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Geneva’s Botanic Garden-and Plant Theft

Any flower garden is a pleasure to behold, but a thoughtfully curated, beautifully laid-out, well-maintained botanic garden is truly magical. It is a living museum based on sustainability and conservation where knowledge and art come together to educate visitors and expose them to collections they might not otherwise see. The Geneva Botanic Garden — with its outdoor rock gardens, streams, and ponds; its conservatories; and its arboretum — is such a place.

I visited it twice and saw hundreds of gorgeous plants, including the ethereal, ballerina-like Pulsatilla serotina Magnier:

Gunnera tinctoria (Giant Rhubarb) and Orontium aquaticum (Golden Club), at water’s edge:

… Paeonia tenuifolia (Fern Leaf Peony) and Euphorbia rigida (Gopher Spurge):

Because botanic gardens are such peaceful places, it is hard to imagine any nefarious activity occurring in them. But botanic gardens contain items of great beauty and of great worth, and just as there have been art heists, there have also been famous plant heists: from the almost-daily theft of tulips in Carolus Clusius‘ botanic garden at Leiden University in the late 1500s (precursor to the really nasty Tulip Mania that would follow) to the 2014 theft of a water lily brought back from the brink of extinction at London’s Kew Gardens–a crime Scotland Yard was called in to investigate.

The result is that at many botanic and private gardens, and in other unexpected places, increased security is now par for the course. Pun intended–a lone, wild lady slipper orchid found on a golf course in England in 1930 (the only one if its kind–the plant had been declared extinct) is said to have more police protection than the Queen.

I was reminded of this dark side of the botanic world twice in recent weeks: first, by a sign in an empty spot at the Geneva Botanic Garden: “Here a plant was STOLEN by someone without scruples and without respect for our collections.” It was a sobering sight.

And second, on a private garden tour on the outskirts of Rome, where a well-dressed elderly lady surreptitiously took clippings of numerous plants and hid them in her handbag. Luckily, the owner of the garden is usually quite gracious about clippings, when asked. But what is it that compels people to possess something beautiful, rather than simply admire it?

The Independent said it well in an article about the obsession with orchids: “It is a curious and dispiriting aspect of human behaviour that some of the most beautiful features of the Earth can be destroyed by people’s love for them.”

Tags: botanic garden, Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques de La Ville de Genève, England, Geneva, Kew Gardens, plant theft, police, rare, stolen plants, Switzerland, water lily

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Categories Gardens

Discovering Dartmoor, UK

21 Jan

During our recent trip to the UK, we were eager to see the English moors, the setting of many a fine novel, including Wuthering Heights and The Secret Garden in the Yorkshire moors, Lorna Doone in Exmoor, Jamaica Inn in Bodmin Moor, and The Hound of the Baskervilles in Dartmoor. On our way south to Cornwall, we drove through Bodmin Moor at night and passed by Jamaica Inn, which actually exists. But there wasn’t much to see in the thick, dark, fog. Not much to see, but a lot to think about–namely, that the moors are not a place one wants to be wandering about in at night (driving through them in the dark being only marginally better). Had Daphne du Maurier’s heroine Mary Yellan been real, I would have shuddered in empathy as we passed the Inn.

On our way north from Cornwall a few days later, we drove through Dartmoor National Park–during the day. Dartmoor rose up before us, a vast, damp, hilly area of spongy, sodden ground, complete with bogs, streams, rocks, holes, exposed granite hilltops (crossword puzzle lovers will know these craggy formations as tors), and the shaggy but ever-persevering Dartmoor ponies. We stopped here and there to soak in the atmosphere (soak being a good adjective in this particular case, as a light rain was falling, gently lashing us in the face).

It was other worldly: overcast grey skies against a striking green, reddish-brown, rocky landscape–and total solitude and total silence, except for the sound of the rain and of the water in the streams gurgling its way downward. It was also breathtakingly beautiful.

Tags: bogs, damp, Dartmoor, Dartmoor National Park, Devon, England, hills, peat, ponies, rain, streams, tors, UK, wet

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Categories Travel

Eden Project, Cornwall, UK

16 Jan

For a gardener, England is a magical place, full of lovingly designed and tended gardens–from the formal and majestic to the whimsical and intimate. Alas, December isn’t the best time to visit gardens in England, but for hardier aficionados, there are many things to see even in winter. And then, for the rest of us, there are indoor gems like the Eden Project in Cornwall, which features huge covered biomes built on the site of an old china clay pit:

It was my one request on our recent trip to the British Isles: a few days in Cornwall to see the Eden Project and explore some of the natural beauty of the area. I was tempted to stop in at the Lost Gardens of Heligan (having read Tim Smit’s fascinating book on the restoration of the famous gardens there), but wanted to save that experience for a future summer, should I ever have the opportunity.

The Eden Project was a novelty, mostly because it is such an unusual space. Taking advantage of a fine morning, we walked through the outdoor gardens first, then made our way inside –to the Rainforest and Mediterranean biomes.

Here are just a few of the sights that were a pleasure to behold in December: Golden Chalice Vine, Parakeet Heliconia, a striking plant with red stems and lobed green fruits that I have not been able to identify (so if anyone happens to know what it is, enlightenment would be much appreciated!*), the unfurling leaf of a banana tree (I never quite thought about how that happened before–it was a revelation), and finally, a lizard that almost completely blended into the background until one of our sharp-eyed friends spotted it.

*Update Feb 2014: I now know what the previously unidentified plant is — it is a Glory Bower (Clerodendrum speciosissimum); the third photo below shows the fruits of the plant.

Tags: Banana leaf, biomes, Cornwall, Eden Project, England, Golden Chalice vine, green fruits, Heliconia psittacorum, lizard, Lost Gardens of Heligan, Musa acuminata, Parakeet Heliconia, red stems, Solandra maxima, UK, United Kingdom

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Categories Travel

Meditation on a Fine Cup of Tea

13 Jan

During the holidays, we hurtled around parts of England, Wales, and Ireland. December in the British Isles is just a wee bit grey, windy, and wet. But it was a lovely trip–not the least because at every turn, there was a cup of tea: early morning, mid morning, afternoon, and evening. The perfect antidote to a wintery climate, the perfect reward for a long day out and about, and the perfect way to transition from activity to rest. In my admittedly biased view, nothing beats the rich, deep, reddish brown of a fine cup of black tea (“black” tea being a slight misnomer). And there is no better way to have a strong cup of tea than milky and sweet.

Ok, there is a better way– having it milky and sweet, and accompanied by scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam. The ecstasies engendered among our family members at the sight of a proper cream tea cannot be adequately described. Suffice to say, we partook, and then partook some more (and then a bit more).