop whose bulbs we scatter throughout the wider garden.

The retention of so many native plants in the garden will have a direct bearing on the diversity of invertebrates. Take moths for example – the larvae of a high percentage of British moths feed on the foliage of native trees and shrubs. The two dominant native woody species at Granary Cottage are hazel (Corylus avellana) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior). Of all native woody species, only oak accommodates more invertebrate species than hazel. For example, 41 species of macromoths rely on hazel at the caterpillar stage including some very attractive species such as large emerald, oak beauty, coxcomb prominent, nut-tree tussock, bordered beauty, barred umber, buff tip and the wonderfully varied July highflyer, all of which have

been recorded in our garden. Ash supports rather less, just 11 species of larger moth but again some fine species such as lilac beauty, centre-barred sallow, coronet and the nationally declining dusky thorn – again all recorded at Granary. Many of the herbaceous plants of the woodland floor support equal numbers of moths and indeed butterflies and other invertebrate groups species. Our aim is to avoid losing any of that natural diversity – it’s an intrinsic part of Granary and the area that we have chosen to live in.

Supplementary feeding of garden birds is not condoned by everyone but we admit to practising it using mixed bird seed, peanuts, sunflower hearts, nyger seed and fat balls, throughout the year. It probably helps explain the relatively high numbers of passerine birds we enjoy seeing on a daily basis. It is not unusual to count over 100 chaffinch, mostly taking nyger seed scattered on the lawn, over 20 goldfinch, 2-4 greenfinch, 20-30 tits of three species, several nuthatch, several thrush and about 10 other species feeding in the back garden at any one time. Goldfinches are our favourite. Their pretty markings, undulating, urgent yellow flutterings and vivacious, tinkly songs and calls are a constant joy, a happy mix of sight and sound casting their spell in every corner of the garden. Mind you they can be bickersome, resenting other species and their own kind. Squabbles are common place, accompanied by heightened intensity of frenetic calling and flash of feathers. Charming and entertaining, goldfinch numbers in Britain have increased by at least 85% in the last 30 years according to figures from the British Trust for Ornithology. Autumn and winter prompt variable movements of goldfinch in search of food and this so-called partial migration may involve strategic shifts of sizeable numbers of birds to and from the continent. Supplementary feeding may well have fuelled the recent rise in goldfinch numbers in gardens especially in winter and their subsequent increase in breeding population. Interestingly, following the initial preference for nyger seed, many adult goldfinch have switched to sunflower hearts leaving nyger for subordinate immature birds.

Two more species whose fortunes have risen dramatically in Britain, Anglesey and our garden are pheasant and red-legged partridge, two species of non -indigenous game bird species reared in large numbers on the neighbouring estate to sustain winter shoots which have become big business on the island. Their free- range nature, once mature enough, ensures that they are always visiting Granary and taking advantage of free food. Red-legged partridges are especially endearing, neat, dinky little birds, strikingly patterned and engaging in their behaviour. Rarely do they venture forth alone. Usually there’s a twosome or indeed a gang of them to admire. They forage quietly and discretely on grain of various sizes scattered on the lawn and have become confiding enough to rest on our terrace where we can admire them at close quarters. They are quite dazzling in colour and design, from their sharp white cheeks and throat bordered in black, their flanks strikingly barred

Fig. 3. Paphiopedilum insigne from Asia [p. 16]

Fig. 5. Rhynchostele rossii from Mexico [p. 16]

yellow dot) yellow (

Fig. 5. Map of Treborth Woodlands in 1970. [p. 14]

Fig. 6. Map of Treborth Woodlands in 2017. [p. 14]

Fig. 7. John Keymer on tour [p. 30]

Fig. 8. Sunflower field by Lake Geneva [p. 30]

with black, white and chestnut crescents, rufous-edged tail, lavender grey and warm buff ground colour of flanks, back and belly, and finally a bib of black droplets – a complex, disruptive beauty.

Whether all this avian change is sustainable ecologically remains to be seen. They are just a few examples of Man’s significant influence on bird fortunes. But our supplementary feeding does not just stop with birds – it now appears it affects another species with a ‘red’ prefix. Throughout the winter, red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) have provided splendid entertainment at Granary with up to three individuals at a time. The largest and most assertive is a male we call Blacktail. He usually hogs the main ‘bird-feeder’ deterring not only other squirrels but all bird species except cock pheasants. Then there’s Tufty Ginger, an exquisite individual, a female with the shiniest, bright ginger coat, pure white underparts and fine, acute ear tufts. She is bold enough to frequent our terrace and forage on peanuts at the feeder closest to the house. Frequently she removes whole peanuts and promptly scampers to the nearest flower pot or clump of saxifrage and buries her bounty! Sometimes she peers into the lounge window and we return her gaze, almost nose to nose! Despite such audacity Tufty Ginger is definitely subordinate to Blacktail and quickly retreats in his presence, indeed flees! And then there follows a frenetic chase involving laps of the entire back garden including the tallest trees, all at break -neck speed – it’s thrilling to watch and may last 10 minutes at a time. The end result is often uncertain with a temporary truce emerging, the two squirrels stationary upon a trunk or tree limb, no movement save for the swish of Blacktail’s very dark tail. The third squirrel is Little Ginger, and he or she is by far the smallest member of the group and only appears intermittently, always subservient to the other two, and clearly less confident. This individual shuns open ground such as the main lawn and rarely ventures high into the ash trees, preferring, it seems, to forage at low to intermediate heights.

Our days revolve around observing these compelling little mammals. The first sighting of the day, usually an hour or so after first light, is accompanied by the same welcome emotions my wife and I usually reserve for each other, and then throughout the day we exchange regular updates on their current activity. Work inside and out is so often dictated by what ‘our’ squirrels are up to. Increasingly, they accept our presence and take to watching our efforts to make a Garden. The hazels which provide an irresistible source of food for them, as well as acting as a convenient corridor running the entire length of the garden, are safe in our hands. Our Garden is their home, well certainly a significant part of their home range. The overlap of needs and likes in our lives and that of the many natural inhabitants of Granary Cottage Garden is life-sustaining for all parties.

