Week Ten

There's only one more week left in this internship with Kew.  Wow!  That's hard to believe.  This week was a short week because there was a "bank holiday" across the country on Monday.  I spent the weekend touring some really fantastic Hosta collections near Wokingham and visiting with some friends from Tennessee.

Tuesday
Tuesday we were back to work.  As you know, Monday is normally our edging day, and the grass had gotten a bit shaggy.  Shelley decided to have the whole lot of us tackle edging in the order beds and grass garden and get it done that morning.  Our crew was back up to seven people, because we got a new apprentice and Martin returned from paternity leave.

Daisy and I were hard at work digging
Hemerocallis in the peony border

It was a bit rainy that day, and both of our normal volunteers called in because of the poor weather.  We finished by lunch time, and then the skies opened up and began to really "chuck it down".  There just wasn't enough room for all of us to be sharpening tools in the shed that afternoon, so Daisy and I spent the rest of the day working on internship assignments from the School of Horticulture computer lab.

Wednesday
Nearly all of us spent the entire day Wednesday working in the peony beds.  The peony beds are large mixed borders that contain a great deal of Paeonia between the order beds and the woodland garden.  We were doing what Shelley calls a "general tidy", which means we were weeding, deadheading, and removing dead foliage and spent biennials.

Leadership Experience
Shelley used the time to encourage Beth, one of the horticulture students, to get some personnel management experience.  Beth oversaw Daisy and me for a while, which involved explaining the tasks we were needed to do, how to do them, and why they needed to be done.  My understanding was this is a normal part of the students' work experience placement, so they're not only learning how to be horticulturalists, but also leaders in horticulture.  Beth did a great job!

Dealing with Daylilies
While Daisy and I were working under Beth, I overheard Shelley and India discussing the layout of an adjacent bed.  It was interesting to hear them work through the changes they would be making to improve a few spots.  There was one section that had a huge patch of Hemerocallis flava (1998-2335, MAFA).  India and I had recently spent some time removing the dead foliage and pulling the old flower stalks.

Kew staff decided to add some
splashes of color and texture at the
corners of this bed by removing
daylily  and planting Heuchera

Shelley and India decided the area would be more attractive if there were something a bit lower and more evergreen towards the front rather than just daylilies.  Shelley later explained that something perennial and evergreen, like Heuchera, would also help control some of the soil erosion in the bed.  She pointed out the plants that they had decided to remove, gave some guidance on the method, and let us get to it.

As someone who trained in horticulture in Knoxville, Tennessee, I didn't feel that I needed a great deal of oversight on this task.  If there's one thing this Tennessee girl knows how to do, it's digging and dividing Hemerocallis.  The H. 'Stella D'Oro' craze hit our area pretty hard, which made these plants wildly popular in residential and commercial landscapes.

But Shelley wouldn't be doing her job if she just let two interns loose in the garden without more specific direction, so she walked us through the following steps.  First we removed all the old, strappy foliage so that digging would be cleaner and easier.  However, these plants would be planted elsewhere at Kew, so the second flush of new growth needed to be kept intact as much as possible.  Then we had to use our forks to maneuver the plants loose of the soil.  Shelley suggested we work a circle around the plant before digging up so that we wouldn't break the shaft.  We set the plants in a secluded area near the tool shed, then leveled the soil in the beds and swept the paths.

If there's one thing this Tennessee
girl knows how to do, it's digging
and dividing daylilies.  These will
be planted elsewhere at Kew.

Thursday
Daisy and I spent the day continuing to tidy up around the order beds.  There were some plants that had "gone over", which means they were done for the year.  We cut back perennials and pulled up annuals.  There was a large Euphorbia that had completely flopped.  We cut it back to some new basal growth, and it may pluck up a bit before the end of the season. Euphorbia sap is a skin irritant, so Daisy and I wore gloves and handled the trimmed branches with care.

