Barnet’s Own Tiny Forest

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The Tiny Forest at Henly’s Corner

Dear Readers, no sooner had I posted about the Miyawaki Method and the Tiny Forest Movement than several people commented that not only were there were Tiny Forests in London, but one of them was only twenty minutes walk from East Finchley. Furthermore, I had actually read several articles about this endeavour, but hadn’t linked it with what I was writing about. Doh. So, it felt as if the least I could do was head over to the junction of Falloden Way and Finchley Road, walk alongside the Mutton Brook, and take a look at how our very own Tiny Forest was doing.

The Mutton Brook

If it wasn’t for the roar of traffic coming from the North Circular Road and the A1, this spot would be almost idyllic – I did a walk along the Mutton Brook (which arises somewhere in East Finchley, though probably not in Cherry Tree Wood as I’d previously thought) a few years ago, and very interesting it was too (for me at least). You can read about my adventures here and here. Maybe when I’m retired I’ll explore some more of my local streams, it’s always fun to ‘join the dots’ and see how the geology of an area works.

Anyhow, the Tiny Forest really is tiny! It’s probably slightly larger than a tennis court. It was planted up in February 2022 by local volunteers and school children with help from the staff at Earthwatch who are pioneering the Tiny Forest movement in Europe. The list of plants could be a register of all the most valuable plants for wildlife in the UK.

Holly

Dog Rose

Hawthorn

Hornbeam

Bird Cherry

Alder

Scots Pine

There is also Alder Buckthorn, Crab Apple, Silver and Downy Birch, Blackthorn, Elder, Guelder Rose, Hazel, Small-leaved Lime, and both Goat and Grey Willow.

All the trees that I saw seemed to be doing well, but there was a small crisis in summer 2022, just after the trees had been planted, when London experienced a drought and some of the highest temperatures on record. Local volunteers came up trumps, however, bringing buckets of water up from the Mutton Brook.  Such was the community spirit that the whole site got a good watering within half an hour.

I will be very intrigued to see how the Tiny Forest fares – it is a tribute to the hard work of the people who planted it, and who look after it now, and it will be interesting to see how it affects the biodiversity of the area. Certainly there are plants here that provide food for caterpillars, and hence food for birds. I shall be keeping an eye on it over the coming years to see how it does.

You can read all about the Tiny Forest here, and the Facebook page for the group is here.  There is also  a helpful leaflet from Earthwatch about the theory and practice of Tiny Forests here. Many thanks to the people who pointed out that Barnet already had its own Tiny Forest, I was both intrigued and delighted to see one ‘in real life’.

A Visit to Mum and Dad, and the Dreaded Blandford Fly

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Dear Readers, every time I come to visit Mum and Dad, I find myself in a flurry of activity – pulling up long grass, getting rid of plants that haven’t made it, trying to clean up the stone plaque (though I definitely need to speak to the stonemasons about the best way to clean it up – I don’t want to pollute the surrounding area with caustic chemicals, but I do want to be able to read their details). Then there’s the putting the old plants on the compost heap, getting rid of the dreaded plastic pots, positioning the new plants, and finally I slump under the cherry tree and feel a great sense of peace descend. This really is the most serene spot. All you can hear is the cooing of woodpigeons (plus the occasional ‘clap’ as one of the males demonstrates his strength by ‘clapping’ his wings at the top of a rollercoaster flightpath), the chinking of the many, many house martins, and the wind in the yew trees. I bring Mum and Dad up to date with my latest news – my retirement, all the medical tests that I’ve had since I ‘saw’ them last. I find myself telling them about my heart valve defect, and telling them not to worry. When I mention my retirement I can almost hear Dad saying ‘What took you so long?’. It might seem funny to talk to people who are dead, but I also know that I’m far from being the only person who does it.

I take a walk to see how my favourite lime tree is getting on (it was blown down in a storm last year), and it seems to be doing fine. It will take many years to reach its former splendour, but I love that it is hanging on.

The lime tree today

The Lime Tree in its full splendour

Now, when Mum and Dad first moved to Dorset I remember Dad telling me to be very careful that I didn’t get bitten by ‘the Blandford Fly’. How I laughed! However, following my walk down by the stream yesterday I have picked up about five nasty bites, and although I suspect that they’re merely mosquito bites, I have been casting my eye over information about the Blandford Fly, and I think that I owe Dad an apology.

