Two Native Stars of the Winter Garden

Posted by Dr Trevor Dines

During the long, dark days of winter, we make many demands on our gardens, craving colour, form and texture. Two stalwarts that rise to the challenge admirably are box and dogwood, providing evergreen structure and coloured stems respectively. Yet both are also native to Britain, one being common, one rare.

The common one is dogwood Cornus sanguinea, a familiar plant along hedgerows and in woodland and scrub on lime-rich soils. It grows with such frequency that it’s often taken for granted, but take a second glance and you’ll see it’s a handsome shrub, with broad, deeply corrugated leaves and umbels of white flowers, followed in autumn by black berries.

These are all set off by its young shoots; lustrous, dark red stems that give the plant the scientific name, sanguinea, from the Latin meaning blood-red. As a final performance at the end of the autumn, the leaves turn fiery reds and butter yellows before falling, allowing the bare shoots to glow vibrantly in the winter sunshine.

Mature plants yield a dense, strong and flexible wood; this was once used to manufacture whippletrees (a cross-bar used to tether a horse to a cart or plough). This was another name for the plant. The wood was also used for making ‘dags’ (skewers and daggers) and called ‘dagwood’ as a result, which over time became dogwood, although other histories tell that the bark was used as a mange treatment for dogs, hence ‘dogwood’.

Box Buxus sempervirens needs little description – the familiar clipped, sculptured and topiaried evergreen so prominent in countless gardens. Given its popularity, it might come as a surprise that it’s one of our rarest native plants.

Although widely naturalised and planted in woodlands throughout England and Wales, it is believed to be truly native at just two chalk downland sites. Not surprisingly their names bear witness to the presence of the plant - Box Hill in Surrey and Boxley in Kent.

In the wild and unconstrained by man, box grows into luxuriant trees with wonderful twisted trunks and branches. Most plants grow in open woodland along with yew Taxus baccata and are home to the equally rare Box Hill bug. Like dogwood, box gives a very fine-grained, beautiful wood that is still in demand for making a variety of things from rolling pins to chess pieces and wind instruments.

The plants of Easter

Posted by  Dr Seona Anderson

Dressing down the Loch Shiel aspen.

Several of our native wild plants are associated with the Biblical traditions of Easter and Easter celebrations.

Ever since Christianity was adopted in the British Isles there has been the problem of finding substitutes for the palm leaves used to celebrate Palm Sunday or the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem. Willow branches are one of the more common substitutes but yew and juniper have been used also. Because of this the day has also been known as Yew or Branch Sunday.

There is a widespread tradition that aspen (Populus tremula) was the wood useFlora Celtica (Milliken & Bridgewater 2004) records an old traditon regarding a veteran aspen tree in a hidden glen between Shuna and Saint Finnan’s Isle on Loch Shiel. On Good Friday people gathered to give the tree a formal dressing down for its part in the crucifiction of Jesus.
d to make the cross on which Christ was crucified and that its leaves still tremble at this memory in shame.

The redshank (Persicaria maculosa) is called Lus chrann ceusaidh (herb of the tree of crucifiction) in Gaelic. This stems from the legend that it grew at the foot of the cross: when drops of blood fell upon its leaves they became spotted with red. There is also a medieval tradition that after betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot hung himself from an elder tree.

On a lighter note, the beautiful Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is named after the feast of Pasques/Pâques (French for Easter) because it flowers during this period. Alternatively it may be because its flowers were used to dye Easter eggs. The Pasqueflower is the county flower of Cambridge and Hertfordshire. You can find out what your county's is here.

Five invasive non-native aquatic plants banned from sale: our response.

Posted by Nicola Hutchinson, our Head of Conservation Programmes, England and Wales.

The problem of invasive non-native species (sometimes called alien species) is one of the best known environmental issues. Whether in towns or countryside many of us will have dealt with garden ponds or rivers choked with water weeds, watched Japanese knotweed grow and spread wherever it has taken root, and perhaps even admired the pink flowers of Himalayan balsam along a riverbank before thinking how much it has taken over.  Internationally, invasive species have long been recognised as one of the top threats to wildlife and the environment.  Ten years ago our own government set out a series of recommendations to deal with the problem and currently the European Union is considering a Directive as a way to better coordinate a response.  It's important stuff.

