Eden Magazine Issue 25 Spring 2015

Inside this issue...
Invisible You – The Human Microbiome
People, plants, planet and Pukka
The Eden Degree
Storytelling at Eden
Spring 2015 | Issue 25 | £3
Spring 2015 Issue 25
Front cover: Eden Eclipsed, Emily
Whitfield-Wicks.
Back cover: Rogan Brown's Cut Microbe from
the new Invisible You exhibit at Eden.
Eden Magazine is published by
EdenFriends
EdenProject,Bodelva,StAustell
CornwallPL242SGUK
All profits from this magazine go to the charitable
work of the Eden Trust.
TheEdenTrust,
registeredcharityNo.1093070.
Contact +44 (0)1726 811932
Editor
RobLowe
Assistant Editor
MikePetty
Design
TheEdenProjectDesignTeam
Design
JudyCaley
Printed locally by
Four Way Print Limited, Cornwall.
Spring is sprung – in Cornwall at
least. The primroses are providing
a welcome flash of colour in the
hedgerows and the daffodils are lolling
about enthusiastically in the sunshine
(and showers).
If that weren’t enough to inspire
you to get outside, then in this issue
you will find all sorts of excuses to –
our horticulture highlights section
has been revamped by Shirley Walker,
who guides you through what to see
and where to see it at Eden this spring,
and we take a look at the astonishing
range of places that communities have
turned into thriving gardens and
nature reserves. Our reviews section
is bursting with books to inspire you
to get outside and grow, visit gardens,
and generally make the most of the
great British landscape.
We also take a look at how Eden’s
work with communities is flourishing.
Pam Horton brings us up to date on
the Big Lottery-funded Big Lunch
Extras programme and Karen
Dawkins describes how Eden has
been helping Par Bay transform itself
through the Big Local.
If interiors are more your thing,
then Celine Holman’s fascinating
piece on the Human Microbiome
explores another kind of flora – gut
flora as she describes the process and
pieces grown, extracted and expelled
in the name of art for our forthcoming
Human Microbiome exhibition
supported by the Wellcome Trust.
On a similar theme, our partners
Pukka explain their ethos, how
modern diets have adversely affected
our health and how herbs can help
rebalance the equation.
We also find the point at which
the two cultures truly blur, with a
selection of images from the Wellcome
Image Awards which are on display
here at Eden – prepare to be amazed.
RobLowe
Editor
Pictured: Rogan Brown drafting the 'Cut Microbe'
Regulars
4
News
6
Horticulturalhighlights
27 TheEdenCrossword
28 Reviews
30 Diary
Features
8
I nvisibleYou–TheHuman
Microbiome
CélineHolman
12 S torytellingatEden
DianaMullis
14 P
eople,plants,planet
andPukka
NeilFox
16 T
heEdenDegree
CharlotteRussell
18 I nspiringpeople,
changingplaces
PamHorton
21 G
rowingplaces
RobLowe
24 C
apturingthebreathtaking
richesofscience
RobLowe
3
Energy Island
Cornwall is a windy southern peninsula with a backbone of
granite. It’s blessed with some of the best renewable energy
resources in the world. With solar, wind, biomass, marine
and geothermal combined, we should be able to generate
more than enough power for ourselves, and become a net
exporter. These riches give us choices: how do we balance
the interests of local and global investors, efficiency and
Eden Classic sportive
Hot on the heels of yet another successful Eden Marathon,
Sunday 10 May will see the first riders take part
in the Eden Classic sportive. Three different routes of 35
miles, 62 miles and 100 miles all give cyclists the chance
to pedal past our world-famous biomes before ascending
the steep hairpin bends of the Eden site. The longest route
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visual intrusion, and manage demand while keeping as
many of the benefits as possible in the county? Along
with our natural riches, Cornwall also has an enlightened
council and Local Enterprise Partnership, and some £1bn
to spend before 2020 on wealth creating projects and
infrastructure. If we can’t build an energy system fit for
purpose here, then we really are in trouble. In partnership
with BuroHappold , and sponsored by Solarcentury and
Rehau, 160 delegates explored these choices at a two-day
invitation-only conference at Eden on 16th and 17th March.
Using software especially built by BuroHappold for the
conference, delegates built energy scenarios for the county
that would keep the lights on, and then overnight analysis
was carried out to see how effective our choices were. After
drinks and a slap up dinner in the Rainforest Biome,
sponsored by Solarcentury, delegates returned in the
morning to bed their visions into reality, and to come up
with some possible projects. The overwhelming conclusion
of the conference was that we don’t need permission from
anyone to get one with this, just leadership from within the
county. Watch this space!
features over 2,433 metres of climbing and all routes will
include a stop at Heligan. Delivered in partnership with
Tempus Leisure, the sportive is set to become a fixture on
the cycling calendar.
www.edenproject.com/visit-us/whats-on/otheractivities/eden-classic-sportive-cycling-event
An Appetite for Change
Getting the year off to a promising start, Eden hosted
UnLtd’s Appetite for Change awards in January. Twentythree food related social enterprises based in the south
west came to pitch for funds from UnLtd to support their
projects. The award scheme offers three levels of funding
depending on how far along the project is. Try Its offer up
to £500 to test the viability of the idea; Do Its offer up to
£5000 to take it to the next level; while Build Its recognise
that many social entrepreneurs already have day jobs, by
helping to support them as their enterprise grows.
An incredible range of projects came to pitch – as Kate
Braithwaite, UnLtd’s Operations director said, UnLtd is
deliberately agnostic about the different models of social
enterprise. As a result, everything from co-operative box
schemes to micro-sized mushroom growers got the chance
to show what they could do. The Do It rounds were pitched
in the round, giving all the participants a chance to vote
(you could also vote for your own project) when the time
came. Inevitably there were losers as well as winners, but
proving that social enterprises embody different values,
when the fourteen Do Its winner were asked if they would
donate 10%of their award to support another Do It – several
did. The Build It round was held as a panel, and showed
just how versatile and inventive social enterprises can be.
Winners of the Build It round include Gro-Cycle, which
uses coffee grounds – a waste product as far as coffee shops
are concerned – to grow shitake mushrooms for local
restaurants. Their long-term plans include a new form of
social enterprise franchising and more immediately, an
e-learning programme to share their knowledge.
UnLtd www.unltd.org.uk
Eden Hotel
Plans have been submitted to Cornwall council for a midrange 115 bed hotel on the Eden Project site. The £6 million
building has been designed to blend into the surrounding
countryside and will feature high standards of accessibility,
energy-efficiency and sustainability. The hotel, which
would be funded by the private sector, is designed on simple
lines. The timber-clad structure would be similar in style to
Eden’s Foundation Building which sits outside of the main
ED
EN
PROJECT
visitor
area.
BODELVA CORNWALL PL24 2SG t. 01726 811 900
The hotel will help Eden to sustain its business yearround. As David Harland, Eden Executive Director
explained: ‘The proposed hotel is intended to support
Eden’s activities, its educational aspirations, its existing
and future conference events, weddings, and the annual
Eden Sessions series of concerts.’ The hotel will also
enable Eden’s on-site partners, the Building Research
Establishment’s National Solar Centre and Cornwall
Sustainable Building Trust’s Green Build Hub, to offer
PROPOSED ACCOMMODATION
residential training courses. EAST ELEVATION (CONTEXTUAL)
project
title
date
feb 2015
scale
1:200
dwg. no.
(@A1)
003 - P - 040
rev.
-
5
Horticultural
Highlights
Berberis darwinii
Spring 2015 (April, May, June)
Cornwall has an international reputation for the beauty
of its spring gardens, and Eden is no exception. Wander
through the outdoor gardens on a fresh spring day and
enjoy British wildflowers at their best in Wild Cornwall
and Myth and Folklore. Bluebells, primroses, violets
and campion, all vie for your attention, followed by
majestic foxgloves and other wildflowers from May
to June. Don’t miss the blossoming fruit trees and the
beautiful ornamentals in the Japanese Swale behind the
Core, and many other spring flowering shrubs across the
gardens. In June, the strange but beautiful dragon arum,
Dracunculus vulgaris, smells like rotting flesh, but you
Dracunculus vulgaris
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can’t help being stopped in your tracks by these unique
black and purple flowers.
