{"id":653,"date":"2017-08-18T13:13:37","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T13:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/?p=653"},"modified":"2017-09-08T15:49:13","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T15:49:13","slug":"3-august-2017-plant-histories-andrew-sankey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/2017\/3-august-2017-plant-histories-andrew-sankey","title":{"rendered":"3 August\u00a0 2017 \u00a0– \u00a0Plant Histories \u00a0\u2013 \u00a0Andrew Sankey"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a talk!\u00a0 <\/span>We knew that our speaker would be good as he had visited us before but Andrew Sankey really surpassed himself this time! A talk on \u2018Plant Histories\u2019 was not at all inspiring but the title belied the content. We heard about the introduction to the UK of various plants over the centuries.\u00a0 <\/span>Facts, even dates, were delivered in an interesting and entertaining way.\u00a0 <\/span>We even enjoyed the gentle quiz designed to inform but still amuse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew reminded us that we don\u2019t know how lucky we are to live in this country.\u00a0 <\/span>Thanks to the Gulf Stream and our climate – warm and wet – we can grow plants from across the globe.\u00a0 <\/span>He cited as an example of a place NOT to live if you like gardening – Minnesota!\u00a0 <\/span>Here there are only a few months of gardening weather with ground frost 4 feet deep and snow up to 8 feet deep making October to April no-go months for gardening!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Back to the UK and Mediaeval times when the monks were the gardening experts, everything was called a herb and ideas were exchanged across the continent through Latin.\u00a0 <\/span>Not until the Tudors were gardens created – think of Elizabethan knot gardens \u2026\u2026\u2026 but the first ones were full of not herbs but vegetables and flowers – turnips, leeks, primroses,\u2026..<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>We were reminded that probably the first plant hunter, John Tradescant was associated with Hatfield House and was sent by Robert Cecil to find new plants in the Low Countries, Virginia and elsewhere.\u00a0 <\/span>(Read about him in Phillippa Gregory\u2019s novel \u2018Earthly Joys.\u2019) Over the years plant hunters introduced many new varieties – runner beans from South America, marigolds (tagetes) from Mexico, poppies from the Alps\u2026.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span>ndrew whizzed through the centuries describing the escapades of the plant hunters – too many to describe here but I can\u2019t resist telling you about Robert Fortune, employed by the (now) RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) to \u2018steal\u2019 tea plants from China.\u00a0 <\/span>Dressed as a mandarin with suitable hair pieces (!) he was successful!\u00a0 <\/span>The resulting seedlings made their way to Assam and then to Darjeeling!\u00a0 <\/span>Read Sarah Rose\u2019s book \u201cFor All The Tea In China\u201d which describes his James Bond-like mission.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew\u2019s talk was littered with snippets of information – for instance, did you know that the \u2018honesty\u2019 plant, \u2018lunaria’ was so named because of its moon shaped seeds which helped those with hints of madness – the \u2018lunatics\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the way – don\u2019t blame your neighbours for the ground elder which appears in your garden!\u00a0 <\/span>It is all the fault of the Romans who brought it to the UK to use as a delicious salad leaf. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mary Duff\u00a0 <\/span>(Chair Fowlmere & Thriplow Gardening Cl<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a talk!\u00a0 We knew that our speaker would be good as he had visited us before but Andrew Sankey really surpassed himself this time! A talk on \u2018Plant Histories\u2019 was not at all inspiring but the title belied the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}