The Blandford Fly (Simulium posticatum) is a species of blackfly which lives as a larva in the weeds alongside slow-running rivers. When the females emerge, they, much like midges, require a blood meal in order to for their 200-300 eggs to mature. Along comes a handy human walker or angler or someone wearing shorts and the fly is in heaven. The bites seem to be particularly irritating and painful, and because of this are prone to becoming infected. In the worst case people are hospitalised, and the name ‘Blandford Fly’ comes from an outbreak in the 1972 when over 600 people were so badly affected within a four week period that they needed treatment at the doctor or their local hospital.

At first (as was always the case), the treatment was to spray the riverbanks where the larvae lived with a chemical biocide. This resulted in the death of many other species of blackfly (important for fish and for other invertebrates such as dragonflies) and a disruption to the ecology of the river. However, in the 1980s another way of doing things became available. River ecology expert, Dr Mike Ladle, suggested that a newly-discovered bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (found in the Negev desert in Israel) could be used to target the Blandford Fly specifically without endangering any other species. The river was first sprayed with the bacterium in 1991, and Dr Ladle suggests that  ‘this is probably the best example of the use of a biological agent to control a pest, in an ecologically friendly fashion, anywhere in the world.’ It does seem to have been a remarkable success – in 1980 there were 1400 recorded cases of bites, but by 1999 it was down to 45 cases. 

All the more reason, then, for alarm in 2014 when disagreements about who should fund the spraying, and new EU legislation about licences for river treatment meant that the bacteria might not be used in time for the emergence of larvae in 2015. An 80 year-old Blandford resident, Pat Ashworth, went shop to shop, street corner to street corner, with an old-school petition, and managed to get nearly 2500 signatures to say that the treatment must go ahead. I suspect that many Dorset towns and villages are basically run by feisty retired ladies who won’t take no for an answer, and more power to them (and I also suspect that this phenomenon is not limited to Dorset).

Ashworth was obviously worried about people getting sick, but she also had other concerns. Hospitals and GP practices in the West Country are under a lot of pressure in the summer due to the influx of tourists, so bite treatment would be one more thing. She also cited the name of the Blandford Fly as being a deterrent to tourists, and suggested that it could just as easily be named ‘the Wimborne Fly’, passing the blame on to another Dorset village. She was absolutely right that the fly was present along most of the river Stour downstream of Blandford, so there are a number of other towns and villages that are affected.

Spraying with the bacterial agent recommenced in 2016, so at least in Dorset the risk of a nasty bite is much reduced. However, the fly is spreading, with cases in Herefordshire and Oxfordshire, and I note with some interest that ‘garden water features’ are thought to be a factor. Well, as the insects require slow-running rivers I suspect that the average garden pond can be exonerated. Always beware of articles on invertebrates in the local and national press, these guys frequently illustrate articles about bees with hoverflies so we can assume that the level of entomological knowledge is not what it might be.

I think we forget that although the UK isn’t tropical (yet) we do have all manner of biting insects, from your average mosquito to the terrifying midges of the west of Scotland, to cleggies in Devon and horseflies more or less anywhere. As I’m sure you know, it’s the anti-coagulant that the insects inject when they bite you that is the main irritant, and if you can avoid scratching you will greatly reduce the risk of infection. I generally use a hydrocortisone cream for a brief period until the itching subsides (calamine lotion can also work and is safer). If I fear that the irritation will keep me awake I might also take chlorphenamine maleate (the active ingredient in Piriton and many of those other antihistamines) but again just for a day or so. Comfrey ointment and comfrey tea have also been recommended to me, and the ointment certainly works. I’m always open to hearing about things that work for bites, as all manner of invertebrates seem to love me just as much as I love them, so fire away!

And just for the record, as Blandford flies normally bite the lower leg, and are most active from May to June, I am pretty confident that my bites are just from a mosquito, and that they’ll be sorted out within a few days. But apologies to Dad. The Blandford Fly does appear to have been a menace historically, even if it is now more of a minor nuisance.

Incidentally, Woodhouse and Hall, the local brewery, created an ale called Blandford Fly, flavoured with, among other things, ginger, which is said to be a helpful treatment for a bite. I do love how something so unpleasant can be turned into a marketing opportunity.