Hot on the heels of our vibrant tulip display in
the Mediterranean Biome come the exotic Persian
buttercups, Ranunculus asiaticus – a stunning collection
of showy blooms in shades of deepest pink, purple, red,
yellow and orange, bred from wild forms found in the
eastern Mediterranean and parts of Asia, and used as
ornamentals and cut flowers. Our beautiful Madeira
cranesbill, Geranium maderense also begins flowering this
month, and if you have ever visited the Mediterranean
region at this time of year, you will recognize the
evocative scent of citrus blossom rising on the warm
air. May sees the return of the bird of paradise flowers,
Primroses
Woa
winii
Wild Banana
Strelitzia reginae – always a great favourite with our
visitors. The Romans are coming to the Mediterranean
Biome from May onwards - step back in time more than
2000 years and learn the secrets of a Roman vegetable
garden. You will find mixed, informal beds of plants used
for food, medicines, dyes, perfumes and for religious
shrines and ceremonies. Roman physician Diocorides,
and Roman writer Pliny, will tell you more!
Venture into the steamy jungles of the Rainforest
Biome in April and you will be well rewarded. Native
to the tropical forests of the Philippines, the stunning
jade vine, Strongylodon macrobotrys, is in bloom, with
its pendant trusses of turquoise, claw-shaped flowers
– a sight not to be missed! June is the month when the
Jade Vine
rainforest literally goes ‘bananas’, with many exciting
varieties coming into flower and fruit.
Finally, take a little time out this spring to explore
the many pleasures of the outer estate, where the heady
scents of blackthorn and hawthorn hang heavy in the air.
In Wild Chile, the Berberis darwinii is ‘on fire’
with orange blooms, and new life is bursting forth all
around you.
Shirley Walker
Woad
7
Invisible You
– The Human Microbiome
Céline Holman, Project Manager
The Eden Project has previously explored all kinds of
ecosystems, but until now one has been missing: the
invisible community of the body to keep us healthy –
whether it’s the bacteria in the gut helping to digest our
food or the microbes on our skin working to keep it soft.
The Human Microbiome is the
term used to describe the community
of microbes, comprising bacteria,
fungi and viruses that live on and
in every one of us. These trillions of
creatures outnumber our cells 10:1,
and in the main work together to keep
us healthy – whether it’s the bacteria
in the gut helping to digest our food or
the microbes on our skin working to
keep it soft.
The new permanent exhibition,
supported by the Wellcome Trust,
will form a comprehensive story of
your inner microbial community,
exploring what it is, what it does and
what this means to your health.
Eleven artists have been
commissioned to highlight the
compelling elements of this unfolding
story. A totally new subject matter
for Eden, this was an opportunity to
pursue new methods of engagement
whilst preserving Eden’s core values.
Eden has always used storytelling,
theatre and poetry to engage its
audience in sometimes complex
topics. On site this manifests itself as
interactive exhibits, witty signage and
playful automata. Using humour and
8
participation, Eden approaches people
with the familiar, making connections
through commonality. It seeks to
enthral all the senses, creating awe
and inspiration. It was essential the
commissioned artworks reflected this.
Rebecca D. Harris is an artist who
works predominantly with textiles,
exploring the body, in particular how
it is perceived medically and socially.
‘Symbiosis’ is a hand-embroidered
figure of a pregnant woman, where a
multitude of coloured French knots
depict the microbes that live on our
skin. It will highlight how inside
the womb the baby’s environment
is sterile. It’s an incredibly tactile
piece, demonstrating great craft
and skill. It’s ubiquitous, domestic
and approachable.
When you look at it closely, you
can see the hours of painstaking work
stitching thousands of individual
knots. This sense of human endeavour
is also present in Rogan Brown’s paper
sculpture ‘Cut Microbe’. Layer upon
layer of hand-cut paper forms an
intricate pattern to reveal the outlines
of an E-coli. Escheria coli are the most
studied single-celled bacteria. They
are neither good nor bad and are
present in the human gut. Rogan’s
work explores the repeated motifs
within organic forms whether large
or small; from the microscopic to the
macroscopic, his work seeks to reflect
the immense complexity and intricacy
of nature. Inspired by scientific
drawings and models, he blurs the
boundaries between observational
study and artistic interpretation.
The extraordinary nature of the
microbial world is sometimes hard to
visualise. It is an intangible, unseen
world where sometimes the truth
really is stranger than fiction. Aimee
Lax’s sculptures encapsulate this idea
of ‘other-worldliness’, that sometimes
reality is closer to science fiction!
For ‘Invisible You’ Aimee has created
close to a hundred handmade
porcelain bacteriophages, depicted
attacking an infectious cell made
of acrylic glass. Imperceptible to
the human eye, these tiny viruses
resemble a cross between a spacecraft
and an insect. Bacteriophages could,
‘The oblique nature of an artwork can sometimes
illuminate a deeply sensitive and difficult scientific topic.’
Lisa Jamieson, Head of Engaging Science at the Wellcome Trust
in the future, be engineered as an
alternative to antibiotics.
Owl’n’wolf’s animation
‘Bellyvision apparatus and the
like’ uses the visual language and
conventions of TV shows to explore
a selection of stories from across
our body’s microbial community.
It uses familiar narratives to convey
complex scientific notions. It depicts
the microbial world that exists in (and
on) our bodies as a microcosm of the
human world, comparing the complex
and diverse communities and systems
of our microbes, to our very own
society. It’s mischievous, funny
and sometimes irreverent.
Where Owl’n’wolf uses television
as a metaphor, Paul Spooner represents
the body as a complex machine. One
of Eden’s favourite local automata
artists, Paul Spooner has over the
years created, many of our best-known
exhibits. The ‘Plant Takeaway’ in the
visitor centre is one of Eden’s longeststanding exhibits and his beautifully
handcrafted wooden puppets in the
Core animate under bell jars. For
this exhibition he presents a new
interactive mechanical installation
that explores stories from inside
the mouth and the gut. It invites the
viewer to choose a journey through the
body, where teeth, stomach, guts and
sphincters move and jolt. Paul’s work is
theatrical, fusing storytelling, poetry,
engineering and craftsmanship.
Eden’s love of the performing arts
is also reflected in Bill Wroath’s ‘5e+16’.
In collaboration with choreographer
Jules Laville, he has created a mass
participation dance that explores how
bacteria move and communicate.
A large community dance project,
it involves up to 500 volunteers and
culminates in a one-day-event where
they all came together to dance and
be filmed. Extremely ambitious and
bold, it is a powerful piece, engaging
a huge number of people across the
local community. This participatory
aspect is invaluable, as it touched those
taking part on a personal level: they
are part of the artwork, their bodies
depicting their own internal, invisible
mechanisms.
Victoria Shennan’s commissioned
piece ‘Anthropocene’ is a sound
installation created in collaboration
with composer Jack Hurst and
researcher Dr Linda Long. They
have translated both our microbial
worlds and the vital enzymes and
proteins they produce into sound
compositions, mapping this invisible
world into an unseen symphony.
These musical compositions explore
the performances of the body and
processes of life at a micro scale,
illustrating the rhythms of nature
that underpin our existence.
A multi-sensory experience, this
9
piece seeks to engage audiences both
intellectually and emotionally, using
music and projection.
Appealing to more than one sense,
Anna Dumitriu and Alex May’s
digital installation ‘The Human
SuperOrganism’ invites viewers to
place their hands on a virtual petri
dish to reveal the microbes found
on the skin. This exhibit uses digital
technologies and human interaction
to reveal the invisible world that lives
on our bodies. Using high-definition
video footage, it doesn’t just illustrate
the microbial world, but actually
presents it to the visitors as seen under
the microscope.
There is a growing movement of
artists working with real bacteria.
They work on the fringes of art
and science, finding the crossovers
treatment of long-term infections
caused by the superbug Clostridium
difficile. An enigmatic piece, it uses
real bacteria trapped on to textiles,
fragments of calico embedded
in agar and inoculated with the
gut bacteria.
‘What fascinates me about
microbiology is that it’s this strange
‘They’re not blemishes on our skin, they’re actually
embellishments, they’re something beautiful and
they are something positive.’ Rebecca D. Harris, Artist
between both disciplines. For many
years, Anna Dumitriu has developed
techniques to work with bacteria.
Fascinated by microbes, she works in
the lab alongside scientists and her
pieces feature species such as MRSA
and tuberculosis. For this commission,
she has created a sculpture whilst in
residency with Healthcare Associated
Infection Research Group at the
University of Leeds. ‘Don’t try this
at home’ explores the complex topic
of faecal microbiota transplants, a
Left: Symbosis, Rebecca D. Harris.