Friday
Tomorrow, the whole cohort of interns is heading to Wakehurst Place for the entire day.  Unfortunately I won't be able to attend.  The date of the trip had to be rescheduled, and I had already gotten nonrefundable or exchangeable train tickets to see the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh that day.  Kate and Shelley made arrangements for me to go last week, but I'm still a little bummed that I'm missing out on seeing Wakehurst with the rest of the group.


Thanks for reading, and check back to read what happens the LAST week of my internship with Kew.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel welcome to leave a comment or send me an email.

To see more photos from this week, be sure to check out the album "Week Ten" on the Plante on Plants Facebook page.  "Likes", shares and comments are appreciated. 

This week's British treat a cup of English breakfast tea and a Hobnob biscuit. You just can't get more English than that...

Believe it or not, this is also the first cup of tea I've had in England.  Consumed reluctantly at the insistence of a coworker, this was actually quite good.  I still prefer coffee though.

All photos were taken by Amanda Plante at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew unless otherwise stated in the caption.

Sources:

• The Plant List website
• The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew website and staff

Week Seven

Although we did a wealth of different activities this week, I'm going to hone in on our work this Friday in Kew's aquatics garden.  Now that the internship is more than halfway over (where has the time gone?), I wanted to make sure that I wrote about this interesting spot just in case we don't have the chance to work in there again this summer.  Although I mentioned a bit about this in my second week's post, I think it would be worthwhile to go into a bit more detail about this section of the gardens.

All about the aquatics garden

A quick history

Water lily surrounded by duckweed (Lemna)

Although Kew has had aquatic displays in and surrounding man-made, in-ground lakes and ponds since the beginning, it wasn't until the directorship of Sir William Hooker that tanks were constructed to display hardy aquatic plants (Desmond, 148).  A somewhat small tank was installed near the northern side of the herbaceous beds in 1841, and was used for that purpose until at least 1873.  In 1879, Sir William's son and successor Sir Joseph Hooker replaced the tank with a larger brick tank that spanned 80 feet (Desmond, 211).

The improved tank was replaced in 1909 by a large central tank flanked by two rectangular tanks to the sides and four smaller ones on the corners (Desmond, 351).  According to some material that Shelley gave us earlier in the internship, the "new" aquatic garden was originally known as "White City" because it was made of bright, new concrete.  Needless to say, the appearance is quite different today.

Aquatics garden prior to weeding

White City had only cost £600 to build.  When the surrounding pavement was relaid in 2002, the improvements cost £5,000.  That's more than eight times the cost of the original construction!  This design is still in use today, although the central tank was raised up to give more depth for larger lilies in 1935 (Desmond, 353).

Much of the original plumbing is still in use, which means that its prone to leaks and breaks.  Five weeks ago, Shelley discovered that a pipe no longer filled one of the long tanks with water.  She immediately shut the tap off (because the water had to be going somewhere) and called maintenance.  The problem with fixing this system, as is true with all of Kew's irrigation, is that it is difficult finding the parts for such old plumbing.

Keeping it clean
Weeding is an important part of any garden maintenance plan.  For some reason, before I started at Kew I figured that water gardens would require less weeding than traditional beds.  Boy, was I wrong.  Duckweed (Lemna) and blanket weed need to be removed regularly to keep the desirable plants from being overcrowded and to ensure the surface of the water remains a dark, reflective surface.

Daisy demonstrates how to remove
blanketweed algae with a rake

Kew tries to prevent blanket weed algae from forming by dyeing the water blue.  The idea is that this type of algae forms below the water surface.  If the water is darkened, this reduces the amount of sunlight the plants receive, which should reduce growth.  The practice is effective in combination with regular weeding.  Algae can be removed by scooping it out of the tank with a rake or by simply harvesting it by hand.  Usually blanket weed will come up in a huge, continuous mass.  It actually resembles a blanket, which is why it's called blanket weed.