The story of the Blandford Fly (with a rather unnecessary dig at EU ‘bureaucracy’ ) is here. There are some photos of the redoubtable Pat Ashworth too.

Return to Dorset

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The streamside pathway in Dorchester

Dear Readers, as you might remember my Mum and Dad’s ashes are buried in the churchyard of St Andrew’s church in Milborne St Andrew, a small village just outside Dorchester. So, three or four times a year I go to visit them, to tidy up the grave and to tell them what’s been going on. It might seem silly, but it gives me comfort to bring them up to speed with the news, and to let them know that they’re not forgotten.

First, though, I spend the afternoon and evening at Westwood House, a guest house in Dorchester. It was recently taken over by a new couple, Jocelyn and Karl, but the welcome, the breakfast, the rooms and the hospitality are just as good as ever. Plus, there was a new little visitor in the room.

This little cricket/grasshopper was a very determined critter. Before I went out for a walk, I managed to catch him/her, and put them outside on the balcony.

“There”, I thought, “That’s that”. But when I got back after a trot along by the stream (of which more later) there s/he was again. I caught them and put them out for a second time.

And then today, there they were again. Clearly I needed to translocate them to some better environment. But how? I used the wooden carved box that was in the toilet, but the cricket got out of the carved holes at the top and sat there grinning. Then it jumped onto the floor. Eventually I caught it in yet another box, and this time I managed to find a nice grassy area on a tiny alleyway where there was hopefully lots to eat and plenty of other little crickets to play with.

If it turns up again tonight I will be completely freaked out.

Anyhow, off I went for my usual walk, down to the stream and past the allotments and the little nature reserve. I spent a lot of time watching for fish: there were lots about (as two anglers would seem to indicate) but I couldn’t quite catch them in a photo. Here, to get you in the mood, is some water weed though. I always find it very relaxing to watch.

And just look at this. This is a male Banded Demoiselle, the only UK damselfly with a parti-coloured wing. They are found in lush vegetation alongside rivers and streams, and the females (who are metallic green or bronze, with a white spot on their wings) lay their eggs by injecting them into the stems of fleshy plants. What beautiful insects they are, especially earlier in the year where the males display by fluttering those black and blue wings.

The allotments are looking great too. Someone is obviously very keen on marigolds, which are excellent companion planting and good for pollinators too!

And someone has a fine crop of sunflowers too. If the heads are left, the goldfinches will have a feast later on.

And then it’s time for a little wander through the nature reserve. During the winter the boardwalk can be inundated with water from the local streams, but it’s much drier in the summer. You can almost guarantee that as you round the corner, someone will be sitting at the picnic table smoking ‘something or other’ but on one memorable occasion a few Christmases ago, it was two teenagers, one in a lion onesie and one dressed as a cow, both high as kites and giggling furiously. Well, I suppose it was the festive season.

The streamside pathway in Dorchester

This time it was just one guy with earphones looking pensively over the field, so I left him to it, and went on to admire the mass of Himalayan Balsam that has grown up in the past few months. What a pretty plant this is, and what a pain – it’s very clear that it’s taken over half the reserve, and will be taking over the whole thing if a way to contain it isn’t found.

Still, it was a fine walk, and it’s one of the reasons that I love Dorchester – unlike so many towns, it hasn’t been ruined by generic developments, and has managed to hold on to many of its historic buildings. It’s clear, however, that the pedestrianised High Street is travelling, with many shops shuttered. Marks and Spencer pulled out a few years ago, and with it went the underwear and socks of the people of Dorchester, not to mention the ready meals and the rhubarb yoghurts. Still, it looks as if the building might be turned into a spot for ‘mini shops’, for people who can’t afford the high local rents. What a great idea! I shall be interested to see how it plays out.

Tiny Forests – The Miyawaki Method

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Miyawaki forest at Kasuga Shrine in Japan

Dear Readers, in my British Wildlife magazine this month Peter Thomas describes the rise of the microforest – 6 have been planted in the Lichfield area alone, and 21 are planned in Middlesborough. These are forests, sometimes only a few metres square, which are planted extremely densely, which encourages competition and results in rapid growth and, over time, the development of a dense and biodiverse understorey.