Nigel Brown

France, Switzerland, a Bicycle, a Tent and Boundless Nature for Company

Following a full day of train travel plus a hair-raising ride through the centre of Paris, I was instantly revived on disembarking at TGV Belfort-Montbeliard and being met by a warm, crystal clear mid-summer evening with the tantalising blueness of the Vosges mountains in the near distance. It was early July and, similarly to us, France was bathing in heatwave.

I had chosen this unheralded region of north-eastern France for two reasons: firstly, its proximity to Switzerland (about which, more later) and, secondly, due to its appearance on this year’s Tour de France route. So, having spent a day getting a feel for the countryside, towns and villages on the relatively gentle inclines surrounding Belfort (Figure 7), my base for the first few days, it was indeed an awesome sight, having ridden high into the hills to join thousands of other roadside fans, to see the 200-strong “peloton” of lycra-clad, skeletal supermen cruise effortlessly past – and on up a 3500-foot climb at gradients around 1 in 8.

My campsite was a busy one beside a lake where, at dusk each evening, I became entranced by the precise flight of the swifts and house martins as they fed upon mayfly and mosquito larvae on the water surface. It was thrilling to see so many swifts especially as such flocks have become a rare sight at home. I found even more of them around Belfort’s impressive medieval fortress (complete with its watchful, giant red sandstone lion) with the playful nature of the fledglings juxtaposing the haunting shrieks. This effervescent display was the perfect accompaniment to watching the sun set at the end of another hot day.

A two-wheeled highlight of week one was scaling the famous Ballon d’Alsace col. Towering pine trees lined the road giving welcome cover from the sun. Meanwhile, delightful yellow butterflies provided excellent company during a never-ending struggle up a series of switchbacks in the narrow and almost deserted mountain road. Following a celebratory summit beer, I interrupted the long descent home at the pretty Lake Sewen, a place I had earlier noted as being ideal for a spot of wild swimming. Happily, I can report that indeed it was.

A final nature note of the week in the Vosges was the time, cycling along at dusk, my attention was caught by something large and incongruous atop a village telegraph pole. I had to be careful to stay upright when I saw a pair of nesting storks up there. It emerged that these impressive birds are thriving following a reintroduction program by the Alsace regional government.

I was consistently impressed by French civic pride. In every town and village, I found spotless streets and an abundance of elegant and imaginative floral displays. Even the window boxes of adjacent residences appeared to be synchronised. A “Ville Fleurie” sign, with corresponding star-rating (up to a

maximum of five), greets your arrival at each town and represents a national competition aimed at maintaining and enhancing public spaces.

The weather broke dramatically during the rest day that I spent at the Eurorockeenes music festival. Next, it was time to focus on week two’s objective: to traverse the Jura range of western Switzerland and end up back in France in the Alps south of Geneva. After entering Switzerland near Porrentruy, I was soon immersed in archetypal scenes of chocolate-box villages and lush pastures resonating with the sound of cowbells. I also noted a marked difference in terms of human lifeforms: the impression made by the rather gutteral, Germanic version of French was augmented by the less playful demeanour of the Swiss people.

For four days I followed the reliable Jura-route signposts that keep cyclists off the busy valley roads, sending them instead over a succession of lung-bursting peaks. Happily, the compensations were many. Indeed, the thinner the atmosphere, the richer the rewards as I feasted upon wondrous views across valleys and over endless alpine pastures broken up only by handsome timber outbuildings. Many a red kite, doubtless feasting on fresh carrion, took flight after becoming disturbed by my approach. Once over some crests, blissful kilometres were spent rolling along plateaus of quiet farm tracks alongside a menagerie of horses, cows, goats and the odd startled hare.

My picnic lunches featured delicious local cheeses and yoghurts from family-run fromageries as well as the juiciest, shop-bought cherries and nectarines - if only the ones in the Waitrose fruit aisle would be like that! For regular energy boosts, thick bars of Swiss chocolate were never out of arm’s reach.

My route through the Jura terminated with a thrilling descent into Nyon, a picturesque town by the vast blue water of Lake Geneva. Here, the unexpected proliferation of stout palm trees along the promenade where young people tore about on mopeds created a surprisingly Mediterranean feel, a notion reinforced as I cycled past fields of sunflowers on the short ride south to Geneva (figure 8).

I re-emerged in France in the Haute Savoie department for the last leg. Here, spectacular alpine scenery engulfed me as monstrous, jagged peaks stretched towards the sky in every direction. I finally ran out of road at Lake Annecy, another iconic body of melted glacial water. Annecy itself is known as the “Venice of the Alps” due to its canals that run alongside and under narrow streets featuring elegant and superbly maintained medieval architecture. Following 700 arduous kilometres in the saddle, I felt immensely satisfied for having picked the perfect spot for some well-earned R and R. John Keymer

Wildlife and Gardening at Siambra Gwynion

We moved into our little bit of paradise in 1967. Self-sufficiency was all the rage and as a botanist, I knew I could do it and grow some amazing new flowers too. I am still learning how.

The small garden, on the brow of the hill surrounded by fields and next to the wood, offered plenty of scope to grow food and flowers too. What I did not realise was that wild things wanted to eat too and as soon as you mess with an ecosystem it adjusts in all sorts of ways that you never thought of. When things go wrong in the garden you turn to your favourite books (and now websites), you ask friends (and now tweeps) and if all that fails you do what you can to solve the problem. Maybe an experiment would offer a solution and my training helped with that, remembering to replicate and to include a control. What fun!

So I have learned a lot. I suppose the biggest surprise was that some things just do not suit our habitat and it is sometimes better to give up rather than continue to be disappointed. There is a limit to the number of disappointments you can take but you know how some things are a challenge, so you try, try, try again up to that limit.

The nice black soil indicated historical feeding with night soil and with soot. There were plenty of chunks of old mortar to neutralise the soil, so I had to find out where the rhododendrons and camellias would be happy – trial and error was the method. I used to long for a good solid, nutritious clay for roses. A freely drained, hungry gravel is all right too, but needs every bit of compost and manure available.

