P for Planting

 The next Cabinet of Curiosity event is on Saturday 9th May, and it comes in two parts.

The first is a walk from the Bean Box cafe under Hay Bridge to the Warren, starting at 2.30pm.  The walk will be led by Dr. Emily Warner, from the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at the University of Oxford, and Jenny Dicker, farmer and specialist in land management.

The second is a film at the Globe about non-native and invasive plants, followed by a panel discussion.  That starts at 7pm.

The panel consists of: 

John Crellin, the County Recorder for Botany for Brecknockshire and author of the recently published Flora of Brecknockshire - he'll have a few copies available for sale.  This was the life's work of John's friend Mike Porter, who died shortly before the book was finished.

Imogen Cripps is head grower at a local walled garden, and she will come with some vegetables from the garden.

Layla Robinson is a dried flower artist who has created many beautiful arrangements for the Cabinet of Curiosities.  She also has a new book out called Everlasting Blooms. 

Beverley Lewis is the Biodiversity Liason Officer for Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.

Sophie Ferrier is the Director of Hay Regenerative Soils and an artist, and she will come with some of her creations and experiments. 

And the facilitator of the panel is Matthew Pryor, a journalist who trained at the Royal Horticultural Society.

The previous talks, walks and films put on by the Cabinet of Curiosities have all been fascinating.  

I don't know if I'll be able to get to the Globe, since I'm giving a talk myself on Saturday afternoon, and I might have run out of energy!

 

M is for Mushroom

 Or F is for Forest.

The Parish Hall was packed for a showing of The Life of the Forest: Fungi, a Polish documentary by Tomasz Ogrodowczyk, with English narration, and fantastic photography of all sorts of fungi in a Polish forest.  The film covered how essential fungi are to the health of the forest, forming a symbiotic relationship with the trees, the various types of fungi, invasive species (there's one from North America which has become naturalised in the coastal forests, for example, which is collected for food by Polish mushroom pickers).  They also talked about forest management and logging, and regeneration of the forests.

After the film, the panel were introduced.  There's no stage in the Parish Hall, so they had to stand so that everyone could see them.  They were Alex Armstrong, a PhD researcher from the University of Birmingham, Martha Crockatt, a PhD researcher from the University of Oxford, Jenny Dickers, now retired, but her career was in land management, and Ray Woods, botanist, mycologist, and expert in lichen.  The moderator of the panel was Matthew Pryor, a journalist.

The discussion soon moved beyond fungi to all sorts of questions about woodland management, policy making at central government level, nitrogen pollution affecting the growth of fungi, orange lichen on oak trees indicating pollution - and being used by a limestone quarry to see how effective their dust suppression programme was (the smaller the area affected by the lichen, the better they were doing).

Jenny implored us all to think about what sort of woodland we wanted to see, because there are lots of different ideas for the uses of woodland that don't necessarily work well together.  She comes from a farming family, as well as working in conservation, and there was a good discussion about trying to understand how farmers think, so they don't get defensive about new ideas coming in, while at the same time acknowledging that farmers are being pulled in several different directions at once, with some policies aimed at increasing food production, others at conservation and pollution reduction, and those policies often contradict each other.  So they tend to be suspicious of researchers like Alex coming in when actually the researchers could help them.

There's the very prescriptive way the policies are applied, too, without taking account of local conditions, and (for instance) planting hedgerows with hawthorn far too thickly so that no undergrowth can grow - which would be beneficial for insects, birds and so on.  They also talked about policies that led to nitrogen reduction (a good thing) could lead to unintended consequences which were not so good for the health of the forests - it's a very complex problem, and a complex ecosystem.  More research needs to be done on the impact of chicken farms, too, and the use of ammonia scrubbers to take the ammonia emissions out of the atmosphere - but then, what do the farmers do with the ammonia in the scrubbers?  Is it taken away, or is it just moved around the farm?

There's the question, too, of which species of trees to plant to cope with climate change.  Roy Woods said that one scheme in Wales is planting hornbeam - he's not a fan, and would prefer other trees to be planted instead.  He also mentioned the importance of planting trees in upland areas to prevent floods further downstream. 

Also available, on each seat, were copies of the latest Cabbage Leaf, which is all about forests and fungi, with illustrations of local fungi painted by  Françoise Verger, and collected for her by Chris Bradshaw, who has been monitoring local fungi for about five years now.  He asked why it should be that some areas he surveyed had almost no fungi, while other seemingly identical areas had a rich variety.  Roy Woods suggested that it was the difference between valleys that ran east/west, compared to valleys that ran north/south.  Winds bringing nitrogen pollution from the east run up against the edges of woodland in the east/west running valleys and the trees have more nitrogen than they need, while the wind skips over the valleys running north/south.

So a fascinating evening, with a lot of food for thought.

The next event will be G is for Garden, on 9th May - more information nearer the time.  One of the panelists then will be John Crellin, whose book on the flora of Brecknockshire will be out on 9th April.  Layla Robinson's new book is also out, about creating things with dried flowers (she was in the audience, and her book was on display at the back).

