London highlights

Hey all--getting my first blog post up for the London trip. It's been super fun so far, I just wanted to put up pictures from things we've done the last few days and my thoughts on them.

This photo is from the garden at Brandlehow, the first school we visited on Monday. Among the many pictures I took there, I got one of this tree (growing apples or pears, I think) along the back wall. This was the first time I'd ever seen a tree being grown like this, but since Monday I've noticed them in almost every garden we've visited. I looked this up, and apparently trees grown with this technique are called espaliers. They are pruned and shaped, both for decorative purposes and for efficiency in bearing fruit.

Here's one photo from Kew Gardens later that day, it's the walkway near the student/intern plots. Besides the gardens being gorgeous, one think I noticed (that may be true elsewhere and I just haven't been paying attention) is how meticulously kept they are. I saw a guy going around the edges of the beds nearby with a hedge clippers; it got me to think about how much care and attention goes in to taking care of spaces like this.

I also thought there was some really interesting information from the tour we got. I wouldn't have known about all the research they do there otherwise. The forensics and genomics work in particular were very cool, and eye-opening as far as the range of horticulture-related jobs that exist.

Here's a shot of the beehives at Kew! I've seen hives at a few places here so far. This year I've learned a lot about the near-crisis situation that honey bee populations are in, at least in the US, with the amount of pests and insecticides threatening them, and the lack of good forage available. I'm not sure what the situation is like in the UK, but knowing that has made me more attuned to beekeeping in general, so I noticed these.

And here's a picture of that peacock everyone has been talking about:

Here is chicken at Hampton Hills! This school was great, the teaching was really fun that day--the kids were really engaged and it seemed like everyone had a great time. I was also really impressed with their restaurant. Overall, it seems like they are making really good use of their garden, and have found a lot of engaging, creative ways to incorporate it into teaching.

Last, this morning we went to Brockwell Community Gardens. I liked a lot of what they had going on there. The fact that England has volunteer gardens growing and donating food was very cool to me. I think we could use something like that in the US. Our food assistance and emergency food relief programs are often swamped with foods that are low in nutritional value, and getting more fresh fruits and vegetables to replace those is really important. A program like this could contribute to making that change.