Food (and drink) production was pretty much essential in these days for a young academic. So we embarked on poultry and egg production, and settled on friendly ducks to eat and ducks for eggs. We eventually had to give up when daytime foxes traumatised the poor things and made their life a misery. Their almost-liquid manure was a most useful resource (almost pure uric acid – the white stuff). However, it was their scavenging of garden pests of most kinds that was really amazing. I didn’t realise just how many slugs and snails they consumed until we could not have them anymore. They had the run of the garden and hardly touched plants in the vegetable patch. But you must protect lettuce seedlings and the like.

Trying to grow fruit was a high priority and has not been easy. Apples do well as long as they are tolerant of scab but some years we got none. I don’t know what has been worse - the bullfinches and tits, or the squirrels. Some years the

birds ignore the flower buds on apples and on plums, maybe because they find other buds that satisfy their craving. Squirrels are the worst thing on four legs for sure. They nest in the wood by the house and consume every fruit we grow, usually before it is anywhere near ripe. Trap them out and they come in from the Ogwen valley. Now that reds are coming back, the project to trap the greys from woodland east of Bangor has worked wonders. We have had our first big crop of apples, pears and plums in a long time. I do hope they stay away.

My sister used to have a house near Blairgowrie, the raspberry growing capital of Scotland with tiny fields of carefully trained canes just like vineyards. Addiction to the fruit meant I had to grow my own. After lots of failures with netting and wet summers, I tried a new disease-free variety in an old polytunnel. After a few years it had taken over the tunnel and provided a nice dry place to ripen fruit as early as May. Now they fill the freezer without fail every year with top quality fruit. It is no accident that the Scottish growers now use tunnels for the same reasons – protection from birds, rain and any marauding squirrels around. Funny thing is, mine never get watered and only need a bit of mulch when I remember.

Blueberries have been good too. Of course, they need total bird protection even before they start to ripen. An easy way to keep the birds off is with horticultural fleece. You can make a bag or sock by sewing up edges leaving the opening with draw strings so that the shrub can be enclosed with the bag and tied around the stems at ground level. Put the socks on just before ripening and take them off to pick when most fruit has ripened. One I planted in the woods (maybe 30 years ago) is about eight feet tall.

Growing fruit under glass poses another set of problems. So many insects compete for your crop and it can be really difficult to control especially if you don’t want to poison everything in sight. Aphids come and go depending on the season. I have been using a parasitic wasp to lay an egg into each aphid. The wasp larva feeds on the aphid, cuts a circular lid in the aphid skin, climbs out and starts to lay eggs again in more young aphids. The parasitised aphid can survive over winter and starts to emerge when the temperature rises in Spring. But by then the aphid population can be getting out of hand and the wasps have a hard job to start getting numbers down. A bit of fatty acid spray on the worst of the aphids can help to restore the balance.

Worse than aphids are scale insects; these can ruin a lemon or a peach before you get them under control. I once grew a nectarine of the cultivar ‘Pineapple’. It was so delicious, ripening to orbs of sweet, sharp juice that you want to bury your face into. Ripe fruit used to fall to the ground with a splosh and it was

all I could do not to scrape it up to eat. Alas the tree had to be cut down because of scale infestation. I could have stopped trying to raise fruit under glass, but the rewards are great and I am trying again now with a different tactic. I have planted an apricot and a nectarine in 40 litre tubs. They grow in the conservatory until the foliage is mature then moved outside. The idea is that young growth is protected from Peach Leaf Curl (a fungal pathogen related to Witches’ Broom in birch), the fruit is protected from birds and insects, and when the trees are moved out after fruiting, the scale insects etc have a hard time surviving the frost. Obviously, careful pruning and feeding is needed to keep the trees portable. I hope it works.

Rabbits come and go in the garden. Little bunnies feeding on the lawn look sweet but when they start having families too, it gets a bit out of hand. Myxomatosis usually keeps the population in check but a visit from a friend with a shot gun followed by rabbit casserole sometimes helps. Finding a prize specimen of Geranium palmatum demolished by rabbit attack runs a close second to the sight of confetti under the plum tree after the bullfinch’s visit in inducing high blood pressure. We usually keep a cat and that is a great way of keeping the rabbits out of the garden and safely in the fields. Our newest cat, Iolo, is a really good hunter but he hunted onto the main road, was knocked over and nearly died. Now he can only watch the bunnies out of the window and twitch his tail.

I have not mentioned sheep and cows and badgers that invade the garden from time to time but if you live in the country you have to put up with that sort of thing. Yes, we do battle with lots of competitors but I always think that itis amazing that most plants in the garden survive and are hugely rewarding.

David Shaw

Sophie Williams

Sophie Williams has always been a great supporter of and advocate for Treborth. She was an undergraduate here from 2003 to 2006, reading Ecology. The Friends of Treborth helped to fund her visit to Lesotho (in 2004) as part of her undergraduate studies. She not only gained a first-class degree but also spearheaded the “Save Treborth” campaign in 2006 when the glasshouses were threatened with closure. Her enthusiasm and energy at that time led to a reversal of the University’s decision and renewed support for Treborth. She then went to Imperial College London to do a masters in Conservation Science and returned to Bangor to study for a PhD. This examined the harvesting of natural resources and how to influence human behaviour, to encourage sustainable exploitation, in particular through botanic gardens. She made several exciting trips abroad as part of this work.

She was then appointed as a teaching assistant to Professor Julia Jones in the University and, as well as teaching at undergraduate and masters level in Bangor, she spent some time in China’s Yunnan Province where she carried out research on orchid conservation at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden (XTBG). Following on from the contacts she made there, she set up the link between Treborth and Xishuangbanna which led to a substantial grant from the British Council and the setting up of the Two Dragons Garden project; this aims to foster knowledge and cultural exchange between Wales and China, with support from the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and Botanic Gardens Conservation International. The Confucius Institute here in Bangor University has also been closely involved in the project which included the creation of the Chinese Garden at Treborth. There have also been training and student exchange programmes, and at Treborth we have had the pleasure of Chinese visitors being based here and two brilliant kite festivals. The Vice Chancellor of Bangor University was so impressed with her achievements that she was given a permanent lectureship at his request.