Right: The Bellybutton Portraits,
César / Nuno, Joana Ricou
Previous page: Microbiological Portrait,
Mellissa Fisher
invisible world, it’s a sublime world.
I think it’s related to aesthetics and
to viscerally how we feel,’ says Anna.
It was essential for Eden to present
these microorganisms as real living
creatures. Mellissa Fisher’s sculptures
are made from casts of her own face.
The microbes of her skin, caught on
the agar, start growing, making the
invisible visible. A living sculpture,
it evolves over time, more and more
organisms growing, finally taking
over the sculpture completely. It not
only helps to visualise the unseen, but
also reflects upon the cycles of life.
Are we what we think we are?
What is our self? For her series
‘The Bellybutton Portraits’, Joana
Ricou has swabbed 12 individual
bellybuttons and grown their
samples on agar jelly in petri dishes.
The resulting photographs represent
each individual bellybutton
microbiome, each one unique.
It questions our notions of identity
and challenges our perceptions of
being singular and self-contained,
purely human.
It has been very exciting to
commission artists encompassing
such a broad range of media and to
explore the scientific content through
varying perspectives – personal,
aesthetic and conceptual. This
selection of ideas and approaches
reflects the diversity of Eden’s
audience and literally brings a
complex subject to life. As Lisa
Jamieson, Head of Engaging Science
at the Wellcome Trust explains:
‘The oblique nature of an artwork
can sometimes illuminate a deeply
sensitive and difficult scientific topic.’
Invisible You - the Human Microbiome will
be on show from 22 May, in the Core at the
Eden Project.
www.edenproject.com/humanmicrobiome
11
Storytelling at Eden
Diana Mullis, Storyteller
Since Eden opened its heart to Cornwall and the wider
world 14 years ago, it has told stories. As we continue
to celebrate its very own wonder tale I look back at the
storytelling culture we have nurtured and the twists and
turns that inevitably create chapter after chapter.
Storytelling, not quite the oldest
profession in the world but almost,
weaves itself like a magical thread
helping us make sense of our world.
Everyone has a story to tell, everyone
is a storyteller.
As I write this, I understand
that my words are born of my own
perception, of my own interpretation,
and that is the most mesmerising
aspect of storytelling: no two people
will interpret a story in the same way.
How wonderful to have something
in our grasp that gives us that much
freedom, that much spontaneity.
My Eden story began when I was
invited 13 years ago to inhabit part
of the developing landscape we know
as ‘Myth and Folklore’. I came as a
freelance storyteller and folklorist
and my first few days were spent with
Richard Good, then a member of the
Performance Team. Richard and I met
as storytellers often do, recognising
the power our craft has to explore how
people see and feel about their lives
and their place in our world. Wearing
timeless costumes that depicted the
very ‘Once Upon a Time’ we wanted to
create, we told stories to visitors who
left ‘Myth and Folklore’ not knowing
why they felt different but just knowing
that they did. I know this because they
wanted to talk about it afterwards.
12
A great number of visitors never
experience the wonder of sitting
and listening to a storyteller.
Why? Because they think it is
something children do. Storytelling
is for children! Of course, for many
children, not all, this is where the
imagination develops. But throughout
my work I have stood beside adults
from the corporate world, managers,
changed during the first few lines of
Sleeping Beauty. What is it about a
princess who pricks her finger on a
spindle that makes an intimidating
male ex-con cry? What is it about a
lazy tailor who makes a story out of
a button that releases something in a
dementia patient who hasn’t spoken
a word for four months and start to
tell her story? These are different
What is it about a princess who pricks her finger on a
spindle that makes an intimidating male ex-con cry?
executives, leaders and seen the
sudden realisation that storytelling
reconnects them with a time and place
that has been lying dormant but which
needs to be remembered to enable
them to embrace their own truths.
For me, some of the most poignant
moments came during my work with
Great Day Out, an Eden programme
which offered adults who, for whatever
reason, had been expelled from
and rejected by society, the chance
to spend a day at Eden. Offenders,
addicts, homeless folk who, believe me,
had the most heartfelt and moving
stories to tell. Initially presenting
attitudes ranging from complacency
to aggressiveness, these people visibly
demographics but the one thing
that unites them is the power
of storytelling.
But this word storytelling isn’t
just about ‘Once Upon a Time’, it’s
also about the conversations we have
with each other. The secrets we share
that help us understand each other.
It’s about the passing of information
within a narrative that helps us
remember facts and important issues.
It’s about conflict resolution. Think of
some of the most famous stories in the
world and I am sure Cinderella is up
there somewhere; stories can mirror
our own journeys and life experiences.
From Frodo in Lord of the Rings to
Homer’s Odyssey, from Adam and Eve
to Sherlock Holmes, they all have
their stories to tell.
Colleagues have asked me why I
tell the fairy tales, what has Beauty
and the Beast got to do with Eden?
Very little directly, but fairy tales
open people’s hearts; ‘Once Upon a
Time’ gives us permission to let go,
and when hearts are open other things
can be let in. People become receptive
to important messages and perhaps
change something. Behavioural
change can’t always be evaluated, but
it often takes place nonetheless.
I often ask people to imagine a
world without stories. It cannot exist.
It just can’t. Whilst pressing the keys
on their games consoles, children tell
me, they wouldn’t miss stories...well
there go their games for a start.
At Eden there is a story around
every corner, and for the past six years,
every single day at 12 and 2 pm with
very few exceptions, a storyteller has
arrived in the Citrus Grove in the Med
Biome to tell a tale. The teller, in story
coat with staff in hand, commands the
space in such a way that people stop
talking. Their hearts start to beat to
a different tune. Their mouths drop
open, not to eat their lunch but to be
fed by the wisdom and wonder of the
traditional craft of oral storytelling.
Eden has been one of the very few
visitor destinations, if not the only
one, which offer daily storytelling. But
others are following; storytelling has
become ‘trendy’. This is wonderful,
but Eden needs to continue to be
innovative and set the bar to deliver
the unique and best. This September
we open our doors to students from
all over the UK who want to study,
experience and deliver the art of
storytelling. During their year’s
study of a Higher National Diploma
in Performance, Storytelling and
Interpretation, they will explore its
development since the beginning of
time, its relevance in a progressive
society, its conceptual digital
application, and where they personally
want to take it in their own lives.
It’s an exciting time as a new
structure for our storytellers takes
shape and it is our hope that students,
collaborating with Cornwall College
and Plymouth University, join
us to take storytelling alongside
performance in its many genres into a
very effective and dynamic future.
No one is too young or too old,
we share tears and laughter. I’ve
always said that if a story I tell makes
someone cry then I have done my job
well. And there have been many tears.
I hear the most extraordinary stories
from our visitors, and this is when we
form relationships with each other.
People have been born, loved ones
have died, and everything is all right
because it all matters.
A storyteller has to be all things
to all men. He or she is the teller, the
listener, the mystic, the orator, many
things, but never the judge. Someone
once said that you can never judge
someone without knowing their story.
This is a quote carried in the pockets
and notebooks of many social workers
and people in the caring professions.
A storyteller has to read every single
member of the audience, being able to
discern sensitivities from their body
Storytelling, not quite the oldest profession in the
world but almost, weaves itself like a magical thread
helping us make sense of our world.
language and facial expressions. They
have to know how to discourage the
heckler – and I’ve a had a few – from
spoiling the experience for others. I
have often spoken to a visitor having
realised I have struck a nerve when
telling about a death or a difficult
issue. These are the hardest things,
but everyone’s stories include them
and it’s why the Brothers Grimm in
the 19th century collected stories
that didn’t always end up ‘happily
ever after’. Storytellers have to take
responsibility for what they are
offering. It is a gift but one that needs
nurturing and careful delivery.
It is not our intention at Eden to
make people feel uncomfortable, they
don’t come to be sad, to be reduced
to tears, but it is our intention to
change things, to change behaviour,
and storytelling can do this without
preaching. A story is a vessel in
which to carry information, to carry
a message. The messages are very
often subtle, and an effective story,
the right story at the right time, is a
powerful tool. The Rainforest stories
given to me by elders of the Takuna
tribe in Colombia are harsh and can
be cruel, but the fate of the rainforest
is harsh and cruel and the truth in
the stories serve as a testament to
the responsibility we should feel.
