These are blog posts that Jim Gardiner has made.
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Last Monday 10th March was Commonwealth Day www.commonwealthday.com, held at Westminster Abbey. Among the guests were Janet Corrigan from the Seed Department based here at Wisley, along with our President and Director General, and Her Majesty the Queen. This year’s theme was ‘The Environment – Our Future’ and to support this, our Seed Department was involved in supplying 1000 schoolchildren with four packets each of specially selected seeds
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If you have visited Weather Hill in the last couple of weeks you may have been a little dismayed. We've been digging up the roses. But fear not. They haven’t gone forever. We're embarking on a new and exciting rose garden, the Bowes Lyon Rose Garden sponsored by Witan Investments
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Last Wednesday we had jets of ground water blasting out from the turf on Seven Acres, outside the Terrace Cafeteria. What was going on? Aeration of the soil. Why? Because this area is heavily utilised for events and gets very compacted. The water table is quite high here too, so sometimes the turf is very soggy.
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Children from five local primary schools recently visited RHS Wisley to participate in a day of environmental art, dance and music as part of the 'Bud and Blossom: Inspiring children through music, dance and art' project. The children used the tropical plants in the Glasshouse for inspiration to create fantastic pieces of dance and music, working with professional dancers and musicians from Bassistry Arts
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From the demise of the old glasshouse comes the rise of new garden developments. One of these is a new path across the Trials Field linking Battleston Hill to the Arboretum, where the hardcore needed to provide the base is coming from the old glasshouse site
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Gradually we have seen the parts of the old display glasshouse being dismantled and relocated, reused and recylced over the recent weeks and months. By last Friday, 25th January, there wasn't much left of the structure that had served us so admirably for nearly 40 years
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For centuries, people have been fascinated by orchids. Their exotic forms, the ability of some of them to grow on little more than air and water and the sheer adventure and danger involved in collecting them created a desire for these plants unmatched by any other
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Wisley was awash with visitors over the Christmas period. There's always a surprising amount to see at this time of year, with the garden full of winter flowering plants, many of which are fragrant. We have a new trail guide out in support of this over the next two months – Fragrance and Frost – available from the Garden Entrance and around the site from leaflet dispensers
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... the team is outside getting busy with the pruning saw and secateurs. All our Wisley Diploma students undertake 6 days of fruit pruning training, 3 days each year. We go through all the relevant techniques including grape vines and different tree pruning techniques
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It's that time of year again when the Glasshouse turns a shade of vibrant red. And pink. And cream. And green. And many other colours. And everything feels Christmassy. This is our first Christmas in the new Glasshouse and this year we're putting on a big poinsettia display
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