The method was developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki (1928 -2021)who was especially interested in the reforestation of degraded land. Firstly, the soil in the area to be reforested is improved with whatever organic matter is available, from coffee grounds to old woolly jumpers to manure to waste vegetable matter. The method also recognises the importance of mycorrhizal fungi, which are added to the substrate. Then, native trees and shrubs are planted as densely as possible – typically between two and seven trees per square metre (even more densely in tropical regions), echoing what would happen in nature when a clearing appears due to a tree dying, or on the edge of a woodland. Thomas lists the species planted in a three year-old forest in Oxfordshire as being Goat Willow, Field Maple, Silver Birch, Dogwood, Guelder-rose and Hazel, with some Elder and Apple trees. The downside is that survival rates for individual trees are very low (possibly as low as 15%), but the thinking is that within a decade the forest will be up to 30 times denser than a conventional mixed-species plantation.

During his lifetime, Miyawaki was involved in the planting of almost 1300 mini forests across Japan and neighbouring countries, but his method has been taken up all over the world – in the UK, Earthwatch Europe plans to develop five hundred urban ‘mini-forests’. The method is especially suited to degraded environments, and so a ‘pocket forest’ can easily spring up where a house has been demolished, or where there is a small area of unused ground. You can see an interactive map of the tiny forests planted by Earthwatch so far here. Sadly none in London (yet) so I shall have to make a special pilgrimage to check one out (though I do note that London Borough of Barnet, my local council, is one of the sponsors, so maybe one will arrive soon).

Witney Tiny Forest 17 months after it was planted (Photo by Whitney Tree Keepers from https://earthwatch.org.uk/component/k2/witney-tiny-forest)

Of course, there are also criticisms of the Miyawaki method. The first one that springs to my mind is the sheer waste of seedlings – why plant so many if so few of them will thrive? However, the whole point of the method is that the sheer competition means that trees will grow quickly, sequestering carbon as they go. In a ‘real’ forest, only a tiny proportion of the trees will ever grow to adulthood, so perhaps my dislike of ‘waste’ is clouding my judgement here.

Further criticisms seem to be based on implementations where the basic premise of only using native trees has been ignored – species that have no natural predators or competitors will often outrace native trees that are already an integral part of an ecosystem. An interesting article about the use of Miyawaki forests in Chennai points out that the city has mainly slow-growing palm trees and mangroves rather than dense deciduous forests, and points out that the native wildlife is attuned to Chennai’s natural habitats.

Another criticism is that the cost of a Miyawaki microforest can be high, what with the soil preparation and the number of viable young seedlings that are required.

There is a sense that lots of people have jumped on the Miyawaki bandwagon – as in all fields, there are ‘flavours of the month’ in conservation, and in many ways this looks like a no-brainer – tiny, fast-growing forests in environments that would otherwise be concrete wastelands. In the right place, with the right plants, Miyawaki forests seem to be oases of peace and biodiversity. However, there is also a real need to protect the native forests and street trees that we have in urban areas and beyond – a forest that has grown up over generations will have a range of interactions with its local ecosystem that a microforest won’t achieve for many years, and as I mentioned in my ‘Tree of the Year’ post last week, a single mature elm tree can form a habitat for a rare butterfly all on its own. However, there is evidence that the microforests, because they’re young, will attract a different range of insects and birds to the established forests, thus increasing biodiversity overall. There is no single answer to the problems that we face – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – but I applaud any attempts to restore nature and mitigate global heating. It will be interesting to see how the Miyawaki forests thrive in the UK. I look forward to reporting back in a decade or so.

If you have Miyawaki/miniforests in your area, do let me know how they’re doing, and all opinions welcomed, as usual!

Spiders, Spiders Everywhere!

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Dear Readers, after a long day in the office (front of the house), I went into our bedroom to get changed into something more comfortable, and spotted a spider, seemingly floating in mid-air.

 

It took me a second to realise that not only had this spider moved in, but she had actually made a web going from the ceiling to the duvet.

Goodness, Bugwoman, I thought, I know that you’re making the place friendly for wildlife, but I suspect that your husband might think this is a step too far. Fortunately, I had a glass to hand, and so I gently removed the spider and popped her onto the climbing hydrangea outside the open window (which is probably how she got in in the first place).

It made me think about how quickly a spider can spin a web – this one clearly wasn’t there when I woke up, so in the space of about eight hours this extraordinary structure had been created. And I was very lucky, because another spider was making a web right across the path to the shed in the garden.

