Autumn/Winter 2011/12 - Harcourt Arboretum - University of Oxford

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4 Botanic Garden News | No. 79 Invaluable volunteers by Alison Foster, Mary Isaac and Tom Price “It was an enjoyable and relaxing experience, nice people to chat to and share garden stories with. Now I’m doing more volunteering. It’s not like weeding at home, the surroundings make it worthwhile!” Isabelle Kandler, weeder Victorious over the Nothoscordum: volunteers (l-r) Rose Holman, Ruth Sutherland, Sally Strang and Isabelle Kandler For several years the clamor from the Friends to get their hands dirty and volunteer in the Garden and Arboretum has been steadily growing. With the arrival of the new Senior Curator Alison Foster and Arboretum Curator Ben Jones in spring 2011, we started thinking about ways the Garden and Arboretum could welcome more volunteers. 2011 is designated the International Year of Volunteers, building on the success of the first IYV held in 2001, and in July PlantNetwork, the national network of botanic gardens, arboreta and other documented plant collections, organised a conference on Volunteers in Botanic Gardens and Arboreta. The timing was perfect as we at the Garden and Arboretum were keen to learn from others who had experience of the benefits and challenges of using volunteers. Alison, Ben and Mary Isaac, Friends’ volunteer co-ordinator, went to the conference, held at the University of Bath. We attended sessions on volunteer strategy and policy, employer-supported volunteering, volunteers and the law, and many other topics. We came away inspired and determined to make the most of the information we had gathered, and we are now starting to develop a long-awaited volunteer programme. Volunteer Keith Holmes planted hundreds of trees on Palmer’s Leys at the Arboretum Friends have been involved in volunteering since the beginning of the organisation twenty years ago and have helped in many ways: running the biennial plant sale, organising visits to gardens, doing administration and assisting at special events and at Friends’ coffee mornings. However, volunteer members of the Friends have, for many years, been requesting that they could be more ‘hands on’ at the Garden and Arboretum, and this year we have been given invaluable help by a series of keen volunteers from the Friends and elsewhere. Several projects have been on the go since spring 2011, all of which have proved to be a huge success, benefiting both the Garden and the Arboretum, and the individuals involved. The first group of volunteers responded to our cry for help in dealing with Nothoscordum x borbonicum, a bulbous plant native to South America and the Garden’s worst pernicious weed. For decades Garden staff have struggled to keep on top of this. Various methods of control have been employed, including treatment with glyphosate, soil removal and even high voltage electrocution! However, nothing seems as effective as hand weeding. The first team of volunteers arrived at the Garden on a beautiful sunny morning in April 2011. A meet and greet ensued, so that we each knew who was who, followed by an induction to explain the problem at hand and how we planned to manage it. We spent the morning weeding the offending plant out of the vegetable beds. The team were amazed at its tenacity: how could it produce so many bulbs, be so tiny and such shades of brown as to be camouflaged against the soil The work required hand weeding and sifting of the soil, slowly working through each bed. This may sound neither interesting nor glamorous, but the volunteers involved really enjoyed doing it. They loved working in a team, being in the peace of the Botanic Garden, in beautiful surroundings and also found the task very satisfying. The same team returned fortnightly for three months to weed two beds in the Monocot quarter, where Nothoscordum was particularly prevalent. The first team then passed the baton to a second team who completed their three-month stint at the end of September. The impact on the Nothoscordum population has been huge. The teams have managed to eradicate completely the large parent bulbs from the beds and have significantly reduced the number of smaller, daughter bulbs. This means that there will be fewer bulbs of flowering age next spring, so less dead heading required to avoid seeding. “As a way to support the Garden, I can’t recommend volunteering highly enough and hope our experience will encourage other Friends to become involved in a hands-on way too.” Ruth Sutherland, weeder
Botanic Garden News | No. 79 5 Nothoscordum bulbs If this project continues, we’re confident that we can bring the Nothoscordum population down to a manageable level and, hopefully, eradicate this menace completely in the longer term! Meanwhile, other volunteer projects at the Garden and the Arboretum have included weekly watering of newly planted material during the very dry spring; dead heading; dividing and potting up plants from the Herbaceous and Autumn Borders ready for the Friends’ plant sale next summer; planting bulbs; a volunteer gardener for the vegetable beds; volunteer involvement in clearing Rhododendron ponticum at the Arboretum; and data entry on our new plant records database. The Friends’ Administrator also has regular and invaluable administrative help from a volunteer member of the Friends. Without the help of these individuals we could not have maintained the collections to the level achieved this year, nor continued developing the Garden and Arboretum for the years ahead. It has been an absolute “Volunteering at the Botanic Garden is not only fun and rewarding but it gives me the opportunity to feel part of the team and to learn from the experts. It’s also great knowing you’re doing something to help and that all the vegetables that we’ve so lovingly grown go to people who really appreciate them.” Ness Newman, who has been volunteering half a day a week since July. She works on the vegetable beds with Jim Penny of the Hardy Team. pleasure to have enthusiastic and committed volunteers working with us and we would like to say a very big thank you to all our volunteers, past and present, for their hard work and positive influence on the Garden and Arboretum. We are now developing a bigger programme for volunteers at both the Garden and the Arboretum. There will be roles in maintenance of all sorts, both regular activities and one-off projects: planting, dividing, weeding, dead heading, potting, grass edging, leaf picking, watering, clearance work, plus data entry and library administration. And we still have lots of the ‘usual’ activities for Friends to help with – the Friends’ plant sale, special events, coffee mornings, garden visits, festivals and picnic days. If you or anyone you know would be interested in joining the volunteers, please contact us at: volunteers@obg.ox.ac.uk or by post to: Volunteers, Oxford Botanic Garden, Rose Lane OX1 4AZ. Thank you. A volunteer’s experience by Sally Strang When I replied to a request for weeders at the Botanic Garden I did wonder whether this was a rather rash decision. Did I really want to weed another patch when there was plenty to do in my own garden Three months seemed a long time to commit to, albeit for only a couple of hours every two weeks, and it wouldn’t be much fun if the weather was cold and wet. As it happened it was a magical spring - warm, sunny and dry. On our first morning our small group of volunteers was greeted warmly by Mary Isaac and Tom Price and after a short health and safety session we were introduced to the noxious weed whose rampage through the Garden was the reason for our recruitment. Nothoscordum had defied all attempts at eradication and it had been decided that, perhaps as a last resort, teams of weeders working methodically through the beds might slow down its progress. Tom explained carefully what was expected of us; he and his staff were always welcoming and were there to answer our questions, though at no time did we feel that someone was hovering over us. Each week we were shown where to weed and set to work at our own pace, chatting or comparing the size of a particularly fecund specimen or just taking in the tranquility of our surroundings. It was a pleasure watching the changes in the Garden through the spring. The birds sang, the bells in Magdalen Tower reminded us it was coffee time, inquisitive ducks investigated and groups of school children chattered past clutching their finds. We marveled at the blue of the irises and the smell of spring enveloped us. On each return visit we would eagerly scan the six foot’s worth of bed which we had weeded last time to see if any Nothoscordum had dared to reappear. On the whole the beds seemed reasonably clear and it will be interesting to see what happens next year. We all felt quite sad at the end of our term but enjoyed a picnic lunch with the garden staff and the lovely scones and jam which they produced for us. Everyone seemed to think that we had made a difference and were really grateful and on our part we felt that it had been a privilege to work in the Garden. I’m not sure what my motivations were but it was lovely to be more involved and to learn in the process. I would highly recommend it!
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Autumn/Winter 2011/12 - Harcourt Arboretum - University of Oxford

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