But first….
A quick apology that this is largely a repost, even if it is timely as wildlife and plants start to wake up.
The original of this post had to be taken down for a while as it seemed to be attracting a lot of spam comments. I really have no need of… a luxury apartment in the Crimea / 3d printer / Captcha busting software and I can’t read Cryllic! Turned out it was more to do with the position of the post in the feed…and where they were coming from than this specific post. The website now has an updated Captcha. It will save me time & harassment but i’m afraid you’ll still have to identify the fire hydrant to comment. The original will soo be edited to save confusion, but left in place as a bot trap.
The website has had a few more updates …
This years events at Where to find us are up to date and there may be more to come.
Our Plants page has had a once over with… more pictures added to replace some of the place holders, additional or improoved pictures for some plants already with pictures, an up-to-date downloadable catalogue. Expected availabilties have been set so filters will reflect what we expect to have this season. If there is a particular plant you’d like us to bring to a particular place please let me know, it may not be taken if not in , or about to be in season. I fully expect to be able to add more plants and pictures as the season progresses.
Work on some new Resource pages about growing conditions is, thanks to storm Isha and a three week broadband outage, still ongoing. But will happen eventually, probably, later if the rain stops, sooner if it doesn’t!
But meanwhile where was i ……
In the beginning….
Some time back in the last century, possibly in the late 90’s I happened upon the science of Phenology. The term is recorded to have been first used in December 1849 at a public lecture by the Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Moren to describe “the specific science which has the goal to know the ‘’manifestation of life ruled by the time’’. The term is derived from Greek words meaning “to bring to light” and “to study”. Despite this particular recorded event it’s also known that some English naturalists had been recording seasonal events as early as 1768, that vine growers in Burgundy had been recording the harvest date of Pinot noir grapes since 1370, and in Japanese and China records of Cherry tree flowering associated with their spring Hanami festival go back to the 8th Century!
In more recent times The UK had a national phenological recording scheme run by the Royal Meteorological Society between 1891 and 1948. Analysis of that data showed that flowering dates of plants could be as much as 21 days early (summer flowering plants), or 34 days late (spring flowering plants) than the average. It also determined that the timings of phenological events are significantly related to temperature and that they have become earlier as our climate warms.
In Modern times…
After a gap of some 50 years national recording in the UK restarted in 1998 and since 2000 has been run as a citizen science project called ‘Natures Calendar’ by the Woodland Trust and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. This is right about when I came across it.
Natures Calendar uses a more modern description of phenology – the “study of seasonal changes in plants and animals from year to year”. Their latest research shows that many events, including spring Oak bud burst has advanced over 11 days since the beginning of the 19th century and that both resident and migrant birds are struggling to keep pace with this change.
The 2019 State of Nature report tells us how badly UK ecosystems have fared in the last 50 years. One of the reasons it has taken till so late in the day to highlight the pressing issues with our national ecosystems is the lack of data for even common species. As gardeners we are already observing and closely involved with annual cycles so why not make some wider use of what we see and help improve this situation.
My Own journey…
For me phenology was the gateway to many things including more detailed and specific forms of wildlife recording, my Genesis if you like, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in our natural world and its processes. It also brings the benefits of honing your levels of attention to the natural world and provides a springboard to improved wildlife identification skills. Its deceptively simple, print out the sheet, pin it next to your calendar or in the potting shed and start observing, submit your data twice a year in under an hour each time and become a citizen scientist. Citizen science has a proud history, in their day Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton were effectively citizen scientists. These days, of the biological recording data used by major studies and reports in the UK up to 75% can have been submitted by citizen scientists like me, perhaps like you?
Please use the links in the text to access further related reading and resources.
Happy phrenologising!
Ian