Forest

 Botany and other Stories are holding an event at the Parish Hall on Saturday 21st March, from 7pm to 9pm.  It's under the umbrella of The Travelling Cabinet of Curiosities (since Henallt House, the permanent Cabinet of Curiosities, is having major renovation work done at the moment).

They are showing a film called Forest, a documentary about trees and the living system that connects them, followed by a Q and A session.  Entry is free. 

Scaffolding

 

Scaffolding is going up around the Cabinet of Curiosities - it looks as if it's going to go right over the roof.

It's good to see the work starting to renovate the building. 

The Secret Language of Trees

 The last part of the Tree event on Saturday was the film at 7pm, The Secret Language of Trees.

The Parish Hall was full, and the film was fascinating.

It talked about how trees can communicate with each other through their root systems, exchanging chemicals with other trees nearby to warn of predators so that the other trees could defend themselves more quickly, and about how the shared root system could keep stumps of felled trees alive.  The trees also share nutrients to help weaker trees, and can "decide" together when it's a good year to produce lots of acorns or beech mast or other seeds.  (This year has been a very good year for acorns locally - they were everywhere on the Offa's Dyke walk.)

They also talked about "mother trees", which are important to the health of a lot of other trees around them, and how plantation firs or other evergreens do better if there are birch trees in the mix.  They talked about using horses to pull the felled trees out of the woodlands rather than heavy machinery that compacts the soil, and lots more.

There were scientists and tree experts from Canada, including an indigenous woman who is also a scientist, who talked about the importance of indigenous knowledge of how their local forests grow, and a forester from Germany, talking about how German forests are managed.

After the film there was a Q and A session with four of the trustees of Botany and Other Stories, and the son of one of the trustees, who is also, I think, a soil scientist.

They spoke about the importance of sourcing local trees or seeds to replant woodlands - one of the problems of sourcing the cheapest trees from abroad is that they can import diseases, like Dutch Elm disease.  Also, they are less likely to be well adapted to the local conditions if they come from the other side of Europe.

In the Midlands, the National Forest scheme is trying to link together scattered patches of woodland, which will be good for biodiversity as animals, plants  and birds can move more freely between their habitats.

When talking about commercial forestry, they agreed that monocultures are a bad thing, and selective felling of mixed woodland is better, though they were doubtful of the possibility of scaling up horse power to commercially viable levels.

A Swedish lady who has recently moved to Hay talked about her time living in Scotland, where she had seen selective felling of trees targeting the trees described as "mother trees" in the film, which is very bad for the health of the woodland.

They talked about the need for long term planning, and for forestry and agriculture to work together - hedgerows are very important for biodiversity, for instance.  Leading on from the walk in the afternoon, they talked about the need for sensitive intervention in woodland - you can't just leave trees to do their thing, because woodlands in the UK have been subject to some form of management for centuries.  There is also the problem that about 75% of woodland in the UK is now privately owned - state owned woodland has quietly been sold off bit by bit.  So where once the Forestry Commission could implement a policy across the country, now there has to be a lot of negotiation with private owners of woodland.

And it's no good just planting a bunch of trees anywhere - around Birmingham there is a lot of heathland, a valuable habitat in its own right, which is destroyed when trees are planted on it, and it's not the best place to put the trees, either.

One of the trustees said she had been working in the sector since around 1978 - and things were improving, but there is still a long way to go!

So there was a lot to think about, coming out of the meeting, and a lot of expertise on the board of trustees of Botany and Other Stories.  It's quite reassuring that people with that expertise are getting together to do positive things. 

 

Cabinet of Curiosities Pop up Exhibition

 Yesterday morning I went down to the Parish Hall for the first part of a day of Tree-related activities.  

Chairs were set up in the centre of the hall for the film later that evening, and round the walls was the exhibition on the theme of trees - and also into the kitchen.  Some of the exhibits came from the main Cabinet of Curiosities collection, like the selection of woods that go to make a piano, and there were also quotations from people who came from all round the world, talking about their favourite tree.  

Tim the Gardener wrote a poem about elms, a big part of his childhood - but when he went back a few years later, they were all gone because of Dutch Elm disease.  A Chinese lady wrote about gathering kapok blossoms, and there was a chap from Soweto remembering jacaranda trees, as well as a local little girl talking about climbing her favourite hazel tree.

Earlier in the week, Pierre had come into the Cinema Bookshop to look for The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin.  We couldn't find it for him, but there were several other forest and tree related books as part of the exhibits.  There was a whole section on cider apples, for example. 

There was also art - botanical illustrations of pears by a group of children, and leaves, a wire figure decorated with leaves and dried flowers, and some of the figures from the Cabinet of Curiosities including my favourite, the Queen of the Night.

It took some time to go round and appreciate it all properly, and meanwhile Francoise was introducing people to each other - which is how I came to meet Carrie from the Tourist Information office, who was interested in my knowledge of local ancient monuments.  She's looking for anything she can find to make visitors' time in Hay more interesting for them. 

T is For Tree

 Botany and Other Stories are holding a pop up Cabinet of Curiosities event on Saturday.