It’s a funny old time at the moment – I’m still working, but on 15th September I’m finished, and I feel very ‘between worlds’ – wanting to do a good job at work, anxious about taking this step into the unknown, eager to get on with my new life, sad to be leaving my old one. But there is something so very grounding about just sitting down and watching this everyday miracle taking place, preferably with a cup of tea in one hand. The lad next door is having a bath and playing some Latin American music, which somehow seems to blend with the whole sunny, late-afternoon vibe.

I loved watching how the spider produces the silk from the spinnerets at her rear end and then manipulates the strand into position in a process that’s almost too quick and neat to see.

But, yet again, this wasn’t the best place for a web, and no sooner had she finished than we had to go to the shed and there was nothing for it but to barge through all that hard work in order to get to the secateurs. I do hope that she finds somewhere that will be a bit less disrupted tomorrow.

All Grown Up – Leopold Road Neighbourhood Garden

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The Leopold Road Neighbourhood Garden

Dear Readers, I took a little walk around East Finchley on Saturday, and decided to visit the Leopold Road Neighbourhood Garden. Last time I was here, in March, it looked like this:

And now look at it! It’s been designed as a spot that’s nice for humans and pollinators, and I applaud the choice of plants: as you can see from the first photograph, there’s sedum and Bowle’s Mauve perennial wallflower, both of which will flower right into the autumn.

On the other side of the path, the goldenrod and the Rosanne geraniums are putting on a splendid show, and on this mild-ish day there were lots of bees and hoverflies buzzing about. It’s amazing how quickly plants grow, and how much they can cheer a place up. And I love the notice board, which explains what a collaboration this pocket park was, and how it forms part of a pollinator pathway. More and more people are growing at least some plants for our insect allies, and this project is providing solace for local people and sustenance for invertebrates. What a great achievement!

Ant Agriculture

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Dear Readers, I have been watching the aphid colony that is slowly developing on my Cosmos plants with some interest. It started with a group of about a dozen black bugs, but as you can see, the numbers are growing, and this is because they are being ‘farmed’ by the black ants (Lasius niger) who live under the doorstep.

A high proportion of the food of a black ant colony is not chopped-up insects as you might expect, but honeydew (up to 92% of a wood ant (Formica sp.) colony for example), and this is secreted in abundance by the aphids. To get the protein that they need, these bugs have to drink prodigious quantities of plant sap, which is mainly sugar and water – it contains  only about 1.8% protein. The result is that aphids are more or less continuously producing honeydew. Sometimes they flick it away from their bodies and it rains down in a sticky shower – my buddleia were particularly afflicted earlier in the year to the extent that my green wheelie bin,  which was under the shrub, had its lid stuck shut. But some aphids have made a relationship with ants: the ants ‘tickle’ the aphids with their antennae, and the aphids secrete a globule of honeydew. In the little film below you can just about make out an ant walking amongst the aphids and ‘tapping’ them in search of food.

The relationship with the ants is not altogether benign: the ants sometimes also ‘cull’ their herds, eating the new young aphids. Interestingly, in his book ‘Ants’, Richard Jones explains  that ants are more likely to ‘milk’ aphids that have already been milked by a colony mate, and to eat one that has not: ants may place a chemical marker on an aphid, to indicate productivity or even ownership.

 

Overall, though, the aphids benefit greatly from the presence of the ants, who will pick them up and move them to a new stem or even new plant if the supply of sap seems to be drying up. I dead-headed some of the Cosmos and as a result, the stem that one flowerhead was on started to dry up. There are far fewer aphids on it now, and far more on a juicier, productive stem. As these black aphids cannot fly, I suspect that the ants have been relocating them. Furthermore, the ants are ferocious predators of hoverfly larvae, ladybirds and lacewings, and indeed any other invertebrate that threatens their ‘herd’. In some species of aphid, the relationship between them and their ‘farmers’ has become so tightly-knit that the aphids can’t survive without the ants.

Perhaps the most sophisticated form of aphid ‘farming’ occurs between the Japanese ant (Lasius japonicus) and the Japanese Mugwort Aphid (Macrosiphoniella yomogicola ). As per usual, the ant ‘farms’ the aphid for its honeydew, but it goes a step further. The aphid comes in two colour forms – green aphids and red aphids. The green aphids produce more honeydew, but the red ones produce a chemical that inhibits the mugwort on which they feed from flowering. Once the plant flowers, it will die, and so will the aphids. The ants ‘cull’ the aphids until they’re at a ratio of 2 green aphids for every red aphid. In this situation, the ants get enough honeydew, but the flowering of the plants is delayed or prevented, which means that the aphid colony will survive. This is an extraordinary manipulation, almost akin to selective breeding.

