“Morenia Pöppigiana”
from von Martius Historia naturalis palmarum [1824-1850]
Burchell had returned to Britain from South Africa in 1815 still aged only 35 and was feted by all the leading botanists of the day, including William Hooker, then the first Professor of Botany at Glasgow University and later the first director of Kew. He couldn’t have run the family nursery, even had he wanted to, because his father had leased the land and business to another nurseryman. What was he to do?
It took him ten years to decide, and it was to lead to another extraordinary journey and an even greater collection of botanical and natural history specimens than he had made in South Africa. The Dictionary of National Biography is laudatory: “His work as a Naturalist has never been equalled … his objective, detailed annotation and brilliant appreciation of nature set science a goal seldom achieved.”
To start with the festival lasts for months, and combines permanent planting and installations with dozens of temporary ones. It attracts designers and artists from round the world. It values innovation and sustainability more than most, and recycles materials and plants from year to year. It’s also open access, relatively inexpensive and surprisingly uncrowded. Bits of it can be brilliant, others wild and wacky, and sometimes there are miserable failures or a complete mess but thats part of the fun and excitement of going. You never know what you’re going to find!