Landscapes evoke memories, smells,
touch, and emotions jump for joy
when we ‘remember’. So let’s trust
the story.
I feel privileged to have been given
the opportunity to be a part of such an
honourable tradition. It is at the heart
of the spirit that is the Eden Project.
We are all part of this story. We are
all characters in this magical
wonder tale.
Thank you for listening to
my story.
13
People, plants,
planet and Pukka
Neil Fox, Creative Director, Pukka Herbs
Introducing a new partnership between two ethical and
pioneering organisations – Eden and Pukka Herbs. In
the Avenue of Senses in Eden’s Outdoor Garden we are
building a new exhibit in partnership with Pukka that
matches their beautifully designed tea boxes. So we
asked them if they could tell us a little more about their
purpose and philosophy.
Most people know Pukka for our
herbal teas. You can buy them in
almost every major supermarket and
independent retailer in the UK and
increasingly around the world. From
our HQ in Bristol, we’re on a mission
to help people discover the wonders
of incredible organic herbs and their
ability to help people lead healthier
and happier lives.
14
It’s an area of knowledge everyone
used to know about – go back a
generation or two and your mother/
grandmother/great-grandmother
knew all about the benefits and uses
of many amazing plants. But for
most of us today this knowledge has
faded away. Pukka are here to make
a positive change – helping people to
rediscover the beauty, deliciousness
and benefit of herbs.
The Eden Project reflects our own
view that connecting people, plants
and planet can benefit all. It’s even
how all of our stories and content
on our website are structured. So we
thought we’d explain a bit about Pukka
in this way – showing how Eden and
Pukka are on the same journey.
People
Pukka was started by two people –
Tim and Sebastian – who shared a
vision that organic herbs could play
a much greater role in our health and
wellbeing. From small beginnings
in Tim’s bedroom and Sebastian’s
kitchen, Pukka now sells over 25
million cups of organic herbal tea
a month around the world across
34 different delicious varieties.
What’s more, with over 45 health
supplements, Pukka is intent on
bringing the scientific wisdom of
traditional herbal medicine to help
inspire healthier lives. And as the
business and numbers of teas grow so
do the number of people discovering
the wonder of herbs.
Pukka believe passionately in
creating a sustainable business based
on ethical practices. For over 15 years
we have developed relationships
with our growers and farmers across
the globe – pioneering standards of
production and supporting social and
ecological standards like Fairtrade and
its less well-known cousin FairWild.
It ensures that organic herbs – many
of which are harvested from the wild
– can be produced sustainably and in
a way that ensures a fair price is paid
directly to the grower. It’s all about
creating virtuous circles – where
everyone gains from the process.
Pictured: Tim Westwell and Sebastian Pole –
Pukka’s founders. Sebastian is Pukka’s master
herbsmith and qualified herbalist.
Plants
Pukka create their 34 tea blends
and 47 supplements from over 175
different plants – every one 100%
certified organic. Next to the new
exhibit at Eden a bed is planted with
just some of these incredible herbs
– each one showing where it comes
from and its use. The story of our
use of plants is fascinating – and has
implications for our health today.
Until about 100 years ago people
used to eat over 100 species of plants
regularly, but for most us today it’s
down to between 10 and 20. This
means we are exposed to far less of
nature’s phytochemical health-soup
everyday. Because the variety of plants
and herbs in our diet has radically
diminished we are no longer bathing
our cells in the spectrum of plant-life
that has helped shield our species
throughout our evolution.
There was a wonderful study
illustrating the benefits of a broader
plant-based diet carried out a couple
of years ago by the perfectly named
Professor Blanchflower; it showed how
our happiness is directly connected
with the amount of vegetables we eat,
peaking at about seven a day.
The work of Paul Clayton and
Judith Rowbotham, describing how
our diets have declined in nutritional
diversity since the 1870s when chronic
disease rates were 90%lower than
today, also exemplifies the value
of diversity. One way of broadening
our nutritional horizons is including
more of the less well-known plants
in our diet, such as those used in the
herbal tradition like liquorice, lemon
balm, and lime flower. For example, a
cup of herbal tea with all its delicious
essential oils, colourful pigments
and tastiness has the approximate
equivalent benefit of half a portion
of vegetables.
The ability that plants have to
protect themselves from invading
microbes and extreme climates
is remarkable. That these same
qualities can help our life flourish
is plain common sense. Just as the
spicy compounds that you can find
in ginger, tulsi, or turmeric help the
plant flourish, they also interact with
our whole mental-emotional-immune
network to optimise our response to
Pictured above: The wonderfully beautiful
Echinacea flower – a perfect support for
winter wellness.
just about everything. They can help
stop a virus replicating, they can kickstart our nervous system to ameliorate
pain, they can lift our mood when
we feel threatened. As they interact
with our genes, cells, tissues, organs
and spirit, plants literally help us to
influence our destiny. Plants really
are incredible.
Planet
Pukka is intent on respecting our
interdependence with this beautiful
planet. And, like everyone at Eden,
we want to help celebrate as well
as educate about how important it
is to work together to care for the
environment. From being carbon
neutral to initiating FairWild herb
collection projects that also help
preserve the Great Pied Hornbill
– a majestic bird that lives in the
Bibhitaki tree in India’s Western
Ghats – our purpose is all about
helping create a Pukka Planet.
You can watch a fascinating film
about this story on our site.
Our new exhibition at Eden is in
the Avenue of Senses in the Outdoor
Gardens – which is perfect because
everything we do emanates from
the senses. From the delicious taste
of the tea, to the exotic scents of
herbs such as ginger and mint, star
anise and cinnamon, we hope this
exhibit inspires you to develop a
sense of adventure all about herbs and
rediscover their amazing properties
as part of your next inspiring visit
to Eden.
Pukka Herbs: www.pukkaherbs.com
Pukka Planet Film: www.pukkaherbs.
com/pukka-planet/stories/pukka/
fairwild-2014
15
The Eden Degree
Charlotte Russell,
Head of Learning Partnerships
On a grey autumn day, the prospect of a morning in West
Africa followed by an afternoon in the Mediterranean
sounds an enticing prospect. For a group of horticulture
students, that is exactly how the day might look as Eden
opens its doors to undergraduates for the first time.
It has been a long-held ambition and
part of the plan since the dawn of
Eden – to create an extraordinary
classroom for both formal and
informal education for all ages; school
children, undergraduates, apprentices,
lifelong learners. For anyone, in fact,
whose curiosity might be sparked by
the Living Theatre of Plants
and People.
Following the launch of our
successful apprenticeship programme
in 2014, undergraduates will arrive
this September to study horticulture
in what must be one of the most
diverse environments in the world,
with an opportunity to learn about
plants and ecosystems from across
the globe.
The unique offer for students is
the combination of highly respected
teachers from Cornwall College’s
Horticultural Institute, Rosewarne,
plus Eden’s practical experts to give
first-hand knowledge of commercial
horticulture and the stewardship of
one of the country’s greatest gardens.
In addition, working with other
horticultural partners, particularly
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Heligan and Tresco, students will have
the opportunity for placements and
experience in some of the most special
places in Cornwall.
As well as degrees in Horticulture
and Landscape Design, we are offering
two other university programmes
which are attracting considerable
interest both locally and nationally:
Event Management and Performance,
and Interpretation and Storytelling.
The entire higher education
programme has been developed in
partnership with the Cornwall College
Group and all degrees will be awarded
by Plymouth University.
The links between the three
courses we are offering may not be
immediately obvious, but they are
all facets of Eden – telling stories,
providing experiences and engaging
people in our complex living world.
The vibrancy of our events, the
storytellers in the Biomes and the
ever-changing landscape of the plants
all combine to create memorable
moments for our visitors.
What better place to learn about
practical events management?
Students will be able to work on
real events, with real challenges of
time management, budgets and the
unforeseen circumstances which
plague all organisers: weather, media,
prima donna performers or world
events, to name a few.
With the wide range of events at
Eden, from weddings and conferences
The links between the three courses we are offering
may not be immediately obvious, but they are all facets
of Eden – telling stories, providing experiences and
engaging people in our complex living world.
to the Sessions or the summer
dinosaur season, the students will
have an unrivalled opportunity to
get behind the scenes and work with
expert practitioners.
The performance students will be
learning alongside our narrator team,
again combining formal teaching
sessions with a major emphasis on
working within the environment –
learning to engage the public with
the myriad stories of science and the
living world.
