Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh

The Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh was actually the first Botanic Garden we visited.  At the end of our first trip to England, we drove north and flew home from Scotland.  We visited again in 2010.  This garden has given us some key ideas that we've used in our own garden here at home.

The Botanic Garden in Edinburgh is older than Kew, established here in 1670.  It has a reputation for the research on conservation of biodiversity carried out here.  This is the big Palm House, home for tropical plants.

But it was out in the grounds that we really came to see.  The collection of big old trees is impressive, as it is at many older large gardens.  This is the flower of a Tulip Tree, introduced as an 'exotic tree' from North America in the 1600's!

And this is another exotic tree, the Monkey Puzzle Tree from South America.  It really does look exotic!

My favourite part was the Alpine Garden, a collection this botanic garden is noted for.  They can all stand the cold, collected from alpine habitats in mountains around the world, but they don't all like the rain.  The ones that would usually be protected by a blanket of snow in the winter are kept in the greenhouse here.

The alpine plants are also grown in troughs sitting around on this patio, a way of mimicking the soil conditions they usually grow in.

There's much more to Edinburgh's Botanic Garden than this though, and one of the other best features is the spectacular Rock Garden, built over hummocks and hollows, with numerous varieties of sprawling shrubs. Of course the day we were there it was raining ....

Modern day hunting for plants and garden ideas is epitomized in England by the Flower Shows, so I thought I'd add a few shots of these.  This is the Chelsea Flower Show, right in London, the largest and most prestigious.  As you can see, don't go if you're claustrophobic in crowds!

Half of the show is about new flower varieties.  This is the 'Black' Petunia that was all the rage when we were there in 2010, along with thousands of other flowers!

The other highlight consists of about a dozen invited garden designs, all required to have some sort of shelter with a place to eat lunch, for out in your backyard.  This was the most absurd of these that year, dependent on a huge crane sitting off to one side, to lift your 'lunch shelter' up in the sky.  It's all about publicity for the garden designers!

And it's increasingly commercial.  You could spend thousands of pounds on sculptures for your garden, just at one of the many vendors.  There are lots of ways to make your garden special by spending more money!

We also went to the Hampton Court Garden Show, in 2014.  It tends to have more avant garde garden designs, but don't ask me what the message of this collection of garden shovels and forks is!

On the other hand I thought this garden was well done and quite educational in comparison.  That year was the 100th Anniversary of WWI starting, and this garden illustrated the veggies soldiers would try to grow in the trenches, complete with a soldier to answer your questions.

There's an enormous amount more to English Flower Shows.  It's just such a unique experience to visit one if you're interested in gardening.  This new variety shown at Hampton Court is a type of Helenium, one of my favourite flowers here in our own garden.

Next weekend, more English Gardens.  And in the meantime, here in southern Ontario, we're supposed to get snow which will take us back into winter over the next few days.  Yeah!

Botanical Gardens

This weekend we're going to visit a couple of botanic gardens in England and Scotland, and perhaps go to a Flower Show.  I'll get back to Kimberley Forest after the weekend.  Botanic gardens grew out of early collecting of medicinal plants, in what were called 'Physic' gardens (for healing).  Later, with plant hunters scouring the world, all sorts of exotic plants found their way back to the big botanic gardens.

This first shot is a single picture of Chelsea Physic Gardens, located in Chelsea, right in downtown London beside the Thames.  Established in 1673, it's a carefully grouped and labelled collection of medicinal plants - grouped here not by plant groups, but by the diseases they were used to treat.  Many botanic gardens started like this, but expanded greatly later on; this one has stayed focussed on its original purpose.

The rest of these photos are from Kew Gardens, the largest botanic garden in England, located in the west end of London.  This is the Palm House, built in the 1840's.  The changing technology that enabled wrought iron frames and all the glass to build greenhouses in the 19th century was critical to enable the collection of exotic plants.

And inside one of Kew's greenhouses, one of the most exotic plants found in the Victorian era, the giant water lilies of the Amazon, named after Queen Victoria, the Victoria amazonica.  Supposedly a child can stand on one of these without sinking!