When Sophie came back to Bangor to do her PhD she said that one of her main reasons for coming back here was to ensure that Treborth had a secure future. She was full of ideas; I remember one time when Judith and I were sitting with her in the Conservatory at Treborth and feeling almost overwhelmed by the torrent of ideas coming from her – “why don’t we do this….the Friends could get involved by doing that…” that we had to say “whoa, Sophie, let’s just think of one thing at a time!”. At that time, she was also playing in a band, fire dancing, drumming and developing plans for buying some land and buildings to create a community with her partner Robert and other friends.

Then in July 2015, when doing field work in China, she contracted Japanese encephalitis. She was flown back to the UK in a coma and was paralysed when she

came out of it. Since then she has been in various hospitals receiving treatment and is regaining some mobility in her legs; the rest of her body is responding to physiotherapy. Mentally, however, she is as sharp and bright as ever, and, though communication can be difficult because of the need for assisted breathing, she has been determined to maintain her links with the academic world. She has advised MSc students and given a talk, via video link, to an international conference in Columbia. She has visited Treborth and we were delighted when she opened the moon gate at the Chinese Garden last year.

Now, all that energy and determination is being channeled into her rehabilitation and her main objective is to be able to return home toher community near Tregarth. Her and Robert’s cottage there will need an extension and adaptation to cope with her needs such as wheelchair accessibility, and to provide accommodation for the 24-hour team of carers who will help to support her. To that end, a campaign has been launched to raise money for this work. An initial target of £60,000 has been set, although this may need to be increased. The response to the campaign has been fantastic; small and large donations started flooding in once the JustGiving page was set up. All sorts of events and activities have taken place to raise money: two of Sophie’s friends got married and asked for donations to the fund instead of wedding presents; a marathon and a half marathon have been run; people sponsored Sophie’s father to climb Snowdon (both physically challenging, but also very poignant as the only other time he went up Snowdon was with Sophie); her uncle David ran a gin festival; and Sophie’s friend Rory designed, with her help, a beautiful greetings card and printed it to raise money. Her community at XTBG also raised money.

A Trust has been set up to manage the money raised; I am one of the trustees, along with Sophie’s father Michael and Julia Jones. Many of the Friends of Treborth are already aware of this campaign and have donated to the fund, but if not, and you would like to give something, then we should be very grateful. There are several ways in which this can be done:

· Send a cheque to me at the Garden, made out to The Sophie Williams Trust

· Make a direct payment into the Trust bank account: sort code 203547, account no 83165019

· Make a donation via the JustGiving page where the crowdfunding campaign has been set up: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ sophiewilliams

· Buy some of the greetings cards that she and Rory designed. A separate JustGiving page has been set up for this: www.justgiving.com/ crowdfunding/shinesophiewilliams

Bringing Sophie back home is especially important for us at Treborth because of everything she has done for the Garden. We also want to see more of her at Treborth again! Thank you. Sarah Edgar

Shorelines

The meteorologists called it a ‘waving front’ and for 30 hours, 20/21 November, it smothered Anglesey and Gwynedd releasing almost 100 mm of rain on the island. The lanes in the Llangefni area were choked with flood water for a while as saturated, unprotected farmland shed this latest deluge as fast as it fell, instead of gently absorbing it. The rivers rose at an alarming rate, two metres above normal levels on the Cefni and well above bankfull discharge, spilling out over their flood plains, creating an extensive, lacustrine scene in the lower reaches such as Cors Ddyga. Strong on-shore winds and high tides were further obstacles to the flood waters.

Twenty-four hours later, Caroline and I explored the after-effects. In the Dingle, upstream of Llangefni, the normally peaceful flowing waters of the Afon Cefni were unrecognisable. Now, as if thrown back 20,000 years when the Dingle was forged by violent subglacial meltwaters, they surged with unremitting energy and pace, in places forming a slick, chocolate-coloured sheet, slicing clean through the valley, the water molecules so physically entrained in the laminar flow as to leave no space for air, no spare space for excess noise. But at the weir by Llyn Pwmp, the waters exploded into a furious tumult of chaotic energy, drowning the stonework, river bed and much of the surrounding bank in a cacophony of wild noise and uninhibited abrasion. To our delight and amazement, in the midst of such natural disorder, a sea trout leapt into view, its dorsal fin waving, its smooth, slim body briefly breaking free of the churning waters – in my mind now, but not then, time stopped long enough for us to admire a sea-green crescent bridging the violent gap between air and water, then wriggling between the rocks where it landed, only to be forced back by the tide of churning water and lost to view.

A further 100 metres downriver the flood waters were storming through the narrow cut below the old railway bridge, spuming high up the flanks of moss and fern rich Pre-Cambrian rock that most times constrain them with ease, plunging into the weir pool with a deep and terrible roar and sweeping on down towards the town regardless of the normal river channel. Here on either side of braided channels, once tall emergent vegetation lay prone but still doggedly anchored, combed by currents and dressed in debris, destined to fertilise their return. Meeting Pont Plas, the river waters had quickly backed up and overflowed into Church Street taking advantage of any line of weakness. Stone walls lay where they fell by the riverside as yellow-coated engineers sorted through domestic debris.

The waters continued past the town and to a newly hydrated Cors Ddyga, shimmering more silvery than at any time recently, perhaps not since before the reclamation of its flood plain for agriculture over 200 years ago. Wild swans drifted

over the fields and wavering flocks of wildfowl lifted from the re-instated wetlands down as far as Pont Marquis showing what flood plains do and what abundant wildlife they engender.