The public engagement of science
is a significant strand of government
policy and Eden has a major role to
play – both as an educator and also as
a forum for research, working with
academic partners and institutions
such as the Wellcome Trust to
understand what works.
The development of Eden
as a campus will not be without
challenges; finding the right
combination of spaces for work and
play for our learners, apprentices and
undergraduates, and the integration
with staff and with visitors will all
require adjustment and some reworking of space.
In the first couple of years we will
rely on temporary facilities including
a purpose-built laboratory for
science teaching and a studio for the
landscape design students. Teaching
will take place on site and also down
at Watering Lane Nursery where
students will be able to learn about
plant production, commercial growing
systems and plant health.
As numbers grow, it is envisaged
that a new building may be required
to house all our students together
and create a higher education hub
on site. Plans are for 60 students in
the first year, rising to more than
200 by year three. Accommodation
options for students are already
available in both St Austell and Truro
and an influx of students will provide
a further economic boost for the
local community.
An open day held in the spring
attracted more than 150 people and
there are strong applicants for all
courses. Traditionally Cornwall
College has found that the majority of
students come from Cornwall or the
south west but it is already apparent
that we are now attracting people from
all over the country and it is hoped
that there will eventually be a strong
international contingent, as the
reputation of the campus grows.
Further open days will be held
during the summer and autumn and
we are looking forward to welcoming
our first, pioneering group of students
in September.
Complementing the long-established
schools programme and the emerging
apprenticeship scheme, university
students are the last piece in the jigsaw,
bringing education right to where it
should be – at the heart of Eden.
To find out more about the Eden Project’s
university courses visit:
www.edenproject.com/universitycourses
17
Inspiring people, changing places:
how Big Lunch Extras is helping
communities to make their
neighbourhoods extraordinary
Pam Horton, Big Lunch Extras Catalyst Manager
Community is at the heart of what we do at Eden.
The Big Lunch was born out of the need to bring
communities together – to introduce people to their
neighbours. Four years later, a sense of community has
been reborn in thousands of streets across the UK as a
result of the Big Lunch and the millions of people who
make it happen every year.
Recognising that this newfound sense
of community was the beginning
of something, not an end in itself,
the Big Lottery funded Big Lunch
Extras. Big Lunch Extras (BLE) is
designed to inspire, empower and
equip some of these people take the
next step and start to transform
their neighbourhoods for the better.
Over 690 people have attended our
community camps so far, that’s a lot of
people who are interested in making a
real difference to their communities.
At the heart of Big Lunch Extras
are the events we hold at Eden itself.
People from across the UK have
attended our community camps,
which are intended to be as diverse
and enriching as the communities
our participants want to transform.
Every Big Lunch Extras camp is
different – there is no set formula for
reinvigorating a community –
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it might include sessions like ‘A
sense of the outdoors’ and ‘Bees are
blooming brilliant’ on green spaces,
a community food session by Sustain,
the food and farming alliance, or a
seminar on funding a project. There’s
usually a visit to see an inspiring
project such as People & Gardens
and occasionally a trip to the beach to
demonstrate team building techniques
in action. The idea is to inform and
inspire in equal measure. But BLE
isn’t just about experts transmitting
their knowledge, our participants are
experts on their communities and so
we ensure they can share their stories,
through a dedicated session and also
through the networking opportunities
which we provide. We aren’t just
building community activists, we’re
creating a community of people who
can help and support each other. And
that can make all the difference, as
one participant explained: ‘Big Lunch
Extras helped me to join forces
with other like-minded people. It
helped me put on two community
projects and gave me loads of ideas
for future projects.’
Flip Robinson, Northern Ireland
Flip runs a co-operative energy scheme in
Northern Ireland. Flip returned from the Eden
event, impressed by shared community
energy project ideas, and went on to develop
a community oil-buying project: Future
Proof. As well as working with local schools
to improve their energy-saving measures,
Future Proof approached their local
Co-operative supermarket to talk to them
about covering their roof with solar panels.
The company have also been working with a
local community member on a hydro energy
scheme on his land. ‘Our Eden visit fuelled
us with vision, direction and positive
energy. We are inspired and are now able
to form a solid plan.’
But the Eden-hosted Big Lunch
Extras events are in fact just the
beginning of a bigger programme of
community-building initiatives that
have evolved over the past two years.
What swiftly follows is the next link
in the Big Lunch Extras programme:
a mixture of tailored advice and
regional road shows led by a team
of Eden Catalysts, travelling up and
down the UK.
It’s an opportunity that our
Catalysts regard as a privilege, as
Christine said: ‘One of the real
pleasures of being a BLE Catalyst is
visiting our participants in their own
areas of the UK and seeing what they
are doing to evolve community in a
positive way. It’s truly heart-warming
to realise how what we do in the camps
Alex Hall, East London
Alex, manager of a local youth club, came
away from Big Lunch Extras bursting with
ideas and inspired to do things she, her club
and local community wouldn’t have otherwise
done. Alex now runs a range of BLE-inspired
craft activities in the club’s youth sessions.
is taken and translated into real
activity on the ground.’
Another set of eyes can really
help, as Cara, a Big Lunch Extras
discovered: ‘The Big Lunch Extras
Catalyst visit opened my mind
to many possibilities within
our community and reinforced
that community engagement
can be fun and exciting whilst
getting information.’
The roadshows are another
vital part of the programme, they
allow the Big Lunch Extras team
to infiltrate the heart of fledgling
or floundering communities, and
Alex loved the BLE lantern parade and so
ran a similar event just before Christmas.
‘Our community often feels unsafe on our
streets at night (we unfortunately struggle
with gang-related violence) so we wanted
to run the parade as a sign of claiming
back our streets.’
Anne Quinn, Northern Ireland
Anne came from a residents association
in Cushendall, Northern Ireland. Before
Anne had attended Big Lunch Extras, she
had just set up an allotment project which
was already benefitting residents. The
BLE programme has enabled the project to
evolve further. Anne came away from the
BLE event with a ‘Can do’ attitude and the
confidence to drive forward community
building initiatives in her local area:
‘I knew the BLE event would give me
more opportunities to network and
exchange information and to gain more
knowledge which would benefit my
community even more.’
Anne applied for funding from the local
council in order to decorate a local bus
shelter for the Giro Italia cycle race which
went through Northern Ireland in May 2014.
She also won a £1000 grant through the
Lloyds Community Fund to create a
stunning community orchard for the
local residents.
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target those who want to make a
change in their neighbourhoods.
Twenty regional roadshows have
been held in communities across the
UK, all meticulously evaluated and
(we’re pleased to report) met with
overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Our team of Catalysts do an
incredibly exhaustive and rewarding
job maintaining contact with their
participants across the regions
through roadshows, telephone,
email, social media and the online
community chat area on the Big
Lunch Extras website. The team
thrives on the knowledge that their
work continues to produce positive
results for communities.
The feedback we’ve had suggests
that the Big Lunch Extras programme
raises confidence in participants;
confidence to inspire and enable
positive change within communities.
Research gathered over the past
two years has shown that 98%of
our participants have taken some
proactive community-building steps
20
Helen Gotts, The Wirral
A former teacher, Helen joined the Big Lunch
Extras programme because she wanted to
continue to work with young people in the
community. Helen came away with ideas to
engage communities as well as more practical
information about running projects. Some of
this came from speaking to others and finding
out how other participants had managed to
accomplish what she wanted to achieve: ‘Big
Lunch Extras helped immensely in the
following a Big Lunch Extras Camp,
from researching and sharing their
ideas to setting up a social enterprise.
Ninety-three percent of participants
say that Big Lunch Extras has helped
them in their community initiatives.
Eighty percent of those surveyed have
gone on to do something new and
progressive within their communities
as a result of joining the programme –
a sign that real social capital is
being generated.
There are a further two BLE events
scheduled for May and July in 2015.
sense that it clarified my ideas about
changing my community.’ Clarification
led to a desire to work with young people
with mental health difficulties and set up a
social enterprise scheme in her local area.
She attended the camp in July, and in August,
she officially registered ‘Grow Sow Well’ as
a community interest company which uses
community gardening to help improve the
health and wellbeing of the community –
particularly young people.
In March we delivered a pilot Youth
event targeting 16-25 year-olds with
participants from across the UK.
The BLE team is still looking for
enthusiastic individuals from across
the UK who are keen to create positive
community change where they live.
