Tag Archives: RHS Science

Sad endings, Mary Poppins and shiny things

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Whether it’s dropping off the keys to my rented damp-ridden, avocado-bathroom-suite-complete-with-kitchen-cupboard-over-the-bathtub flat in Bracknell, leaving my Citroen Saxo with neon yellow and grey interior at the scrap yard because it had a tendency to be a bit of a death trap, or driving away from the boarding kennels as my cat gave me his best Puss in Boots wide-eyed pity face and I trundled off for a three-day conference in Belfast, I hate goodbyes.

So, with only a few short weeks of this KTP left, it’s probably no surprise that I have decided to break a Wisley tradition and not have a leaving do (let’s face it, we all knew it was never really up for debate). I’m going to do a Mary Poppins instead and steal away with my talking umbrella. But, besides wasting time stressing that whisperings in the corridors are preparations to ambush me with tea, cake and the horrifying words “speech, speech”, these remaining weeks have been very busy for the KTP team.

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Networking, nibbles and a new prospectus

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RHS Science hosted its second annual PhD symposium in November. An opportunity to develop our growing PhD community- and our links with new and existing collaborative research partners, the event gets everyone together for a catch-up and keeps us all abreast of the exciting research currently ongoing by our PhD students.

Given that our RHS/ Reading KTP is all about boosting the profile of scientific research, I was involved in organising the event and this year, we were lucky enough to be able to welcome students (and their supervisors) from other horticultural research institutions including East Malling Research and Reading, Sheffield and Warwick universities.

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There was an old woman who swallowed a fly..

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After a couple of days of blisteringly hot weekend sun, what better way to spend a Monday afternoon than by sampling insects collected from the Plants for Bugs plots!

In a past post, I mentioned that one of our five invertebrate sampling methodologies involves the use of pitfall traps to collect invertebrates active on the ground.  To record those that remain largely on the foliage, we use a Vortis suction sampler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RHS Senior Entomologist Andy uses a Vortis suction sampler to collect insects on the foliage

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Ugly bugs, fair-weather fans and a new face

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 The Plants for Bugs research project keeps us busy – especially during the summer!

 

Unlike universities, where the summer term generally provides academics with more time, more parking spaces, and a more favourable balance between queuing for and eating lunch, the opposite is true in the garden.

Here at Wisley, summer is our busiest period, not just because footfall through the gates increases but also because during these long, warm(ish) months, gardening as a hobby sees a seasonal resurgence.  So, with many of us being unashamed fair-weather fans of our trowels and our hedge shears, it’s not surprising that summer also heralds an increase in the number of enquires to the RHS’ Members Advisory and Diagnostic Services.  Calls, emails and letters querying anything from best practice when trimming wisteria to help identifying the good, the bad and the sometimes exceedingly ugly amongst our garden fauna are answered by our horticultural advisors and scientists.

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Elephants, donkeys and goldfish

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When I was very small (perhaps I should say young as I haven’t grown much since then), my parents and their friends would often liken me to an elephant or a donkey. I wasn’t fat nor was I in possession of a set of protuberant front teeth but instead had a good memory and was very stubborn.

There is a picture of me that my mum keeps in her purse. I’m aged 6, dressed in an awful smock that is adorned with pink and blue snowmen. In the picture, I’m pulling the face my cat does when I’ve put his comedy cat jumper on.  Even now, I recall how tightly the collar pinched my neck and the puff-ball sleeves impeded any normal functioning of my arms. I only wore the dress once and no amount of bribery from my parents would ever make me put it on again.

Over the years, despite my memory becoming less elephantine and more goldfish-like, my stubbornness has remained. This is why, when I mentioned that I was having some difficulty collecting nectar from flowers sampled from Wisley, I was not deterred.

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New Field Research Facility opens at RHS Garden Wisley

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The John MacLeod Field Research Facility, Wisley. Photograph courtesy of Rachael Tanner, RHS.

I know what you’re thinking, but remember what your mum always said- don’t judge a book by its cover. Or in this case -don’t judge the shiny new Field Research Facility (FRF) by its slightly unattractive exterior.  Granted, it isn’t the prettiest building I’ve ever seen (although the splashes of colour provided by the bearded irises do help) but it wasn’t built to be admired from the outside.

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Croeso i Gymru

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The title is Welsh – not, as some of you may have wondered, a case of too many biscuit crumbs in the keyboard, and it reads ‘Welcome to Wales’.

A handful of the Science Department drove past this welcome message on the M4 as we headed to Cardiff (in the pouring rain) to help out on the first of seven RHS Flower Shows.

 

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Shiny new buildings and spring cleans

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Construction of our Field Research Facility. Photograph courtesy of Rachael Tanner (RHS)

 

Over the last five months, we’ve all been eagerly watching as our Science  Field Research Facility (FRF) takes shape.  This environmentally-friendly facility, kitted out with a swimming-pool sized underground tank for heat recycling and solar panels to generate electricity, will help expand our research capacity so that we can continue to provide the best possible advice to gardeners. It is a building that really will increase awareness and understanding of the importance of science to gardening. Good reason then for our excitement as we approach its grand opening on the 2nd May.

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Wedding veil, microcapillary tubes and dry ice

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Over the past two years of Plants for Bugs recording, we’ve been sampling all sorts of invertebrates (34, 000 and counting) on our plots – from bees and beetles to spiders and springtails. When the project ends and the results are analysed, we’ll be able to say whether the ‘bugs’ recorded have shown a consistent preference for native or non-native plant assemblages, or whether in fact they’re not too bothered either way…

In order to explain the reasons for any observed preference, we’ve also been recording lots of variables on the plots including numbers of flowers, seed set, vegetation density and canopy cover. But, with a project this big, there’s always more we want to record.

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The joys of pitfalls

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It’s early morning and it’s cool enough for me to be wearing a good five layers of clothing but not so cold that my car windscreen needs scraping.  So it’s a little odd that I’m lugging a litre bottle of antifreeze around with me.  Stranger still that I’m nowhere near a car- any cars in fact, as I’m walking in a pretty determined fashion through Wisley garden and towards the Plants for Bugs plots.

No need to worry though. I am here for a very good reason.  Today, we’re setting pitfall traps – one of four methods used to regularly sample invertebrates on Plants for Bugs; the RHS research project designed to test whether invertebrate wildlife is at all bothered about the geographic origin of our garden plants.
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