Japanese ant (Lasius japonicus) (Photo by By IronChris – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1543680)

I have been fascinated by ants ever since I was a child, when I used to try to mark individual ants with a blob of paint, much to their irritation. I love the way that they can communicate so effectively with one another when there’s a food source – they discovered the tinned food that I put down for our cat earlier this year, with the result that about 300 ants turned up every feeding time. Now the cat is being fed upstairs, and I’m just hoping that the ants can’t work out how to get to the first floor. They are tidiers-up par excellence, and their lives are complex and compelling. I am really enjoying Richard Jone’s book ‘Ants’, in the Bloomsbury British Wildlife series, and I recommend it to myrmecophiles everywhere.

Roses for Remembrance

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The Rose Garden at East Finchley Cemetery

Dear Readers, I have always had a bit of a strained relationship with roses. They are so much hard work, what with the pruning, the black spot, the feeding, the greenfly, and for most of the year they are just spikey stumps. And yet, today I was in the memorial rose garden at East Finchley Cemetery, and for once I could see why people love them so much. It was a warm day, and the roses were in full bloom in all their myriad colours, but what struck me most was the extraordinary heady scent.

We think we know what roses smell like, and yet there are a wide variety of different scents. David Austin is credited with reviving the interest in old-fashioned roses, with their heady fragrance and blowsy, loose-petalled blooms that just beg you to bury your nose in them. The roses below are just ones that looked particularly fine, rather than being illustrative of the scent type – if you are interested in seeing what’s what, you can see rose varieties organised in this way on the website (linked below).

The David Austin website describes five main categories of scent:

Fruity –Found across all colors of English Roses, fruity fragrances are diverse in nature, ranging from zesty citrus scents to rich berry and exotic fruit aromas. With notes such as apple, mango and elderflower, fruity fragrances are fresh and uplifting, each with their own delicious twist.

Myrrh – This distinctive scent holds a majestic spiciness and the aromatic warmth of sweet anise. Found almost exclusively in English Roses, it can be an acquired taste due to the medicinal character of the licorice notes.

Old Rose –Seen as the classic rose fragrance, it is traditional in nature, with warm, heady notes, often softened with a dash of sweetness. Unique in its character; and reminiscent of rose perfumes, it is arguably the most delicious of all the rose fragrances and can be found almost exclusively in pink and red roses 

Tea – True to its name, the Tea Rose scent is often said to resemble a freshly opened packet of tea. In English Roses, the aroma most frequently appears in the yellows and apricots. A complex fragrance , it can have sweeter elements of violets and fruitiness mixed with spicy, tar-like qualities of the dominating tea notes.

And finally Musk –The musk scent, resembling the old musk used in perfumes, is a warm, rich fragrance that can be both sweet and spicy and, at times, is dominated by the scent of cloves. Unlike other fragrance types, musk is produced in the stamens rather than in the petals of a rose. Musk is often found in ramblers, where the sheer abundance of flowers produces a heady blanket of perfume.

Taken altogether, the roses in the cemetery produce a symphony of perfume  – there are lemon notes, distinctively ‘rosy’ notes, chocolate, violet, creamy softness and even a note of bitterness. And so many loved ones, celebrated in so many different colours and styles of rose, from little shrub roses with tight buds to looser flowers that attracted hoverflies and bees.

And of course it reminded me of Dad and Mum, and how Dad delighted in making sure that the roses were beautiful every year. They were Mum’s favourite flower, and when she managed to buy a silver rose bowl in my local East Finchley charity shop she was delighted. When I visited Dorset earlier this year, I wandered around past their bungalow (the first time I’ve felt emotionally strong enough to do this) and I was pleased to see that the roses are still thriving.

Roses cut from Mum and Dad’s garden in 2017, just before they went into the nursing home.

And so I think that maybe I’ve been way too dismissive of roses. It’s true that they aren’t always the best plants for pollinators (though the more open-flowered, natural-looking ones do attract bees) but maybe I could find space for one or two. I find it impossible to look at the David Austin website without getting excited. Any views, Readers? Who has roses in their garden? And are they worth it in your view?