To find out more visit:
www.biglunchextras.com
Growing places
Rob Lowe
Berlin’s Tempelhof airport is famous for its role in the
Berlin Airlift of 1948-9, during which time allied aircraft
delivered well over 2m tons of much-needed supplies to
beat the Russian blockade. Today, Tempelhof is no longer
an airport – it was decommissioned in 2008 – but it still
has a reputation for bringing food to Berlin. The former
airport is now Berlin’s biggest community garden.
Set up on a small part of the
300-hectare site, the garden is run
by a group called Allemande Kontor
– Allemande is a medieval term
meaning ‘common’ in German.
Allemande Kontor runs the
Tempelhof garden on behalf of its
members, who have eagerly made use
of the space. Conceived as a temporary
or ‘meanwhile’ use of the space,
the site was leased until 2016. As a
Photo credit : Kilfinan Community Forest
result, members could only grow in
containers so that the garden could
be shifted once plans to redevelop the
airport had been agreed. There were
also safety concerns about digging
over the ground at Tempelhof because
of the possibility of unexploded
wartime bombs.
There are over 300 gardens and
650 people are growing at Tempelhof
now. Between the runways are boxes
and beds made from everything
from furniture to old records.
The Tempelhof gardeners pride
themselves on the diversity of their
members – Turks, Arabs, Asians and
Europeans from the surrounding
neighbourhoods all add to the mix –
and the diversity of the crops, which
include heirloom varieties like
purple potatoes. The site now has
a stage and a ‘town square’ where a
bicycle repairman has set up shop in a
caravan and people regularly gather
to socialise and eat. Bigger than
New York’s Central Park, the site as
a whole has become one of the city’s
vital green spaces despite the threat
of redevelopment.
Closer to home and even closer to
the sky, the Food from the Sky Project
in London’s Crouch End colonised
the roof of a local supermarket to
grow vegetables. The owner of the
supermarket at that time, Andrew
Thornton, not only gave the group
permission to grow, but also sold their
produce in the store below – possibly
the shortest distance between field
and fork imaginable. Unfortunately,
repairs to the roof have meant that
Food from the Sky came to earth with
a bump. But the pioneering spirit
behind the project continues – the
team have relocated south of the river
and are setting up an urban farm on
terra firma.
Community green spaces can help
create a sense of identity and provide
a community with a shared sense of
purpose and pride in what they’ve
achieved, even when some of that
community is relatively new to the
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area. The Killarney Asylum Seekers
Initiative (KASI) in the Republic of
Ireland has provided a social space
where asylum seekers living in the
area can meet the local community
and exchange ideas, skills and recipes.
KASI gardens offers everyone training
sessions in organic gardening,
healthy eating and cooking on a
budget. It has also produced two
cookbooks containing recipes from
the whole community.
In some cases green spaces can
offer the opportunity for part of the
community to share what makes it
unique with everyone else. Every
weekend during the summer months,
Berlin’s Preußenpark becomes Thai
Park, where the city’s Thai community
gather to eat amazing Thai meals from
around 30 vendors who serve them
from picnic blankets – anyone who
takes their Thai food seriously
turns up.
Community green spaces are often
blank canvases for communities.
The initial ambition may be nothing
more than clearing or tidying some
neglected land, but once that’s
done, the real work begins. In 1999
a group of residents from Hulme in
Manchester’s inner city set about
clearing a patch of wasteland by
hand to provide the area with a public
green space. That wasteland is now
home to Hulme Community Garden
Centre – a fully stocked garden centre
and nursery which uses its profits to
support its community work. Unlike
many commercial garden centres,
Hulme encourage people to make the
most of the gardens, which are used
for a range of activities and events,
including a regular Parent Toddler
group and the rather racy sounding
Fifty Shades of Potato. The centre
has over 15,000 visitors a year and
operates as a volunteer hub, seeing
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around 100 volunteers a week. Around
3,000 people participate every year
in their training sessions, workshops
and events, which include everything
from an Amenity Horticulture
was founded in 2010 as a charity to
manage the 127-hectare woodlands
with the aim of creating a ‘working
forest’. With 200 members and four
full-time staff, KCFC trades timber
Bigger than New York’s Central Park, the Tempelhof
site has become one of the city’s vital green spaces
despite the threat of redevelopment.
course designed to help young people
into work, to a Forest Schools taster
session. Determined to ensure the
community is at the heart of what they
do, Hulme Community Garden Centre
are now busy creating a new part of
the garden with the help of the local
community which will be open all day,
every day.
Transforming a patch of land
into a community green space can
be daunting, but some communities
have taken on even bigger challenges
– managing woodlands. The first
community woodland in the UK,
Wooplaw was the idea of Tim Stead.
A wood sculptor and furniture maker,
he wanted to replace some of the oak,
elm, and ash trees he had used in his
work. With the help of organisations
like Reforesting Scotland, WWF and
the Countryside Commission, the
woods were purchased on behalf of
the community. There are now
around 200 community forests in
Scotland alone.
Community woodlands offer
more than just recreation for their
local inhabitants, they can really
help a community thrive. In 2010,
the community of Kilfinan on the
west coast of Scotland purchased
its local forest from the Scottish
Forestry Commission. The Kilfinan
Community Forest Company (KCFC)
and runs workshops, but its plans
to expand have just received a boost
thanks to a £750k lottery grant which
will enable them to purchase a further
434 hectares. The expansion means
that their plans to make the forest a
treasured and used resource are now
sustainable, thanks to income from
managing the woodland – and the
resulting timber trade. KCFC plan to
create forest walks, bike tracks and
camping areas, as well as a training
centre for forest management.
Not every neighbourhood has
wasteland ready for renovation,
forests to buy, or rooftops for growing,
but as a recent book, Edgelands, has
shown, there is land at the margins of
all sorts of industrial and commercial
businesses that could be put to good
use. In some cases these are already
home to more wildlife than the
heart of the countryside, others
need more help. When a factory in
West Yorkshire decided to expand
and bought some land backing on
to a river, one seven-acre strip was
identified as a potential car park by
factory employee Andrew Clark, but
a quick chat with the project engineer
yielded a better idea: create a nature
reserve. The idea was put to the local
community and with the help of the
factory and some other funding,
Urban Wilderness was created.
Community green spaces can help create a sense of
identity and provide a community with a shared sense
of purpose and pride in what they’ve achieved.
Twenty-five years later, Andrew is
still involved and the reserve is home
to all sorts of creatures, has its own
education centre (where Spider Club is
run for kids) and around 5,000 people
visit every year.
Green spaces can transform
a community. The physical
transformation of a space by the
people that live there can also change
how those people view themselves as a
community. Bringing people together,
sharing ideas, tasks and stories can
give a neighbourhood a new sense of
identity and a shared purpose.
Tempelhof was only ever meant to
be a temporary home for Allemande
Kontor – the city council’s long-term
plan was to build much-needed homes
for Berlin’s increasing population
– and when the lease came up
Allemande Kontor would up sticks
(and containers) and find somewhere
else to grow.
But it turned out that not
everyone wanted Tempelhof to
become another housing estate. As
the deadline approached, a campaign
began called 100%Tempelhof.
A petition was circulated which
triggered a referendum over the site’s
future. Sixty five percent of Berlin’s
population voted for Tempelhof to
remain as a green space for the city.
And the vote wasn’t just carried in
the local neighbourhood which used
the site most frequently, it was won in
every one of the city’s twelve districts.
So, it might just seem like a nice
thing to do – grow things, have a
space to meet and share things, food,
stories, skills – but a community green
space is also a physical manifestation
of community spirit and intent:
this is our community, our
place, welcome.
For more information on setting up a
community garden visit:
www.biglunchextras.com/resources/
plant-community-garden
23
Capturing the breathtaking riches of
science: the Wellcome Image Awards
exhibition comes to the Eden Project
Rob Lowe
Harnessed to its blood supply, a horse foetus floats
beyond its mother’s uterus; an old woman’s spine curves
like an overripe fruit; a galaxy of pollen spins off a
stamen – these are just a few of the twenty startling and
beguiling images that can be viewed at the Eden Project
until 29 May as part of this year’s Wellcome Image
Awards. The Eden Project is one of 11 science centres,
museums and galleries worldwide to host the exhibition.
The Wellcome Image Awards
were established in 1997 to reward
contributors to the Wellcome Trust’s
image collection. The collection
holds over 40,000 biomedical and
clinical images.