A day later, we visited the other end of the catchment of the Cefni and took a stroll along the beach at the far end of the estuary where the sand dunes wrap around the southern lip of the river as it finally spills into the sea. Approaching the shore through robust clumps of wind-cleaned marram we were surprised to flush snipe after snipe, their streaked-brown backs and long, steep angled bills seen briefly as they shot away with short, sharp calls. Never before had we seen these wading birds in mobile dunes. Favouring soft, moist ground for foraging for invertebrates I have always supposed that the sea-front dunes were unsuitable – too dry and probably lacking in suitable prey items. But perhaps the exceptional rains had forced creatures nearer the surface even here on the well- drained frontal dunes. Or they were simply resting there. Whatever their purpose they were unlikely to be British snipe. During winter, the coasts and lowlands of Britain welcome over one million snipe from Iceland, Fenno-Scandinavia, the continent and parts of western Russia, seeking milder conditions on Europe’s Atlantic seaboard.

Also benefitting from the more benign conditions of the coast, we noted a single, flowering clump of New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) firmly established in among the marram grass. On more stable grassland a further 50 metres inland, hundreds of basal rosettes of pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis) were already looking ready for action, their winter-green appearance an interesting life- strategy at odds with many of Britain’s orchid species which, by and large, are perennial cryptophytes, their perennating organs (tubers, rhizomes) buried out of sight during the winter.

The windswept strand stretched before us now as we headed back towards Llanddwyn. Ahead, a raucous party of gulls and corvids, a hundred strong, displayed great interest in some flotsam. The object of their attention was a large, solid fist of palm oil (Elaeis guineensis) partially buried in the sand. Walking further we came across more palm oil deposits, each bonanza at the focus of a crazy scatter of bird prints. Among the avian scavengers were ravens, patrolling the beach at dune crest height, sweeping down to join the assemblies of birds. Disinterested individuals cavorted in the turbulent air space above the dunes, looping the loop and hanging wing tip to wing tip on the updrafts, their cronking calls echoing down the strand.

On past the craggy isthmus, pillow lavas lay freshly exposed by the storms of autumn, rocks from down under in every sense, extruded 560 million years ago

from fissures deep beneath the Iapetus Sea, in the southern hemisphere. Now on fresh Holocene sand, washed and churned by a new sea in the northern hemisphere, there lies a low mound of sea-slaked fur and emergent bone. On closer inspection, this piece of organic flotsam has a tail. And what a tail! - 75cm of curved, attenuated muscle and flesh attached to a robust pear-shaped body borne on powerful hind limbs with elongate digits. And then the head, surprisingly small, not helped by part of the lower jaw missing, with three pairs of upper incisors, well worn. What fur remained was a grizzled, grey-brown mat of dense hair. It only took a moment to realise that we had stumbled across Anglesey’s first wallaby!

Shorelines, by their nature, are transient, dynamic interfaces of earth, air and water, exciting, instructive places to appreciate and understand an ever- changing natural world. Our shoreline walks along river and strand had revealed unexpected players and poorly understood phenomena. We should celebrate and seek to understand our shorelines. They are the stuff of life and full of surprises.

Nigel Brown

Postscript: When our son, Dan, heard about our find and viewed some images, he confirmed that it was indeed a wallaby and most likely red-necked wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus). Native to E Australia from C Queensland to S Australia and Tasmania, red-necked wallaby have been introduced to South Island of New Zealand, Germany and several parks and zoos in the British Isles. Small feral flocks remain, notably in the Peak District, Loch Lomond and the Isle of Man. A more recent colony was established in the 1950s on Lambay, an island in Dublin Bay owned by the Baring family (of Baring Banks fame). This population was augmented by excess wallabies from Dublin Zoo in the 1980s and there are presently estimated to be over 100 individuals on Lambay. A study which looked at the dwindling Peak District population showed that causes of mortality included accidental falls from cliffs, which is relevant to the Irish Sea populations. In terms of distance and circumstance, the Lambay or Isle of Man populations seem the most likely origin of Anglesey’s first wallaby. British feral wallabies belong to the Tasmanian race, M. r. rufogriseus.

Gait Barrows, National Nature Reserve, Lancashire

Carboniferous limestone occurs in discontinuous outcrops in many areas of the British Isles. We have our own patches nearby: some parts of the Garden here are underlain by it, and the Great Orme at Llandudno and Puffin Island/Penmon on Anglesey are massive formations that echo the famous carboniferous limestone areas of upland Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

But one smaller limestone area occurs in northern Lancashire in a AONB, near the towns of Milnthorpe and Arnside, and one part of it in particular has given rise to a very strange landscape. I was immediately fascinated by it when I first saw it, and last summer we paid yet another visit to see it and gawp. This uniqueness has been recognised since 1977, when the area was designated a National Nature Reserve known as Gait Barrows. It is small by NNR standards, no more than 1.5 km by 3 km, but is one of Britain’s most important limestone landscapes. It comprises a mixture of limestone habitats – damp fen, deep yew forest, open water, limestone grassland – but it is the open limestone pavement that intrigues me.

The composition of limestone, a permeable sedimentary rock, and what happened to it after its deposition have given rise to its characteristic features. The formation of carboniferous limestone occurred some 300-350 million years ago at the same time as our coal measures were laid down. Britain was on the equator, and what are now (in the main) northern upland areas were under warm tropical seas. Here the mainly calcium carbonate shell-encased bodies of microscopic multicellular organisms accumulated on the seabed and were compressed over millions of years to form limestone. Limestone is generally much harder than chalk (composed of single-celled organisms and formed much more recently in geological time). The sediments settled in horizontal layers and formed bedding planes as the remains became consolidated into rock. Later they often underwent tectonic folding, leading to the creation of joints and other fractures.

Calcium carbonate slowly dissolves even in very weak acid, and rain water is slightly acidified due to its contact with atmospheric carbon dioxide. When limestone is exposed to rain and water, it is eroded and forms features typical of ‘karst’ scenery (from an exemplar area in Slovenia). Water dissolves the rocks and enlarges any natural joints and cracks. This exposure of bare rock to the elements occurred during the last ice age and the subsequent retreat of the glaciers in Britain.

During glaciated periods, a succession of huge ice sheets and glaciers formed in upland areas and slowly moved further south, later to disappear. As they did so, they scoured the land beneath: existing soil cover was removed by this

inexorable force (to be later dumped as moraines) and debris carried in the ice further ground down the limestone, leaving a flattened, smoothed surface. And then the acidified rain water further weathered it.