Duckweed is a whole different problem altogether.  It's brought into the tanks on the feet of aquatic birds (thus the common name "duckweed"), plant containers, and even tools.  The water dyeing trick doesn't work on Lemna because it naturally grows along the surface of the water.  That's why making the water dark doesn't slow growth.  Unlike blanket weed, duckweed doesn't stay in one big mass when you try to remove it.  Although it may look like a big, unbroken sheet from above, it's actually a collection of thousands upon thousands of itty bitty plants.  Try to scoop it out with a rake and you'll see all the pieces scatter away.  That's why we use nets to remove Lemna, but even then it's just impossible to get it all.

Bugging out
In addition to weeding, we also do pest control.  Although the water lilies were relatively healthy last time we worked in this area, they've developed a pest problem since then.  The water lily leaf beetle lays its eggs on the foliage.  When the eggs hatch, small black larvae emerge and begin chomping voraciously on the leaves.  They cut tunnels through the pads, which stress the plants out and look very unattractive.  It also doesn't help that the adults feed on the plants too.

Damage caused by water lily beetle larvae

There's not much that we can do to control the pests beyond simply spraying the eggs, larvae, and adults off of the plants with a water hose.  However, removing aquatic pests on aquatic plants with a spray of water into a tank of water isn't super effective.  Most of what we do is remove the damaged foliage so that the plants look cleaner and some of the pests are removed with the green waste.

This is nothing new
The information packet Shelley gave us for the aquatic garden contained a page from the Kew Guild Journal from 1909 to 1910.  The author was describing the new plans for the aquatic garden, and wrote about Sir Joseph Hooker's older garden.  "The old tank in the herbaceous ground, of which some of our readers will remain very muddy memories appertaining to its annual clean out, has been cleared away."  Although Daisy and I are only at Kew for a short time, it feels really special to share this murky experience with gardeners across Kew's past and into the future.

An intern's perspective
I think everyone enjoys working in the aquatic garden at this time of year.  When it's hot, humid, and sunny outside, this is a very cool activity.  Chasing after the Lemna is always a bit disappointing for me, because I really do want to get all of it out.  But that's impossible for reasons already stated.  The important thing is that the gardens look much better at the end of the day than they did at the beginning.

What else did we do this week?

We skipped edging the order beds on Monday, because the grass simply hadn't grown.  London's been in the grip of a drought since I arrived in June, and I guess the grass just couldn't handle it anymore.  This week much of the grass when from a dry green to a crunchy brown.  So there was no point in edging because nothing had grown.

Aquatics garden after weeding

Our crew spent a day and a half cutting and cleaning up the long grass along the boundary wall between the order beds and Kew Road.  This was intensely interesting, but I think I'm going to save what I was going to write about it for next week's post.  I don't want to overwhelm folks with too much information, and I'd also like a bit more time to observe how this difference affects the wildlife in our area.

Hitching my wagon to her star
Friday afternoon, Daisy was struck with a brilliant idea.  We've both been a bit distressed that we haven't been able to see much of the gardens, even though we've been working here for seven whole weeks.  It's hard to work up enough stamina for a romp through the 300+ acre property after a hard day of manual labor.

But Friday, Daisy proposed a fine solution.  Instead of walking through the gardens, she suggested that we hop on the Kew Explorer tram.  The tour guide was clear and informative, we saw loads of new things, and had a fun time!  I'd recommend the journey as a good way to start a visit to Kew.  It's only 40 minutes long, you get an idea of where everything is and of what you want to see.

Thanks for reading, and check back to read what happens next week in my internship with Kew.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel welcome to leave a comment or send me an email.

To see more photos from this week, be sure to check out the album "Week Seven" on the Plante on Plants Facebook page.  "Likes", shares and comments are appreciated. 

This week's British treat is India's homemade white chocolate and pistachio cake.  Moist, smooth, and flavorful.  That girl knows how to bake!

 

India's tasty and delicious white chocolate pistachio cake.  Oh so good!

A nice, cool way to spend a Friday!  Photo by Daisy.

Sources:

• Desmond, Ray.  (2007).  The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (2nd Edition).  London: Kew Publishing, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  177-179, 345-346.
• The Plant List website
• The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew website and staff