The winning photograph was
taken by Michael Frank and shows a
specimen from the Lanyon Anatomy
Museum of the Royal Veterinary
College in London. Described by
Sir Tim Smit as ‘hypnotic, like a
Hieronymus Bosch painting…only
it is real and truly marvellous’, the
image captures the preserved uterus
of a New Forest pony, approximately
five months into the pregnancy, with
the developing foetus still attached.
Entry to the exhibition is
included in Eden’s admission price.
The exhibition can be found on the
Mezzanine in the Core Building and
runs until Friday May 29, 2015.
View the images online:
www.wellcomeimageawards.org
“The breathtaking riches of the imagery that science generates
are so important in telling stories about research and helping
us to understand often abstract concepts. It’s not just about
imaging the very small, either: it’s about understanding life,
death, sex and disease, the cornerstones of drama and art.
Once again, the Wellcome Image Awards celebrate all of this
and more with this year’s incredible range of winning images.”
Scientist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford, presenter of this year’s awards.
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3: Mouse brain, Luis de la Torre-Ubieta, Geschwind Laboratory, UCLA
Confocal micrograph of nerve cells inside an adult mouse brain. The brain has been sliced (like
a loaf of bread), and a piece that’s 0.75 mm thick is seen here. Nerve cells found at different
depths are colour coded from red (nearest) to orange, yellow, purple, blue and green as you look
into the image.
4: Chemical reactions in the kidney, Jefferson R Brown,
Robert E Marc, Bryan W Jones, Glen Prusky and Nazia Alam
1: Pregnant pony uterus, Michael Frank, Royal Veterinary College
Photograph of a pregnant uterus (womb) from a New Forest pony, approximately five months
into the pregnancy. The developing pony (fetus) is outside the uterus but remains attached by
its membranes. Its vast blood supply can be seen on the inner surface of the uterus.
2: Purkinje cell, Professor M Häusser, Sarah Rieubland
and Arnd Roth, UCL
Scanning electron micrograph of tree-like branches spreading out from a particular type of
nerve cell (Purkinje cell) found in the brain. These finger-like projections act like tiny sensors,
picking up information and passing on messages to help control muscle movement.
Colour-coded map of part of a mouse kidney as it breaks down food to make energy. This is
done through a large set of chemical reactions (metabolism) and is needed for cells to survive.
Three of the chemicals produced by some of these reactions (coloured red, blue and green) are
seen here.
5: Newly discovered parasitoid wasp, Andrew Polaszek,
Natural History Museum
Bird’s-eye view of a tiny wasp that lays its eggs inside other insects. After hatching, the larvae
feed on the host insect, eating it alive from the inside out. This is a newly discovered subset
of wasp from the rainforests of Borneo: it measures only 0.75 mm in length and has unusual
antennae, legs and wings.
25
One Magic Square
Lolo Houbein (Green Books, £19.99)
One Magic Square exhorts you to
get stuck in – its first instruction
is to stop reading and get digging.
If you do as you’re told then you’re
rewarded with the revelation that
that bit of spadework makes you a
real gardener.
As you’ll have guessed, One
Magic Square is not a conventional
gardening book. It covers climate
change, store-cupboards, rules on
seed collection and to its credit is
one of the few books of its kind to
acknowledge that finding time to
The Flower Farmer’s Year
Georgie Newbery (Green Books, £19.99)
Buy a bouquet of fresh flowers from
a supermarket or a florist and the
chances are they’re anything but
freshly cut. The majority of flowers
sold in the UK have been dunked in
chemicals and chilled, before being
carted halfway around the world.
In The Flower Farmer’s Year,
Georgie Newbery shares the
knowledge she’s gained from setting
up Common Farm, one of the UK’s
26
garden is one of the major challenges
for any new gardener.
At times it feels a bit chaotic – it
only gets down to the tools you’ll
need 200 pages in – requiring a lot
of cross-referencing to get started.
But there are also real benefits to
Houbein’s get growing approach, at
least for novices. One Magic Square sets
out to ensure you eat what you sow,
by offering a range of metre-square
gardens. There are five different salad
plots (and advice on salad dressing),
plots dedicated to curry, stir-fry, soup,
and even pizza and pasta plots, not
to mention Aztec, as well as the less
scientifically certain ‘anti-cancer’
plots. Along the way are tips about
store cupboards, warnings about
climate change and food security.
There is a shortage of images later
in the book which is a bit off-putting
but it’s not really designed to be read
in chapter order. It’s a bit unusual
but there’s no doubt that it offers an
alternative to more conventional
approaches, not least by ensuring
you know what you’re going to do
with what you’ve grown before
you commit
yourself to
anything
more than
a bit of
digging.
leading independent flower farms.
Her aim is simple – show you how to
grow flowers and sell them – and this
book is likely to be useful to anyone
who plans growing several acres or just
selling them at their garden gate.
Common Farm began from
scratch, and so, Newbery says, can
you. Be warned, though, being a
good gardener is not enough in itself,
however beautiful your herbaceous
borders may be. As Newbery points
out, ‘If you want to be a flower farmer,
think like a market gardener, not an
RHS-Gold-Medal-winning garden
designer.’ It is, she admits, a hard
habit to break, but the realities of
harvesting mean you need your
cultivars in one place and in as tight
a formation as possible.
As you’d expect there are sections
on planning your ‘farm’ and how
and what to grow, but with a more
commercial slant which sometimes
runs counter to what you might
have learned over the years – used to
planting your bulbs at four times their
depth with plenty of space? Forget it,
this is about turnaround: grow, cut,
then use the space for something else.
There are chapter on cutting,
conditioning and presenting flowers,
starting a business, getting to grips
with profit and loss, where to sell, and
advice on marketing and making use
of social media. Interspersed with
these are invaluable pieces by people
working in the industry: suppliers,
growers and retailers, that offer
insight into the realities of the artisan
cut flower industry.
Common Farm is now four years
old, selling bouquets year-round.
It’s a small but growing business. As
Newbery admits, you’re unlikely to
end up a millionaire but if you take
it seriously you could enjoy a (small)
share of a global industry that is worth
£2.7 billion, while helping more people
enjoy genuinely fresh flowers.
How to Create a New
Vegetable Garden
Charles Dowding (Green Books, £19.99)
Charles Dowding is the tortoise to
Lolo Houbein’s hare. Rather than
get stuck in, he suggests you read
the first few chapters and get a good
idea of what you’re letting yourself
in for. Take a measured approach, is
his advice. The leading advocate of
‘no-dig’ (which the novice should not
assume means ‘do nothing’), Dowding
intersperses practical steps with his
own experience of establishing his
new garden at Homeacres. Dowding
made sure that Homeacres would fit
the bill – before he put in an offer he
Learning with Nature
Marina Robb, Victoria Mew and
Anna Richardson (Green Books, £17.99)
Review by Pam Horton
Written by experienced outdoor
educators and Forest School
practitioners, Learning with Nature
is exceptionally thorough yet
uncomplicated in terms of its
content and message. The book is
split into sections covering games,
nature activities, seasonal activities
and survival skills. It’s packed
with stunning illustrations and
photographs that support tried-andtested activities for children aged
3­–16. An accessible colour coding
system makes it easy to find the
right activity for you and your child.
The 97 outdoor activities in Learning
with Nature are graded in terms of
stuck a spade
in the ground
and checked
the soil. A
former market
garden,
Homeacres
is likely to be
considerably
bigger than
most domestic gardens, but this gives
Dowding scope to cover a huge range
of subjects and plants. Hefty and
filled with photographs, this is one
for the armchair rather than the shed,
though the reader should expect to
be filled with admiration and envy
in equal measure. The book’s great
strength is Dowding’s approach.
Instead of dispensing advice from on
high, as many experienced gardeners
are wont to do, Dowding relates his
experiences and experiments and
makes his recommendations on the
basis of these, not abstract rules and
regulations. As a result How to Create a
New Vegetable Garden manages
the unusual trick of being both
friendly and authoritative – the
ideal combination.
challenge
and
outcome
and help
children
develop a
range of
practical
and social
skills, along with a deep respect of the
natural world.
This book invites readers to
imagine, create, meditate, play,
learn, have fun and appreciate the
natural world. All activities can be
experienced virtually anywhere – in
local parks, woodland areas, playing
fields, or even concrete playgrounds.
