RHS Plant Ratings and Plant Preservation Efforts

-
The Royal Horticultural Society revised its plant ratings a few years ago to add hundreds of new plants and to reflect the changes in climate. Here's the entry from their May 1, 2014 release of the new book, "RHS Plant Finder 2014, the 28th edition of the gardener’s guide to UK cultivated plants, is now available. 
RHS Hardiness Ratings


Compiled and published annually by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), the world’s foremost gardening charity, RHS Plant Finder 2014 lists more than 70,000 plants, together with details for more than 570 suppliers, making it the most comprehensive directory of plants available to buy from UK and Irish nurseries.
RHS Plant Finder 2014 contains over 3,800 new plant entries, including Clematis ‘Prince George’ named to celebrate the birth of the royal baby."

At the 5th Annual Botanic Gardens Conference in 2012, The Queen's Botanist, Professor Stephen Blackmore, addressed the group. This YouTube of his talk is well worth 30-minutes to hear. Red Lists were new to me.

The RHS 10.30.15 press release addresses their new eco-conscious approach to renewing an interest in gardening. 

"RHS to Meet the Challenge of Climate Change and Help Gardeners be More Eco-Friendly"

The five-year plan of action focuses on ensuring that the UK’s 27 million gardeners have the tools they will need to address the new horticultural and societal challenges they will face in the future.
Key areas will include:
• Improving the detection, identification and management of garden pests and diseases by using a three-pronged approach involving surveillance, field research and laboratory techniques
• Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices and exploring how plants and gardens can support health and wellbeing
• Working with UK gardeners to share the latest intelligence on garden plants and harness their on-the-ground knowledge to guide and support RHS research
And, in this post, the Queen's Gardener addresses "Humanity's Future"
Speaking ahead of the lecture, Professor Blackmore said: “It’s often said that nature can take care of itself, but that’s no longer true if we want to live in a world that can support us.
“We can’t simply ask the government to fix the global environment, they couldn’t do it. The planet can be safeguarded only by each of us changing our behaviour in positive ways that will make a difference to the quality of life in the future.”
The changes Professor Blackmore is proposing are just as applicable to large gardens as to urban windowboxes, for they involve gardeners seeing themselves as part of a bigger picture in which the choice of plants they grow has an effect multiplied millions of times across the world.
In practical terms, this would mean gardeners:
• actively choosing plants that will support the widest diversity of other species, including pollinators and other garden wildlife;
• making urban landscapes much greener by planting garden and street trees to absorb pollutants, reduce excess temperatures and improve the quality of the built environment;
• not paving over front gardens, instead ensuring that there is an area of green as well as a parking space;
• gaining health benefits for themselves and their families through gardening;
• joining forces with and support their local parks, gardens and gardening societies, if they don’t have a garden of their own.
Professor Blackmore added: “The more you can grow in your individual patch, garden or windowbox, the more you can help planet Earth. For me the key insight is that it was the cumulative actions of 7 billion people that created the environmental challenges we face today, and it will be the individual actions of those same people that will get us out of the position we’re currently in.”
The urgency is clear, if we, collectively, want to help reverse the trends of environmental destruction.
  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moldy Tulip Bulbs

-
Image
Moldy tulip bulbs are a big disappointment when you are hoping to fill a bed or some pots. It is not that unusual for their skins to have a bit of penicillin mold but these are beyond that tad bit stage. Mold penetrating tulip bulb  Mold on emerging tulip bulb growth  So, what to do? The plant references say to throw them out and buy new ones but I already spent $22 for 50 of these white tulip beauties. First, they got a soak in 1% bleach solution in the kitchen sink in the hope that the bleach would stop the mold from continuing to grow without killing the life force in the bulb itself. After a good slosh around, I wiped them off to see how much damage was beneath the blue and black.  This tulip bulb is soft to the touch and there is little chance it will thrive in the soil. This basal root on these have been ruined by mold. The final step I took to try to salvage part of them  was to spray them thoroughly with fungicid...
Read more

Propagate Begonia Stem Cuttings in water - Cane-like Angel Wing Begonia

-
Image
Propagating by stem cuttings is just about the easiest way to make more begonias for next summer's garden. During the fall, I regularly trim off 3-node long cuttings and put them into the growing pots where they take root. Now that cold weather has arrived, I root the stem cuttings in a vase of water. It's a great way to produce more pots of Begonias for next summer's garden. Water the plant well the day before. Take a cutting about 4-inches long, with 3 nodes, from a healthy stem. Use a perfectly clean container. Rinse the container with a drop of bleach if you are uncertain about its spotlessness. Remove all but the top leaf or two. There should be no leaves in the water. The cutting should  have a healthy leaf node at the bottom. Don't leave a stub below the node. Place the cutting into the water, and place the container out of the sun. In a couple of weeks, you will see new roots beginning to form. Check the water periodicall...
Read more

Create Nesting Areas for Birds and Wildlife

-
Image
From the website, Choose Natives , this lovely and instructive article helped remind me to continue to increase the amount of habitat and nesting that we provide in our garden. Many, though not all, are native or considered to be native in Oklahoma. So, I did a little research on each recommended plant and provided a link to more information. You'll see the plant name in italics - those are my links for your edification. Here's the post Derek Stoner, Project Coordinator for the Delaware Nature Society, helped restore the 860-acre Middle Run Natural Area by “intensive habitat management”, including planting 12,000 trees and shrubs.  His lecture, ‘ Native Plants for Nesting Birds: Connecting Flora and Fauna’,  given to a group of enthusiasts at the Millersville Native Plant Conference   in Pennsylvania, focused on his observations. Here are Derek’s landscaping recommendations for attracting birds: Plant shrubs in clusters (“habitat circles”) that will c...
Read more