Month: November 2017

Native American foods

Posted on by andy.winfield
By Claire Cope

Having worked as a trainee at the Botanic Garden for nearly two years I am now coming to the end of my time with the garden. I have learned more than I thought possible to learn in just two years, have gained my RHS qualifications, have had the opportunity to work with an amazing range of plants and have acquired a huge amount of practical horticultural experience. Best of all, I have had the opportunity to work alongside some very wonderful people who have shared their knowledge and passion with me and have made me feel very welcomed into this beautiful community. 


In terms of my horticultural work here at the garden, my favourite part of this last year has been my project to work on the Native American Vegetable display. This included everything from designing the planting lay out, propagating and maintaining the plants, through to harvesting the food and collecting the seeds. Therefore, for this article I want to share with you some of the fascinating information I’ve learnt about this amazing group of plants.

Firstly, I had no idea that so much of our food originated in South America and has

Squash originated in South America and was one
of the ‘three sisters’.

been being cultivated for so many years. Many plants that today we consider as staples such as tomatoes, potatoes, beans, corn, squash, and peppers were originally cultivated thousands of years ago by native civilisations such as the Inca, Maya and Aztec peoples.


In North and Central America, prior to the European invasions, it was the three crops – Sweetcorn, Beans and Squash that formed the foundation of sustainable subsistence agriculture.  These crops became known as ‘The Three Sisters’ and were grown as companion plants where the tall stems of the sweetcorn support the climbing beans, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil to feed the hungry squash which in turn provides a living mulch to suppress weeds and shade the ground for the corn. Unfortunately, due to the differences in climate and the need to protect the corn from the badgers, we weren’t able to replicate this exactly but I made these three plants the centre of the display in order to tell the story of the three sisters and to show how these ancient cultures had devised methods to work with the plants and with natural systems to increase productivity …. Unfortunately, the pesky squirrels feasted on all of our tasty corn kernels but we did get some lovely large squash and lots of purple beans!

Quinoa
The next thing that I found exciting to grow was the more unusual range of plants that were grown in cultivation so long ago but are only just coming into popularity now such as Quinoa. This plant is grown for its grain which is high in protein and was originally domesticated by the Andean people over 3000 years ago! The Incas held this crop as sacred and referred to it as chisoya mama meaning ‘mother of all grains’. We grew two different cultivars of Chenopodium quinoa – The first ’Quinoa’ was the more common form and the second ‘Huauzontle’ is the lesser known and is primarily grown for the immature seed-heads which can be eaten as a vegetable like broccoli. This form grew extremely tall and bushy and by October it was looking very beautiful with its pink- burgundy seed heads.   

There were also plants in this display that were more unusual and some I hadn’t heard

Cyclanthera pedata

of before which have the potential to be incorporated into western food production in the future. For instance – I really enjoyed growing the Cyclanthera pedata ‘Fat Baby’ and ‘Bolivian Giant’. These were vigorous climbers which produced very strange spikey green fruits which tasted just like a cucumber!


Then there were plants that I had always considered as ornamentals which I can now look at in a new light – such as the Dahlias with their edible tubers, Lupins with their edible beans and Nasturtium with edible leaves and flowers.

Some of the cultivars chosen for the display had really interesting stories – for example the beans we grew, Phaseolus vulgaris ’Cherokee trail of tears’, were originally from the native American Cherokee people who were driven out of their homelands by European settlers – a forced march know as ‘Trail of Tears’. This bean was one of their heirlooms which has been passed from generation to generation ever since.


We are now coming to the end of the season and soon the bed will be nearly empty again and ready for the next trainee to start all over again! What a great project to have been given, I have learnt so much and hope that those of you who saw it enjoyed the display!

The Garden blog

Posted on by andy.winfield
By Andy Winfield
Here at the Botanic Garden we’ve decided to take a slight change of direction on the blog; while there will still be science based items, there will be much more about the day to day running of the Garden and various experiences of the small team who work here. There may be items from volunteers or staff and the subject matter will be diverse, you will be surprised at the areas of life plants take us.
First, an introduction; I’m Andy, a career change, I’d done this and that, warehouse work to office
Before and after, marking out the Phylogeny display in
February 2006; below, as it is today.

work ending as a Costs Draftsman for a Bristol Law firm. It was at this point I considered my future working life stretching ahead and didn’t like it; and so I shifted direction and embarked on a career in horticulture. This was a good move! After a two-year course I landed a job at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden, this was 2001 and the little-known Garden was tucked away in woods beyond Bristol’s famous suspension bridge spanning the Avon Gorge. The gardening was good and the range of plants we dealt with inspiring; we held large plant sales that kept the Garden afloat and paid my wages.

After a few years the University began a process which considered its outlying properties and decided to sell the site of the Botanic Garden and move the whole lot to a new location. Without going into too much depth about how to firstly move a 5,000 species plant collection and secondly simultaneously design, landscape and create a new Botanic Garden using these plants, trust me when I say it was quite an experience. I feel very privileged to have been a part of the process and one of a small dynamic team that is still together today driving the Garden onto the next phase and the next. The team is buoyed by many incredible volunteers bringing a multitude of skills with them; they are a very inspiring bunch! We’re a small staff team and so must diversify into many different areas; I’m still primarily a gardener but I also manage our website and social media, organise a few events and influence our events theme. This year all our events were based around bees and pollinators due to interest from followers and likers of our social media.
The new cone of the cycad
Encephartos ferox emerging.
While it was difficult to leave the old site, the Botanic Garden a decade later is a vibrant hub of horticulture and science with each week bringing something new, and it is these things we’ll be telling you about in the blog.
Musa basjoo, the Japanese banana
wrapped up for six months of winter
This week in the Garden has been all about protecting plants from the impending winter. Our reserve glasshouse space fills up quickly as we bring in pots and dig up plants more used to a warmer latitude. The biggest of these are cycads, plants with a long fossil history, a weighty woody crown and argumentative spines. They always lash out when we take them in and leave their mark, but they’re wonderful plants and they’ve been in the family for a long time and on the planet much longer than us, so we let them off; this year two plants are producing magnificent orange cones which will become a great feature for visitors next year.
Plants that can’t be moved inside are wrapped up and protected with bark, straw and constructions that will protect them from cold, wet and wind that we’ll all experience. It’s a poignant time when we say goodbye to them for the season, the beginning of the darker days of winter. While dark, the winter days are far from being a chore, I enjoy them as much as summer. Plants are structural and still, where there is flower it is fragrant and small, and, while the maintenance is less, we’re able to get on with more landscaping jobs which make big changes in the Garden. This winter a South African mud hut or Rondavel will be built in the South African display, and a peony garden constructed in the Traditional Chinese medicinal display, more on that another time.
21st century pruning…
Also, this week we’ve launched ourselves into the 21stcentury and are trying out a MEWP (Mobile Elevated Work Platform), also known as a cherry picker. Our Wisteria, Magnolia and Roses which grow on the wall of the 18thcentury house are getting harder to prune from a ladder, so we felt it was time for machinery. It all worked very well (although quite high up!) and will do for us until someone invents a jet pack, which as gardeners, we’re all looking forward to.

All of this work is worth it when you hear and see the enjoyment from visitors. Our aim is for a visitor to leave the Garden with a greater understanding of the role plants play in their lives and ultimately, as a result of this, a greater respect for the planet. Lofty aims, but every little bit helps.