And the activities don’t require a
wheelbarrow’s worth of kit, just people
and basic resources such as paper, sand
and soil. Stand-out activities for me
are: ‘Animal forms’ based on animal
behaviour, ‘Meet a tree’, ‘Fairy
homes’ and ‘Flower fairies’ (I have
a four-year-old daughter!) and one
of my personal favourites, ‘Sense
meditation’; time to stop, listen,
observe and contemplate.
From an educational perspective,
the Invisible Learning boxes for
each game and activity clearly
illustrate National Curriculumlinked learning outcomes and so
the book is a valuable resource for
teachers and outdoor practitioners
seeking inspirational experiences for
children outside.
Unstructured play and learning
outdoors in nature are as important
for the development of children as
food and sleep. This book offers
a nurturing and nourishing feast
of the outdoors, opportunities for
young people and grown ups to get
their teeth into.
30% off at Green
Books for Eden
Magazine Readers
See p.28 for T&Cs
27
Gardens of Cornwall
Katherine Lambert, Photographs
by Alex Ramsay (Frances Lincoln, £12.99)
Review by Jane Knight
Reissued in paperback is the
latest from prolific garden writer
Katherine Lambert. Full of seductive
photographs of the 23 featured
gardens, the book gives a real feel for
the richness of what Cornwall has to
offer the garden visitor.
It is good to see many less wellknown gardens featured, such as
Chygurno and Lamorran in Penwith
as well as the developing sculpture
garden at Tremenheere, just outside
Penzance. Closer to ‘home’, Tregrehan
and Marsh Villa are both well covered.
The stunning gardens at Trevarno
are still featured in this edition even
though they were closed to the public
in 2012 (a note is added at the end
of the text) but it is good to have a
reminder of how spectacular they
were. These lesser-known gardens
have been included at the expense
of the some of those marketed as
the ‘Great Gardens of Cornwall’
such as Bonython, Godolphin and
Tregothnan. The descriptions of
each garden are, however, uneven;
it is clear that at some gardens, she
had the benefit of a tour with the
owners or head gardener and these
descriptions give a special insight into
the gardens. Others appear more to
be the impressions of a general visitor.
A repeating theme is the influence
of the Victorian plant hunters on
many Cornish gardens and the joint
30% off Green Books reviewed in
this issue
Our friends at Green Books are offering free postage and 30% off
the following titles to Eden magazine readers:
One Magic Square
The Flower Farmer’s Year
How to Create a New Vegetable Garden
Learning with Nature
To claim your discount visit the Green Books website at
www.greenbooks.co.uk select your titles and enter the code
EDEN2015 at the checkout.
Offer valid until 31 July 2015. Please note: this discount is only available on these titles.
28
discussion of Glendurgan and Trebah
is particularly interesting.
I was excited to see that the strap
line for the book was ‘Eden, Heligan
& other delights’. However, it was
disappointing that both gardens
receive relatively modest and quite
idiosyncratic reviews. Her description
of Eden Project opens with ‘….the
Project is of course not a garden at all’
and goes on to suggest, ‘It therefore
has no business featuring in this
book’. The meagre five paragraphs
that follow are full of rather strange
anecdotes. It feels as if the publishers
requested these gardens to be featured
and they were reluctantly included.
Ms Lambert is clearly a traditionalist
and, for me, it would have been better
if she had left Eden out.
For a book that looks like another
coffee table book, this one is really
quite quirky with lots of interest and
some insights you wouldn’t gain from
a guide book or a casual walk around.
It would certainly add to your visit to
gardens of our county.
The Friends Crossword
by Maize
‘Maize’ is a
crossword fiend
who works at Eden.
Answers on p.31
1
2
3
4
1​ . Desperate need for
Cornish garden (4)
​4. Parc owner redeveloped
Cornish garden (9)
​9. Hornet and gnat flying
about Cornish garden (10)
​10. South African
landscape featured in
travel documentary (4)
​11. Disastrous cash year
for Cornish garden (8)
​13. Botanical scrubber goes
back inside - such a fool! (6)
​14. Man is one; no man
is one (6)
​17. Garbled reciter in
Cornish garden (7)
​19. Cornish garden of
alternative healing (7)
​21. Variety of herb at
Cornish garden (6)
​24. Redesigned sector for
Cornish garden (6)
​25. EEC hotel rebuilt into
Cornish garden (8)
​27. Seen in Spitzbergen? (4)
​28. Cornish garden surprisingly on dry chalk (10)
​30. The ranger prepared
Cornish garden (9)
​31. What starts sun, sea
and this? (4)
6
9
7
10
11
Across
5
12
14
15
19
16
17
20
18
21
24
25
27
13
28
22
23
26
29
30
31
Down
2​ . In Borobudur, Ian smelled
some stinky fruit (7)
​3. Beginnings of negotiations
into green energy resources in
African country (7)
​4. Tropical bird, baked
in Greece? (5)
​5.​Grandmother, baked,
in India? (3)
​6. Cancellation of
divorce proceedings (9)
​7. Player, a violinist,
hiding pasta parcels (7)
8​ . Social security
– very equitable in
common parlance (7)
​12. Diabolical starts to
spring attack tulips and
narcissi in Cornwall (7)
15. Alkaline solution made
from ashes? Sounds untrue (3)
​16. Sign of a holy man
worn round his best
friend’s neck? (3-6)
​18. Ear of maize used to
build cottage walls? (3)
1​ 9. Produce from fields
held in wharves’ terminal (7)
​20. Pasta dip in middle
of road ?(7)
​22. Encourages former
horticulturists (7)
​23. Garlic extract hidden
in Cornwall icing (7)
​26. Passing through
entry, only to check clothing
for size (3,2)
​29. Japanese theatrical style
making negative noise (3)
Behind the Scenes:
Mediterranean Biome
Enjoy the peace of Eden in the early morning by
experiencing an exclusive tour in the Mediterranean Biome.
Meet the horticultural team who care for plantings, hear
their plans and discover the May highlights. Following the
tour, willing participants will also be given the opportunity
to enjoy a hands-on practical experience and horticultural
conversation, whilst working alongside the team planting up
the 2015 chilli display.
Wednesday 6 May, 9am – 11.30am • Mediterranean
Biome, Eden Project • Free for Eden Members and
one guest each
Coming soon
Celebrate the launch of our new exhibition ‘Invisible
You - The Human Microbiome’ at a special private view
for Eden Members, and don’t miss out on your chance
to attend an expert panel discussion and Q&A. Further
details will be advertised via our monthly e-newsletter.
If you don’t already receive this please send your details
to [email protected] to subscribe.
30
Behind the Scenes: Rainforest Biome
Step into the Rainforest Biome before it opens to the public
and you’ll feel like you’re waking up in the Amazon. Enjoy the
unique sights and sounds before the day warms up, and get
an insight into what goes on behind the scenes to manage a
captive Rainforest.
Friday 15 May, 9am – 10am • Rainforest Biome,
Eden Project • Free for Eden Members and one
guest each
Our events are a great way to learn more about our work.
To make a booking for any of our events please contact us
on [email protected] or call 01726 811932.
Eden Events in 2015
Cornwall International Male
Voice Choral Festival
3–4 May
Eden Classic Sportive
Cycling Event
10 May
Strange Science
22–31 May
Green Fingers Festival
1–21 June
Eden Sessions
June & July
Eden Marathon
18 October
Dinosaurs
24 July–2 September
Halloweden
24 October–1 November
Harvest
10–27 Sept
Little Monsters’ Ball
31 October
Eden Beer Festival
3 October
Eden Locals’ Pass
From November
Ice Skating
October 2015–spring 2016
Christmas at Eden
28 November–3 January 2016
www.edenproject.com
Down: 2 Durians, 3 Nigeria, 4 Pitta, 5 Nan, 6 Annulment, 7 Ravioli, 8 Welfare, 12 Satanic, 15 Lye,
16 Dog collar, 18 Cob, 19 Harvest, 20 Lasagne, 22 Exhorts, 23 Allicin, 26 Try on, 29 Noh.
The Friends Crossword Solution – see page 28
Across: 1 Eden, 4 Pencarrow, 9 Tregothnan, 10 Veld, 11 Caerhays, 13 Loofah, 14 Island, 17 Trerice,
19 Heligan, 21 Trebah, 24 Tresco, 25 Cotehele, 27 Berg, 28 Lanhydrock, 30 Tregrehan, 31 Sand.
Rogan Brown ‘Cut Microbe’
part of the new ‘Invisible You’
exhibit at the Eden Project.