This is why it's great to hear the Government announce today that five of the most destructive invasive water plants will no longer be legally traded in England and Wales.  At last, some decisive and essential action.

Australian stonecrop, Crassula helmsii
one of the banned plants © GBNNSS

A range of specific measures are needed to really crack the problem,  with the most important of these being to curb the number of new incidences.  The primary mechanism for which is to simply ban the most troublesome from sale.  No matter how conscientious we as gardeners or landscapers may be, once invasive species are established in our gardens and parks they find their way over the fence into our streets and countryside.  Don't put them there in the first place and we've instantly removed a key pathway for invasion.

However, herein lies the twist with today's news.  The industry which trades in these problem species in England and Wales has been given a further 14 months to "adjust" to the new regulation.  This means that trading can continue until April 2014 - a move to allow existing stock and pre-orders of these invasive water weeds to be sold off.  Really, it beggars belief.  It's been agreed that these species are so damaging to our environment that it must become illegal for them to be sold, yet here we are inviting the biggest of all 'every last item must go' sale.  Are we really saying we want one last final push to get as many of these water weeds out of the shops and into the wild?

This sort of compromise agreement is one of the most frustrating aspects of environmental politics.  We are falling over evidence on the impacts of invasives; ten years ago the government recommended a ban on sale of the worst offenders, and 7 years ago the actual legislation was put in place to enable this to happen.  Yet, at the last minute, we've lost our nerve, ending up with a really smart move turning into a ridiculous one.

Government moved to halt the trade in ash trees, harbouring a non-native fungal invader, in response to the ash dieback crisis.  Questions were asked at the time whether this action was taken quick enough.  It seems we aren't learning our lessons well.

A sheep struggles through a channel choked with
Floating Pennywort © Trevor Renals

In these economic times, one appreciates the difficulties businesses may face when new regulations mean changes to the way they operate. However, in the case of invasive non-native plants, representatives of the horticultural and aquatic trades have been involved in discussions for well over a decade. Couple that with the legislation being put in place in 2006, the list of proposed species to ban consulted on in 2010, and this stacks up to ample time for traders and retailers to adjust already.  No-one in the industry can say they didn't know this was coming.


It makes me mad.  So I have to remind myself at these times that amidst the ditherings of others, here at Plantlife we've just been getting on with doing our best to implement solutions. Often that has meant direct action on the ground to clear established invaders from some of our most important places for wildflowers such as the Isle of Portland and the limestone cliffs of Torbay. And, with the principle of prevention being better than cure at the forefront of our efforts, we have researched which of the thousands of water and land plants available for sale pose the greatest threat to our native wildlife- this helps to hone our collective response, and gives the green light to the overwhelming majority of garden and pond plants available.   Indeed, to make it even easier for retailers and consumers we've worked with partners to publish reports and advice on which plants to choose as alternatives to those which cause problems (see our guides to landscaping and keeping ponds and aquaria without harmful invasive plants).

We've invested our time and resources into working out solutions to the invasive species problem because it really matters when it comes to conserving wild plants, incredible landscapes and other wildlife. Now we need everyone's help - do the right thing, it's easy, stop selling and stop buying these plants:

• New Zealand pigmyweed/Australian swamp-stonecrop Crassula helmsii
• Floating pennywort Hydrocotyle ranunculoides
• Parrot's-feather Myriophyllum aquaticum
• Water fern Azolla filiculoides
• Water primrose Ludwigia grandiflora, Ludwigia peploides, Ludwigia uruguayensis

And whilst you're at it, avoid these other ones too because they're equally as bad…

In the meantime, Plantlife applauds those retailers who've already made the shift to stop selling invasive plants, or who at least avoid the temptation to offer a 'buy one get one free' on curly waterweed!

For everything else you need to know about avoiding invasive plants and suggestions for fabulously non-invasive plants to grow have a look here.