Some extensive areas of exposed limestone strata are known as limestone pavements, and one of these is found at Gait Barrows. However, this doesn’t look like the more familiar land forms of upland Yorkshire or Derbyshire. In these two regions, the pavements are often deeply incised into blocks (clints) separated by rain water-worn vertical fissures (grykes), making progress across this terrain into a game of potentially ankle-breaking 3-D hopscotch, especially where there is no soil cover at all. Such an area, Holmepark Fell, exists just the other side of the M6 from Gait Barrows.

But Gait Barrows’ pavement is very different – in large measure it has an almost alien, otherworldly appearance with a smooth relatively open and level vista, interrupted by deep cracks containing stunted yew, ash, hawthorn, silver birch, rowan and hazel and other plants. Deep gashes cut across the surface, gutter -like channels (runnels) drain water into grykes (Figure 9), shallow depressions (pans) hold water and can form temporary tiny ponds and some circular, cup-like formations look as though they have been drilled out of the rock (Figure 10) – all are products of rain water erosion.

Very little grows on the bare rock but some drought-resistant plants eke out an existence there, while long shoots of tough-as-old-boots bramble (whose roots are anchored in damper grykes) snake from gully to gully in search of new rooting niches. In contrast, the deep grykes provide shady, sheltered, unbrowsed microhabitats for limestone-loving plants which would normally be found in woodland. Humus accumulates in the grykes and retains moisture, and where pockets of residual soil occur, many tiny oases of plant life arise, including mosses and liverworts deeper in fissures. However, there is generally poor fertility and trees which have managed to root are windswept and stunted (growing at most to 3 metres), although they may be very old.

Gait Barrows has three waymarked trails: the Limestone Trail (marked in white), the Yew Trail and the Hawes Water Trail. The limestone pavement can be found along the first of these and the trail starts near the off-road car park. A short way along, on the left-hand side, can be seen the remains of a small quarry and this highlights the need to protect limestone areas. The huge blocks of fissured stone here are much prized for rockeries: many areas have been damaged by unsustainable commercial quarrying but are now protected. Further along, on the right-hand side, there soon appear to be open areas visible through the trees – this is the limestone pavement, and you will be amazed by the unexpected landscape in front of you (Figure 9). 42

Fig. 9. Vertical grykes at Gait Barrows, Lancashire [p. 41]

Fig. 10. Extent of limestone pavement at Gait Barrows [p. 41]

As well as the stunted trees, hardy species such as biting stonecrop and thyme survive on the surface. Limestone specialists like the rigid buckler fern and dark-red helleborine (which is only found on limestone in northern England, north Wales and Scotland) and more common polypody fern and hart’s tongue fern can be found in the grykes. In late spring and summer, deep blue milkwort, scabious species, orpine, bird’s-foot trefoil and wild thyme will be in flower. The presence of other woodland plants begs the question - how did they get there in the first place? This leads to suggestions that the limestone areas were not only covered with soil at one time but by woodland.

In the limestone grassland off the Yew Trail can be found the floral ‘jewel in the crown’ of Gait Barrows. This is the lady’s-slipper orchid, the rarest of all British wildflowers, in flower in the spring. This was thought to be extinct in the UK but was rediscovered in the Yorkshire Dales and as a result of a national species recovery programme, there is now a thriving population of reintroduced plants there.

With its variety of habitats, Gait Barrows is also home to many species of declining butterflies. The shelter of woodland glades and clearings favours the very rare small orange and brown Duke of Burgundy butterfly, the high brown fritillary and the northern brown argus. The grayling, a large brown butterfly, prefers the warmth of the open pavement. Migrant hawker dragonflies are found in the fen, reed beds and nearby pastures.

The woodlands and wetlands provide a home for large numbers of redwing and fieldfare arriving from Scandinavia in autumn to feed on the abundant yew berry crop. The large nest mounds of red wood ants along the trails attract green woodpeckers which eat the adults and larvae. The restored reed beds of Hawes Water Moss support marsh harrier, grebe species, water rail, bittern and reed bunting, while in woodland and open pasture, birds such as wheatear, meadow pipit, chiffchaff, blackcap and other warblers are found.

Gait Barrows can be found on OS Landranger map, scale 2 cm to 1 km, number 97, at grid reference SD 483777. Natural England’s online visitors’ leaflet on Gait Barrows is very informative and includes a large-scale map. It is well-worth your while making a special trip to this area - the limestone pavement is amazing! Angela Thompson

Fig. 11. Solution cups at Gait Barrows, Lancahsire [p. 41]

Fig. 12. Storks in Alsace [p. 30]

Of Mice and Men

The first landing on South Georgia was made by Captain James Cook in the Resolution on the 17th January 1775, although the island had been seen by the English merchant Antoine de la Roche in 1675 and by Gregorio Jerez, who named it ‘San Pedro’, in 1756. Cook landed at, and named, Possession Bay on the north coast, and named the island for King George III. (The U.S. state of Georgia was founded in 1732 and named after George II: The European Kingdom of Georgia was established in the 12th century).

By 1786, the first fur seals had been harvested by the Lord Hawkesbury, and sealing continued in waves until the middle of the 20th Century, at times reducing the populations of fur and elephant seals to near extinction. Today, the fur seal population is about 4.5 million and elephant seals are plentiful. Indeed, landing on the beaches during the fur seal breeding season (November-January) can be challenging with aggressive bull fur seals protecting their harems.

Norwegian-born Carl Anton Larson, Manager of Compania Argentina de Pesca, established the first whaling station at Grytviken in 1904. Other whaling stations were established at Husvik, Stromness, Leith Harbour, Ocean Harbour and Prince Olav Harbour, all on the more sheltered northeast coast of South Georgia. At times there were over 2,000 whalers resident on South Georgia. Whaling was carried out as unsustainably as sealing, finally ending in 1965 after more than two million whales had been harvested.