The Elephant in the Room

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Me with my Nan, aged about 4

Dear Readers, as I passed through Camden Passage in Islington today, I paused for a moment to look at one of the last few stalls that is still selling antiques (mostly it’s cafés and hairdressers and delicatessens these days). There was a very fine china elephant, mostly white but with green and blue and orange details, and for a second I was tempted. But then I heard the voice of my Nan in my ear.

“Don’t have an elephant in the house! They’re unlucky!”

Well, clearly a full-sized live elephant would be a problem, but I remembered that Nan had an aversion to elephant representations of any kind. I’d never thought about it before, but today, as I walked to Angel tube, I wondered why a woman who lived in the East End of London for her whole life was convinced that a china elephant could be unlucky. Had she heard about the story of the white elephant given by the Emperors of India to people that they wanted to bankrupt? A white elephant was a sacred animal that demanded the finest food and special care, and so it was, to mix a metaphor, a poisoned chalice of a gift. Nan was not so picky though. She loathed elephants of any colour.

But it wasn’t just elephants. The colour green was unlucky too, to the extent that when Mum bought me a green corduroy coat with faux fur trim (well, I was twelve, and it was 1972), she shook her head, closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

“I just hope you don’t both regret it”, she said, which rather took the pleasure out of it for both of us.

And holy moly, here it (more or less) is. It’s now trendy. You just have to wait long enough.

Practically the same as my coat when I was 12 (From https://beffshuff.com/2022/03/03/penny-lane-cord-coat/)

Nan also worried about putting new shoes on the table (even still in a shopping bag, in their box), and bringing lilac into the house. Many plants are supposed to be unlucky if brought indoors ( I still need to do my list of ‘unlucky blooms’ that I promised a long time ago) but Nan was singularly unpleased with lilac. On one occasion some poor soul brought her a bunch of the stuff, and she grabbed it and threw it straight to the dustbin, while the visitor looked at her slack jawed.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she  asked brightly, as if nothing had happened.

There was a whole palaver about what to do if someone dropped a knife. The dropped knife should never be picked up by the person who dropped it, which meant that if you were on your own you had to skedaddle round the object until someone else came in, or you could risk your future and the future of all your loved ones and pick it up yourself. I was often not sure if Nan had the psychic equivalent of CCTV though, because she’d often fix me with her beady eye, Ancient Mariner-style, and ask if there had been any ‘accidents’.

And finally, the worse thing that could happen was for water to be spilled, because that meant as many tears as the volume of water that had been wasted. On one occasion the twin tub washing machine backed up, resulting in a flooded kitchen, and I remember my poor mother shedding plentiful tears in a kind of superstitious terror.

My Nan was a very persuasive woman and although this all sounds completely irrational now that I’m 63, I remember how strongly Nan believed in her superstitions. How anxious and fearful she was if someone did something that she believed would incur the wrath of those malicious factors that hovered around, waiting to pounce! And, to be frank, she had had a desperate life: her two little boys died at less than two years of age, one of scarlet fever and one of diptheria, she had had a late miscarriage, she had nearly died giving birth to my mother who was less than 3 lbs at birth, her husband had left her, her mother was in a wheelchair, her sister was learning disabled, and her other sister had gone mad. Superstition is a way of trying to negotiate with powers that are beyond our control, and I know that Nan was just trying to protect us from the terrible things that she knew happened in the world.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Nan was also thought of by the wider family as a bit of a white witch – she could charm warts, and she was said to have healing hands that could take away pain. She believed that she knew when storms were coming, and, when we finally got a telephone, she would often tell us who was about to ring before the first trill. We accepted all this, as we did all of the superstitious ‘rules’ that we were supposed to abide by, and even when, as a teenager, I started to get a lot more sceptical, I would still hesitate before I put my platform shoes on the table, and might reject a green teeshirt in favour of a blue one because who knows? Better not to tempt the devil, and definitely don’t upset Nan.

I have no idea where these superstitions came from, and I would love to know if you’ve come across them in your own families, or if you have any extra ones to add. Do you ever still falter in the face of a superstition, even though you know it’s ridiculous? If so, you’re not alone. My house is still elephant-less.

