Dr Phil and Jim asked us to have a go at raising some rare and endangered species of seeds from the Melborne Botanic Garden seed bank. I agreed and said I would have a go. The seeds actually arrived by special courrier and as a result of a lot of paperwork from Australia. I had to sign a declaration that I would not sell the resultant plants commercially.
We took great care to sow the seeds according to the instructions the botanic garden sent with them, some needed soaking in boiling water and some needed a smoke treatment to mimc the bush fires.
There were 10 packets in all. 9 of the 10 I had never heard of before so it was all very exciting!

Even more exciting was the day the first seeds started to germinate. After about 2 months we had 6 pots with 6 different species in them . Eucalyptus perinniana. rhadogia parrabolica, Swainsonia greyana, Aacia caerulescens, and Zygophyllum apiculataum and Leptorynchus squamjtus ssp squamtus. The rest did not ever germinate – at all.
We lloked after these precious seedlings carefully and daily we opened the propagator lid for ventilation. They were in our kitchen which was a warm room and near the Aga. Eventually we left the lid off alogether so the seedlings would have more light.
A few days later, we came home for lunch, went into the kitchen and found our tabby cat called Smellycat (because as a kitten he made bad smells in his poo-box!) munching away in the propagator. Horror struck we rushed over and pulled him off. He ran off with seedlings like cress hanging out of his mouth. 3 pots had just stumpy little stalks left in them, the Acacia caulescens and the Zygophyllum and the Leptorynchus.  Fortunately the others were ok.
So the cat was banned from the kitchen, and I had to sheepishly report back to Jim and Dr Phil that the huge amount of effort in getting the seeds to the UK and germinated had culminated in a cat-snack.

Fortunatley they took it very well and have even sent over more seed of different species that we now have growing on the windowsill…the cat is still banned!

Dave

Jim Fogerty, who is designing the Melbourne Botanical’s Garden at Chelsea, sent me through the 3D axiometric image of the garden. The great thing about these imags is that they give you a really good feel for how the garden will look. I will post the other 3d images over the next week or so.

If you want to learn more about the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, click here

http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/

The last few weeks have been really difficult for Australian plants in Somerset. No sooner had we commissioned our newlyinstalled heating system, then the weather turned cold. Out initial intentions of maintaining 5 degrees in the growing area, quickly became impossbibly difficult and expensive to do, and so we are just keeping the 1000m2 tunnel at 1 degree to just keep the frost out. A circulating fan keeps the air moving because our biggest emeny will be Botrytis. Most of the plants are also covered in fleece, for added protection.
Some of the taller plants like the Banksia integrifolia are laid down. The heaviest plant is a 200 year old Macrozamia communis. This immense plant was supposed to have stayed in the warmth of the sicilian nursery where it was sourced, but turned up in a lorry by accident. It is too heavy and too tall to fit into the tunnel so it is sitting in our potting shed, the trunk wrapped in loft insulation. It should be hardy to -10. We live in hope!

These last few weeks have been immensely worrying, but will be a really good test of the future suitability of many of these native australian plants for cultivation in english gardens

Dave Root