It was Carl Anton Larson, former Captain of the Antarctic which sank off Paulet Island in Antarctic Sound during the 1901-1903 Swedish Antarctic Expedition (a tale of survival that rivals anything that happened on the other side of Antarctica), and his brother, L E Larson, who introduced reindeer to Ocean Harbour in South Georgia in 1911 to provide a hunting resource for his Norwegian workforce. This group became the Barff herd which at its peak in 1958 numbered 3,000 animals (although it had decreased to 1,900 by 1976). Another group of reindeer were introduced the following year at Leith Harbour by the Christian Salvesen whaling company. By 1918 they had increased to 20 animals, but all were killed by an avalanche. A third group was introduced at Husvik in 1925, and these became the Busen herd which numbered 800 by 1990. The two herds were separated by glaciers that reached the ocean, but which are in danger of retreat, possibly increasing the area available for expansion. In the early years of the 21st century, a small number of reindeer were transferred to the Falkland Islands.

Reindeer grazing affected the indigenous flora of South Georgia (including tussock grass (Parodiochloa (Poa) flabellata)), and hence the associated seabird

colonies, and the decision was taken to eradicate the two herds. In 2013, 2,090 reindeer of the Busen herd were killed, yielding 7,500 kg of meat products. In the same year 1,555 animals of the Barff herd were shot, followed a year later by a further 3,140 animals of the same herd. There are now no remaining reindeer on South Georgia.

Whilst reindeer were introduced deliberately, rats and mice came unintentionally with the first sealers in the 18th century, and repeated introductions over a century and a half widened the genetic pool resulting in a strong and numerous population. In areas such as the slopes above Grytviken, that were once home to thousands of burrowing seabirds (mainly prions and small petrels), the bird colonies were wiped out. Fortunately, some areas remained rodent-free because of high mountains and glaciers, and some offshore islands also remained free of the pests. It was not only the seabirds that were affected – the only songbird on South Georgia, the South Georgia pipit, largely disappeared from the infested areas.

Unlike the eradication of the reindeer, which was a Government operation, the rat and mouse extermination project was carried out by a charity, the South Georgia Heritage Trust (which also runs the museum at Grytviken). Financial assistance also came from a USA charity, the Friends of South Georgia Island, and the project cost £7.5M in total. The project benefitted from the experience of many New Zealanders who had been involved in rodent eradication programmes on some of the Islands administered by New Zealand, and Macquarie Island. The technique adopted was the sowing of bait laced with the rodenticide Brodifacoum from buckets suspended under helicopters. The bait was designed to be irresistible to rats but unattractive to birds. The seabirds feed out at sea, but land-based pipits and ducks could have been vulnerable. Baiting was also carried out in late summer and autumn when there were fewer birds on land. Some skuas were killed after eating dead or dying rats, but population numbers soon recovered.

The South Georgia Habitat Restoration operation was carried out in three phases spread over four years, and was led by Tony Martin, Professor of Animal Conservation at the University of Dundee. Phase 1 was started in 2011 with two ex- air ambulance Bölkow helicopters based at Grytviken. Phases 2 and 3 were in 2013 and 2015. Over 1,000 square km was treated, involving 1,050 flying hours (equivalent to flying three times around the world!) and 302 tonnes of bait, split into 785 loads. And all this on an island where the weather limits flying to one hour in six of daylight! So far, the project seems to have been successful, although surveys, including the use of specialist search dogs, will be needed over the next few years to ensure there are no pockets of surviving rodents (Martin, 2015). There is already clear evidence of recovery of South Georgia pipit populations, and probably of the South Georgia pintail duck, but it is too early to tell if the seabirds,

with their slower breeding cycle and tendency to nest near where they were hatched, are also on the road to recovery.

One unintended consequence of the removal of reindeer has been the growth of alien plant species, notably grasses, previously controlled by grazing. There are only 25 native vascular plant species on South Georgia, vastly outnumbered by mosses, liverworts and lichens, but over 40 alien species. More have been found in the past, but have not survived the harsh climate. Some of these are very localized, mainly around the old whaling stations, but some have spread far and wide. Eradication attempts by the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Government have been partially successful (GSGSSI, 2015), and a plan for 2016 to 2020 has been drawn up (GSGSSI, 2016). The project will be carried out by Indigena Biosecurity International, based in New Zealand. The goal is to remove 33 out of 41 non-native plant species on South Georgia by 2020. Control involves a mixture of hand weeding and herbicide application. The main targets are Cerastium fontanum, Sagina procumbens, Cardamine flexuosa, Deschampsia flexuosa, Poa annua and P. pratensis, and Taraxacum officinale.

Do the results justify the cost and effort involved? Yes, I think so, especially for species facing other pressures elsewhere. I can only speak from my own experience during a visit in February 2016, but South Georgia is a special place for wildlife and history. My wife and I flew via Chile (Santiago and Punta Arenas) to Mount Pleasant on the Falkland Islands and boarded our expedition cruise vessel, the Akademik Sergei Vavilov, in Port Stanley. The sun was shining, and the wind was calm – apparently the best day’s weather they had had for a long time! The good weather continued for the two and half days that it takes to sail to South Georgia, allowing us to land at Peggotty Bluff in King Haakon Bay on the southwest coast of the island, although by this time the weather had deteriorated, and large Antarctic tabular icebergs were seen through the driving rain. Before landing, our clothing and equipment was thoroughly vacuum cleaned to prevent the accidental introduction of seeds etc. This location is the start of the famous foot journey over the mountains and glaciers to Stromness made by Ernest Shackleton, Henry Worsley and Tom Crean in 1916 after the epic journey of the James Caird from Elephant Island. There are numerous glaciers in King Haakon Bay, but the Shackleton Glacier, on less steep ground, had retreated a long way in the last 100 years. Here we met our first small group of king penguins, a pile of elephant seals (which lie around in groups on the shore when they are moulting) and the ubiquitous fur seals. The latter must be treated with respect – a bite often leads to blood poisoning and requires hospital treatment. On the trip before ours, a passenger was bitten by a fur seal and the Sergei Vavilov had to make a dash for the Falkland Islands, where the patient was transferred by helicopter. The following day we were on the more sheltered northeast coast, cruising in rigid inflatable

boats (RIB) in Hercules Bay, home to macaroni penguins with their comical yellow ear tufts, and light-mantled sooty albatross cruising the cliffs.