At The British Library – Animals: Art, Science and Sound

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Dear Readers, I have been trying to get to this exhibition for ages, but as it finished on Bank Holiday Monday (28th August) it felt as if I really needed to get a move on. So today I visited with my good friend A. We’d picked a day when it wasn’t too busy – British Library exhibitions tend to feature books (not surprisingly) and it can be a nightmare if too many people are huddled around a 15th Century manuscript or are shouldering one another out of the way of the drawings of dissected turtles.

The exhibition comes in four sections: Darkness, Water, Land and Air. As you’d expect, each section features items from the collection in each section. In the Darkness section there are illustrations of bats, including these Funereal Vampire Bats, illustrated by John Gould. They aren’t vampire bats at all but fruit bats. They were included in Gould’s ‘Mammals of Australia’, which was quite the undertaking.

From the British Library Collections.

The exhibition is, as you’ll have noticed from the title, about sound as well as image. In this section there were some interesting nocturnal noises, including the all-too-familiar yipping of a fox. Incidentally, my friend A and I have both noticed how few foxes there are around in North London at the moment – has anybody else noticed? Normally the cubs would be leaving their parents and  there would be all manner of fighting and general shenanigans. Let me know how your visitors are doing…

And here, just to get you in the mood, is a recording made by A.J Williams back in 1975. Seven minutes of red fox, traffic noise, planes going overhead! And a general reminder of how the fox brings a touch of wildness to the most domesticated of settings.

The Water section had some of the Blaschka’s glass sculptures, including an octopus and a squid.

A glass model of an octopus (Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka) (Photo Derbrauni, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

And it had this picture of a ‘monkfish’, from Pierre Belon’s De Aquatibilus (Of Aquatic Species) from 1553. This is what happens when you go by description, rather than actually observing something for yourself. Fake news!

This part of the exhibition also featured a tardigrade going about its business, and a recording of a walrus, which sounded rather like someone thrashing a tree with a cane.

Then onto the ‘Land section’. One of my favourite things was this picture of a tree with red squirrels in it, by Abu’l Hassan (1605-08). I adored this painting – the more you look at it, the more you see. There are birds everywhere, ibex in the field below, and plants painted with great exactitude. I love the squirrels looking quizzically at the man climbing the tree – there is no chance that he will catch them, and they know it. Interestingly, the squirrels are European red squirrels, not found in the wild in India (where the picture was painted), and the ‘hunter’ is wearing European clothes, so there is probably more going on here than meets the eye. With its gilded background and astonishing detail, there is a good chance that this painting was made for the Moghul emperor Jahangir, who had a very fine art collection.

Sadly, there was also this film of the last known thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. It’s been colourised and it shows the animal in a bare compound in Hobart Zoo, as recently as 1933. I find it almost unbearably sad.

Finally, we’re on to the Air section, with its birds of paradise. Again, it’s clear that when illustrations were based on reports or on dead specimens, the results weren’t always true to the original.

Bird of paradise illustration by Conrad Gessner (1551-58) from Historia Animalium

Mind you, when you watch this film of actual birds of paradise, it’s difficult to imagine how anyone who hadn’t seen them would have got it right.

And finally, there’s this recording of the O’o A’a bird of Hawaii, by John Sincock. This is what is thought to be the last male, who lost his mate in Hurricane Iwa in 1983. The species had been driven to extinction by habitat loss and the introduction of non-native animals such as the rat and the mosquito. The sound of him calling out, with no one to hear him, moves me greatly.

O’o A’a bird (Moho braccatus), now extinct

This was a very interesting and varied exhibition, enhanced by the short films that you have the opportunity to watch at the end – one on hedgehog conservation, one on the crustacean collection at the Natural History Museum (with some more of those extraordinary Blaschka glass creations), and one on a piece of music made from the sound recordings at the British Library. Well worth watching if you have time, and very pleasing to see women scientists and museums, and London’s diverse range of people, celebrated.

Finally, I’m not sure how long it’s been there but there is a very fine new restaurant and café, with outside space and lots and lots of seats, as opposed to the rather hugger-mugger space that was there before. And don’t forget that you can get a free readers pass if you want to research anything at this extraordinary institution – I’m planning on renewing my readers pass asap, for when I retire. Did I mention that I was retiring :-)?

You can book tickets for Animals: Art, Science and Sound here, but hurry, it finishes on 28th August.