My first days in the tropical conservatory

For the first time since October 2023 we have a full complement of three horticultural interns. Let us introduce you to Anna, from Sweden, who has just joined as our tropical conservatory intern. Anna will be describing her first impressions of working in the tropical conservatory; today she describes her first days at work ...

"This week I was introduced to the work in the Gardens after a few days of

recovering from my journey to Israel. I have had a lot of fun and have tried

to keep up with everything that needs to be done as well as getting a feel for the

natural ‘rhythm’ of the work in the conservatory.

On Sunday, I started with watering some of the epiphytes by the entrance. They require a good soak once every week. Then I went on and staked up a bunch of blue

ginger that had grown tall and fallen over.

Afterwards I pruned back a lot of overgrown ferns by the entrance, which was very much needed. They completely covered some very beautiful and interesting plants, so it was a satisfying job to do. I discovered this beautiful Anthurium magnificum (centre front of photo) hiding underneath the ferns. It’s one of my favourite plants. I’m also really fond of the Philodendron Goeldii with it’s pinnate and hoop-shaped leaves. I have never seen or heard of that one before, but it’s very beautiful.

I also helped Piers (the tropical conservatory manager) to fix some of the irrigation pipes that had leaks.

Tuesday was a bit slower but I continued with the cutting back of ferns, I fished out leaves out of the ‘river’ that runs through the conservatory and just did some more general maintenance like pruning, etc.

The Scientific Director, Ori, gave me some ‘desert roses’; four to plant in the desert area of the conservatory (they are already dead so it wasn’t really planting in the strict sense) and one to propagate the seeds with Nadav, the curatorial intern who helps also in the nursery.

We also put up some plants in the gallery and on a shaded wall to try and see how they respond to shade and bright light as a trial for the new greenhouse that is being built.

Another fun thing I did was to

pollinate the cocoa tree. I researched a little and pollinated two flowers

with a regular brush and two with tweezers as most people on youtube

seemed to do. Let’s see which one works best."