Another important part of Kew are these 'systematic' beds of plants.  Plant hunters sent out around the world found all sorts of new and unusual plants, but that brought with it a need to classify and name these plants systematically.  These beds reflect plants of the same familes, and are a teaching tool for the horticultural school there.

The most interesting greenhouse at Kew to my mind is the Alpine House, a very modern greenhouse designed not to keep plants warm, but to keep them cool.

Filled with plants collected at high elevations in alpine habitats, it is cooled by these vents, bringing air from tubes sunk in the earth below the greenhouse.  They aim never to let the temperature go above 68°F.

And this is the Princess of Wales greenhouse, but I bet you can't guess which Princess of Wales.  It honours Princess Augusta, who established Kew Gardens in the mid-1700's.  She was the wife of Frederick, the son of George II, but unfortunately he died before his father, so you've never heard of King Fred!  But Frederick and Augusta's own son, another George, ruled as George III.  (I do enjoy history!)

At any rate, inside this greenhouse are some fascinating plants, representing different habitats around the world.  This Linear-leaved Sundew is part of a collection of carnivorous plants.  It collects tiny bugs and eats them!  Though it's rare, you can find this in southern Ontario in the right habitat.

There are other buildings at Kew beside the greenhouses.  This is the Chinese Pagoda, built in 1767, one of several interesting ornamental buildings in the gardens, along with a new tree-top walk and other features to attract visiting families.  Notice the plane overhead, on approach to Heathrow.

And these tiny plants that just look like rocks are just that, Lithops, or Living Stones, native to South Africa.  Perhaps the most unusual plant we saw at Kew.

And I'll end with a favourite, a big tree, this one a Sycamore.  There are lots of big trees in botanic gardens, as tree seeds transport quite readily, and they were one of the early targets of plant hunters.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour of Kew; tomorrow we'll go to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh.
Today my computer chose to get tired and wouldn't connect in mid-afternoon for 3 hours, but tonight it's ok.  Who knows!

Old Farms

One of the interesting features of Kimberley Forest is the evidence you come across that this land was once partly farmed.  Though the steep forested slope in the middle was never cleared, both above and below this were several farms, or at least farm fields.

The most common evidence are short straight rows of large old Sugar Maple trees. 

These trees, in at least 3 different spots I've seen, are in such straight lines that they either came up in fencerows, or were planted.

If I were hunting for old homesteads, near these lines of big old trees is where I'd look first.

There's one old set of farm buildings left, though they were sold off as a private residence.  There's the old ruined barn foundation, a jumble of barn boards, and the old silo.  The intact barn behind it is across the road.  The house is just out of sight on the right.

More common are old bits of cedar rail fencing, some in quite good shape, and some fallen down.

It's certainly been a very long time since any cattle grazed in here!  That's Wodehouse Creek running through the upper part of the property.

This fence, in a completely forested area, looks even older to me.  It's a genuine old 'snake' rail fence, built without fence posts.

And there's one old farm lane bounded by lines of trees, though it runs down to a farmhouse that is off the property.

There's also an unused sideroad, though it's one place ATVs access the property.

The fact that this property was expropriated 4-5 decades ago for a public use, and has never been put to that use, does leave some understandable resentment in the local community.  As we try to improve the management and care of this public land, we hope to also honour the memory of the original families who farmed here.

Again tonight my computer worked fine all  day, but got tired by evening, and decided it could not connect to the internet.  Thank goodness for my laptop!  Our unreasonably mild temperatures have gone below freezing again, which is a big improvement, but there's very little snow in the forecast, which means no skiing or snowshoeing for now.  Not a very nice winter at all!

Since it's Thursday, and I have several appropriate pictures, I guess I'll link to

Good  Fences.

If you're just joining us, this series on Kimberley Forest started two days ago.

Kimberley Forest Trails

As I mentioned yesterday, Kimberley Forest is riddled with trails.  On a map they are so complex that you can't follow them.  And one of the main management issues is dealing with the use of these trails particularly on these environmentally sensitive slopes

Perhaps the oldest trail is the Bruce Trail, a hiking trail that's been here 50 years.   This section often gets used for snowshoeing.  Generally, it doesn't conflict with any other trails.