It's all about trees.

From 10.30am to 7pm, there will be an exhibition at the Parish Hall (exhibitions are normally at the house on Oxford Road, but that is being renovated at the moment), with botanical illustrations of trees and leaves, and all sorts of other interesting tree-related things.

At 7pm, there will be a film, also in the Parish Hall, called The Hidden Language of Trees, followed by a Q and A session with a panel.  Matthew Prior, a journalist, will be the facilitator of the panel, which will be formed of Jeremy Armstrong, Jenny Dicker, Imogen Cripps and Emily Warner.  These are all trustees of the Botany and Other Stories charity.

There will also be a walk along the Offa's Dyke path, starting from By the Wye Glamping.  There will be a children's version and a more scientific adult version, observing the trees along the river in the context of climate change.

I've got my walking boots ready! 

Botany And Other Stories - Meet the Trustees

 Renovation work is  finally starting on Henallt House, which has been housing very successful open days of exhibitions, and Botany and Other Stories has blossomed into a registered charity.

Registered charities need a board of trustees, and the latest issue of the Cabbage Leaf has been put together to introduce them, and their various interests and expertise.

Dr Emily Warner is a researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, based at the University of Oxford.  Her special interest is trees.

Jeremy Armstrong is a woodland manager - so he also has a special interest in trees, and in increasing the biodiversity of woodlands by careful management.

Jenny Dicker is a farmer and specialist in Land Management.

Pierre Moulinier is one of the founders of Botany and Other Stories.  He is also a journalist, geographer and geopolitician.

 Françoise Verger is the other founder of Botany and Other Stories, and is also a journalist, as well as a language teacher and botanical illustrator.  At the moment she is painting a lot of different mushrooms!

Imogen Cripps is a researcher and Head Grower at a walled garden that is being restored.

Emily Jones is a pharmacist, who also grows medicinal plants (sometimes unintentionally, she says!) 

 Over the coming year there will be a series of events, and behind the scenes the trustees will be working to organise the volunteers, set up a scientific committee to help produce reliable information about climate change and nature, and to develop the Budding Botanical Illustrators Club, which was launched during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In November, the theme is Seeing the Wood for the Trees

In January - In Onion is Strength!

In March - Mushrooms are not Plants!  (they were disappointed that they couldn't do anything to take part in the recent Fungi Weekend organised by Hay Castle - but they voted on their programme in June, before they knew what the Castle was planning).

And from May to August next year, they will be exploring the themes of Hands in the Dirt, Heads in the Sun, Heart with Nature. 

Electrifying Rose Hips

 I was invited to a private party at the Cabinet of Curiosities a couple of nights ago - a thank you from Francoise and Pierre to all the people who had helped them, before the renovation work starts.

They asked people to bring their own glass, and had local cider, Weobley Ash apple juice and Lucky 7 beer available (but no wine). 

They'd also subtly changed the displays throughout the house, as they do every time they open to the public.  I'm sure there were more of the dressed little mannequins around the house - those wooden models that artists use to get poses right when they're drawing.  I noticed a little fisherman this time.  They're made by an artist called Maizie Healy (I think I have the name right - I wasn't taking notes!).

My favourite this time, though, was a large 19th century book which was open on a page of experiments.

I don't know what the book was - it would have been rude to move it to see the cover - but the author was describing an experiment where he electrified rose hips with "electrical fluid" (with the help of his servant!) to see if they would grow better than a control group of rose hips that had just been steeped in water.  And he was successful! 

Pulp Fiction Exhibition

 I went up to the Buttermarket this morning to see the new Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition, which is all about paper, from the making of paper in a traditional French mill to the many uses of paper.  There was a lovely little paper theatre, for example, and some weaving of linen and paper by a local student.

Below are the Malian writing boards, part of the collection of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Below that is an installation called Needle in a Haystack, inspired by a work by Nigel Kerry (no books were harmed in the making of this artwork - the books were actually borrowed from Hay Cinema Bookshop).

 

 The last picture is some information about the pollution problems that paper use causes.  Other information posters were placed around the exhibition.  For instance, 2.5 billion paper coffee cups are used in Britain every year, and only 1 in 400 is recycled, and 42% of the global wood harvest is used to make paper, the majority of which is used for packaging - and with the growth of companies like Amazon, packaging is big business these days.

Meanwhile in the Moulin du Verger near Angouleme, a master papermaker still makes high quality paper out of rags in the traditional way - there was a short film, in French, about the process.

 The exhibition is also on tomorrow, and is free.

Pulp Fiction Posters

 There's always a way to get a picture if you really want to!

Pulp Fiction

 I tried to copy the poster across, but the computer won't let me do it.

However, the Cabinet of Curiosities and Botany and Other Stories are putting an exhibition on in the Buttermarket on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th April.  It will celebrate paper in all its forms (especially books) and the links between paper and the natural world.  The title is Pulp Fiction.

The exhibition is free, and there will also be an opportunity to become a Friend of Botany and Other Stories, to find out the plans for 2025, and for young people to join the Budding Botanical Artists Club.