Category Archives: Annual Fund

Substrate notes – Seramis

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Alastair Culham

Some of the plants we plan to grow need special growing conditions beyond simply that of extra heat.  Many tropical plants need a moist but well aerated growing medium and this can be supplied by adding various lighweight aggregates to … Continue reading →

Posted in Annual Fund, Design, Planning | 5 Comments

Infrastructure update

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Alastair Culham

A number of background logistical operations have been ongoing since last Autumn and several are now coming to fruition.  Critical to the success of this project have been three basic supply issues: purchase of hardwood railway sleepers to landscape the … Continue reading →

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Planting tropical crops

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Alastair Culham

New crop plants for summer 2012 and beyond were planted today.  A local supermarket was the source for Pineapple (Ananas comosus), Sweet Potato (Ipomaea batatas), Ginger (Zingiber offininale) and Scotch Bonnet chilli (Capsicum annuum). It’s amazing what can be grown … Continue reading →

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Potting-up – one week on

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Alastair Culham

One week after the brutal process of digging up and splitting some of our tropical plants into smaller pot sized pieces four of our eager volunteers are checking whther the plants have settled in to the fresh compost.  Several are … Continue reading →

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Emma’s plant list – plus my comments :-)

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Alastair Culham

A few ideas for the tropical display: New World: Melastomataceae – Tibouchina is pretty – yes, we might also manage Medinella.:-) Theobroma cacao – good economic plant and nice example of cauliflory – we have hundreds of these but the … Continue reading →

Posted in Annual Fund, Species, Students | 2 Comments

Meetings for volunteers will now be organised via Facebook

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Alastair Culham

Please send a join request if you want to help out. http://www.facebook.com/groups/275327922529006/ I’m planning to hold the next meeting on Wednesday 8th Feb at 2pm

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Plant list suggestions from David Solomon

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Alastair Culham

David Solomon writes: I thought this was coming so this weekend I jotted down some ideas. , thinking mostly in terms of plant families in true DIP style! (But seriously: a nice spread of families would help us lear to … Continue reading →

Posted in Annual Fund, Planning, Species, Students | 1 Comment

Plant requests now being made

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Alastair Culham

Suggestions for plants to grow in the new tropical display are now coming in.  I’ve requested plants of Cinchona officinalis (quinine), Equisetum myriochaetum (giant mexican horrsetail), Lycopodium squarrosum and Angiopteris evecta (Elephant fern) today. Main themes for planting will be: … Continue reading →

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The first stage of lifting and potting up of plants has been completed

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Alastair Culham

Thanks to the 12 student volunteers for their hard work on Wednesday afternoon.  Several wheelbarrow loads of compost were mixed and used to pot up 15 different tropical species giving them time to establish before the parent plants are dug … Continue reading →

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Volunteers wanted to help pot up and propagate tropical plants

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Alastair Culham

On Wednesday 25th January at 2pm we will be meeting to start the first phase of moving the current tropical plants.  We have about 20 plants to split up and move into large flowerpots.  This will involve digging and moving … Continue reading →

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