And the newest trails are the Nordic ski trails, entirely up on the relatively flatter land on top of the slopes.  They certainly don't look like this right now though!

The other old trails are the actual road allowance that bends through the area, and a set of cross-country trails that were cut through the forest in the 1970's.  The main snowmobile trail has also been here a long time, but snowmobilers around here are a responsible group, and they don't conflict with other trails either.

Parts of the old ski trails are still used, though not for cross-country skiing. But other sections, including several bridges over little creeks, have been abandoned and are now growing in with young trees.  None of those bridges like this one are safe anymore.

There are two big management challenges.  One is the many springs, like this one, and the other is the steep slopes. The springs reflect the underlying geology, because there is a layer in the slope that groundwater cannot percolate through.  The result is that dozens of springs emerge on the slopes like this and trickle down the slope - all year long except in very dry periods.

When the water trickling downhill meets a trail across the slope used by ATV's, this is what happens.  Not all trails are like this, but a disturbing number are.  And of course that spoils the trails for other users.

A slightly different problem happens on the steeper slopes.  There water trickling downhill tends to follow the trails themselves, and quickly forms a tiny ditch running down the trail. 

Unfortunately, on these step slopes, that ditch gets deeper very quickly, making the trail unsafe for other users, like mountain bikers or horseback riders.  In some places it's no longer even safe for ATV's, and certainly not for snowmobiles.

If this were on gravel soil, the result would be very different, but on these clay soils, on the steep slopes, it doesn't take much of a track for the water to start flowing down it.  This track has only been heavily used like this for the past 2 or 3 years.

Even on the flat river floodplain at the bottom of the slopes, the water pools on top of the clay soil, even though the tracks here are very shallow.  It's going to be a major challenge to bring all these trails back into usable condition!

I should say that ALL user groups using these trails including the local ATV and the local snowmobile clubs, have been members of the small community group working to improve the management of this property.  The organized ATV Club has agreed that these trails are in large part unsuitable for ATV's.  We'll see how well we can manage the situation and keep all the groups happy!

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A dismal few days here, with temperatures up well above freezing, the snow melting fast, and heavy rain coming and going.  Nearly 10 Celsius here today - unheard of!  It's supposed to be colder tomorrow, but it will take a lot of new snow to make any trails around here skiable again this year!

Again my computer wouldn't connect this evening.  It's as if it gets tired by the end of the day!  Morning seems fine!  This time I transferred pictures, and typed it on my laptop, which has much finer print.  So I think it worked, but I'm still frustrated!

Kimberley Forest

I'm going to devote the next week or two to posts describing Kimberley Forest and Wodehouse Creek.  This area is just a mile or two away from our home, and I've been intending to write an article on it for a long time.  Describing it here will force me to get my act together, find all the photos I have, and do at least a little writing!

Kimberley Forest is that stretch of the Beaver Valley that occupies the west slope, running from the Beaver Valley Ski Club (visible as a band of green down the hill on the far left), to the village of Kimberley, in the lower right.  This great view is taken from the top of the Old Baldy cliffs on the other side of the valley.

The entire west slope, as well as the flat land at the bottom on the far side of the river, and the flat land above the slope, is public land.  It was acquired in the mid-1960's as a potential downhill ski slope, but has never been developed, or for that matter, actively managed, in the years since.

The lower part of the property by the river is flat flood plain, here marked by Marsh Marigolds in late May.  Altogether, it's nearly 900 acres, and in addition, there is a 50 acre parcel where the Wodehouse Karst sinkholes are located, and a further 50 acres or so owned by the Bruce Trail, where the main Karst springs emerge.

The forest on the slope is quite beautiful, mainly a hardwood Sugar Maple forest, and fairly mature.  In gathering these photos, the first thing I've realized is that I can't find any pictures of the forest in summer!  This was in early January a few weeks ago.

And this was in early spring.   This forest is riddled with trails for various uses.  The Bruce Trail runs through here, and there are cross-country ski trails on top of the slope.  There is a well-used snowshoe trail, and you find ATVs, horse-back riders, and mountain bikers using the trails.