On 4th February we were at St. Andrew’s Bay for our second landing. Unlike Hercules Bay, St. Andrew’s Bay has extensive beaches and a wide coastal plain, and is home to half a million king penguins. There were two American research students on board, working for the Oceanites organization. Their job was to count the penguins – so we did not have to! It is difficult to convey in words the sight (and smell) of so many penguins, closely spaced in the colony together with their chocolate-brown chicks (unlike Emperor penguins, Kings breed all year). As well as getting on with their neighbors, the adults must watch out for predatory skuas which are always looking for an opportunity to steal an egg or a young chick.

The following day we were in King Edward Cove at Grytviken, the only permanently occupied settlement on the mainland of South Georgia. The name is Swedish for ‘Pot Bay’ and was given by Johan Gunnar Anderson of the previously mentioned 1902 Swedish Antarctic Expedition for the try pots used by English sealers to render seal oil. It is also the only whaling station that is open to the public. Stromness, Leith etc have 200 m exclusion zones because of the danger from asbestos and unsafe buildings. A must-see feature of Grytviken is the cemetery where, along with those of sailors and factory workers, are the graves of Sir Ernest Shackleton and, more recently, Frank Wild (his second in command). It is strange walking around the rusting remains of the whaling station accompanied by king penguins, fur seals and the odd sleepy elephant seal. Less surreal are the museum, shop and post office!

At the entrance to King Edward Cove is King Edward Point (KEP), the base of the South Georgia Government activities on the Island. This area saw action during the Falklands War in the 1980s. Beyond KEP is Shackleton’s Cross, protected by a bunch of juvenile fur seals. Another slightly surreal experience is standing on the beach, surrounded by king penguins and fur seals, looking past the buildings at KEP to the highest mountain on South Georgia, Mt. Paget (but only on a clear day!). Returning to Grytviken along the only road in South Georgia, we came across some of the islands’ endemic birds – a group of pin-tail ducks. These are not sea ducks and never stray far from land. Given the history of Grytviken, it is not surprising that there are several alien plant species in the area.

The 6th February was spent exploring Fortuna Bay, Stromness and Jason Harbour. The strong wind prevented a close approach to both Stromness and Leith whaling stations, but we were able to land at a very bleak Jason Harbour. During gaps in the rain, the views of the surrounding mountains were spectacular. Returning to the Vavilov, the RIB driver picked up a piece of ice from a

disintegrating iceberg. This proved very popular in the bar that evening aswe watched it release the gas bubbles trapped in it for who knows how many hundreds of years.

On the 7th we finally landed at Gold Harbour after two previous attempts had been thwarted by high winds and ocean swell. The backdrop was spectacular with the Bertrab Glacier seeming at one point to descend almost vertically to the beach, which was lined with king and gentoo penguins, elephant and fur seals. Some of the elephant seal males were practising fighting (probably from the sheer boredom of having to lie on the beach for several weeks during moulting!). The results were impressive and noisy. This marked the southern end of our explorations. Planned visits to Drygalski Fjord and Larson Harbour (where we should have seen Weddell seals and chinstrap penguins at the northern limits of their range) were abandoned because of bad weather on the southern end of the Island.

By the 8th February we were back north at the Bay of Isles for a visit to Salisbury Plain, the second half-million strong king penguin colony. The weather was kind to us, and the surrounding mountains and glaciers were an unforgettable sight. It was here, near the beach, that a South Georgia pipit allowed us to take some photographs for a couple of minutes. In the afternoon, we made a short trip across the Bay to Prion Island. Here a boardwalk allows visitors to see nesting wandering albatross without undue disturbance (access to most other offshore islands is strictly controlled). Only a few nests were present, with one white chick in each It brings home how vulnerable these magnificent seabirds are, both at sea (many are caught by long-line fishing techniques) and at the nests.

Our visit to South Georgia was cut short by an approaching Southern Ocean storm, which made the journey back to Stanley more exciting than it need have been – but that is another story. As with our earlier trip to the Antarctic Peninsula, I was left with the impression of vast empty spaces punctuated by spectacular wildlife surviving in a tough but fragile environment. And yes, it is worth the effort to preserve it.

References

GSGSSI (2015) Alien Plants on South Georgia. Season Report 2014-2015. GSGSSI, Government House, Stanley, Falkland Islands. GSGSSI (2016) South Georgia Non-native Plant Management Strategy 2016-2020. GSGSSI, Government House, Stanley, Falkland Islands. Martin T (2015) Reclaiming South Georgia. South Georgia Heritage Trust. ISBN 978-0-95645446-3-8 143 pp. John Gorham

Fig. 13. Tying up runner bean poles. Anheddau Outdoors Walking Group [p. 11]

Fig. 14. Young wandering albatross on Prion Island, South Georgia . [p. 46]

Winter Quiz - Answers

Latin Name Common Name A Acacia dealbata Mimosa B Betula pendula Silver birch C Castanea sativa Sweet chestnut D Dipsacus fullonum Teasel E Eranthis hyemalis Winter aconite F Fuchsia Fuchsia G Galanthus nivalis Snowdrop H Helleborus Hellebores, Christmas or Lenten rose I Ilex Holly J Juniperus communis Juniper K Koeleria vallesiana Somerset hair grass L Lamium Dead-nettle M Malva Mallow N Narcissus Daffodil O Ornithogalum angustifolium Star of Bethlehem P Primula vulgaris Primrose or Primula Q Quercus x rosacea Hybrid of sessile and English oak R Ruscus aculeatus Butcher’s broom S Santolina chamaecyparissus Cotton lavender T Tropaeolum Nasturtium U Ulex europaeus Common gorse V Viburnum plicatum ‘pink beauty’ Japanese snowball W Wolffia arrhiza Rootless duckweed X Xanthium orientale Xanthium or cocklebur Y Yucca Yucca Z Zostera marina Eelgrass

Fig. 15. The former whaling station at Grytviken, Hope Bay, South Georgia. [p. 4]

Fig. 16. South Georgia pipit, Salisbury Plain, South Georgia. [p. 46]