This is the main snowmobile trail which passes through the property, an old tractor trail from the time when the land consisted of several farms.  As you can imagine, there are potential conflicts among some of the trail users; more about that tomorrow.

A number of these trails started in the 1970's as cross-country ski trails through the forest.  Some have become heavily used since, but some have nearly disappeared.  Here the dark tree trunks give away the fact that we're in a pine plantation.

The land on top of the slope extends out to the next road, the 7th Line, in the distance on this photo.  Previously this land was farmed, and you may be able to pick out an old silo close to the left hand side of this photo.  The barn has long since fallen down, and as you can see, substantial areas were reforested, though the trees are still fairly young.

And through the middle of that part of the property drains Wodehouse Creek, forming some of the most interesting karst features in Canada.  That part of the story is going to be the most interesting.  Because a new trail in to see the karst is being developed this summer, I want to have all the information ready, and eventually I might even like to write a short book.

This story is going to take a while to tell you, but that will have to do for an introduction.  I should tell you upfront that I'm the local Chairperson of a group called the Friends of Kimberley Forest, so I have a vested interest in people knowng about this property, and the information I prepare here will undoubtedly get used elsewhere.

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In trying to write these posts, the major challenge I face is trying to find the photos I want to use.  I have about 75,000 photos on my computer plus external hard drives, and it's taking me a long time to sort through, review them, and find the photos I want.  Luckily I'm not totally disorganized in the first place.  The other benefit to me will be that it will tell me what pictures I am missing, or what season I'm missing photos from, and I can plan some walks this summer to get specific pictures I want.  As I said above, I've already realized that I have very few summer pictures.  Hope you enjoy following along for the next week or two (with an interruption for more garden posts on the weekend).

Sauble Ski Trails

On Saturday three of us headed up to Sauble Beach, to the Sauble Cross Country Ski Club trails, which run through forested dunes behind the beach near Sauble Falls Provincial Park.  The conditions the day before were poor, after another warm day, but overnight the temperature had dropped and there had been a fresh 2" of snow - we lucked out!

This club even has a little warming hut where volunteers serve warm cider on weekends.  Quite the operation!  And it has excellent trail maps.

We pondered the trail map for some time before deciding what loop to try, and ended up on a longer loop in to the Rankin River.  The trail sort of bounces up and down over the old dunes all the way.

The forest here is mostly hardwoods overhead, but a lot of young Hemlock in the understory, which hold the fresh snow beautifully.  And for the first hour or so, the sun was shining most of the time.  Couldn't have been better!

My two ski buddies are both faster than me, and disappear around the bends in front of me fast, so I don't get many pictures of them, and if I do, it's usually their backs, disappearing down the trail.  But they're very good about waiting for me, so it works out fine.

It was simply a beautiful day for skiing.  You don't get many days like this in our winter, with the right temperature, the right snow conditions, plus sunshine, so you just gotta get out there when you get the chance.

Eventually we came out to the Rankin River, where we could look over the water and see some wonderful reflections.

And then the long trail back.  We skiid about 2 hours altogether, but because we took breaks, I was feeling fine by the end.

One nice thing is the separate snowshoe and ski trails, so snowshoeing is quite popular here too, but the two groups of trails don't interfere with each other.  They even have an outhouse!

Won't be many days like this, so we're very glad we went.  It warmed up the next day, and snow started to melt; yesterday it was well above freezing and raining.  All those beautiful xc ski conditions are gone until we have another good snowfall.

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Several people commented on the word 'concession' to describe a rural road in yesterday's post.   I guess I didn't realize it wasn't a widely used word.  Here, surveyors marked out roads in a fairly standard grid pattern after treaties had been negotiated, and southern Ontario was opened for white settlement.  Blocks of land bounded by roads usually had 10 or 12 hundred acre farm parcels within them.  These roads were usually numbered, so here the north/south roads are called 'Lines', as in 7th Line, 9th Line, and so on.  And the east/west roads are called Sideroads or Concessions, as in the 4th Concession, the 7th Concession, etc.  So it's just a word for a rural road, usually here it's a lesser used road that is still gravelled.  Over time the main roads end up  paved.

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