Finding the trees to survive the future, with Kevin Martin head of tree collections at RBG Kew
11/22/24 • 23 min
In the hot summer of 2022, RBG Kew lost more than 400 trees. By July 2024, Kew announced that it believed over 50% of its trees could be at risk by 2090 due to environmental changes due to climate change.
This week's guest is Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and he joined the HortWeek Podcast to relate the research Kew has done that led it to such a stark conclusion.
"What we started to look at first was mortality data, but we soon realized that that's a really unstable data set. can't always know why a tree or a plant has died in the landscape. It's not always due to environmental factors.
"We then started looking at climate modeling...and using species observation data to start building a better picture of the impact of climate change on the living landscape here at Kew.
Perhaps surprisingly, the focus was not on identifying vulnerable species, but "the provenance of the seed".
Kew studied its own environment, located as it is in "an urban heat island" on the edge of Greater London with relatively thin and poor soil, "so the effect of climate change is always exaggerated".
To understand the plants that suited this environment, they found themselves in the Romanian steppe which proved a good match.
His next trip will take him to Georgia to find more species that might thrive at Kew.
Rather than building more and more glasshouses to create the right condition for plant collections, with their huge energy bills, botanic gardens must play to their strengths and grow the plants that fit their ecosystem and climate profile.
"And the native, the English native one is a really interesting question.
"You've got Quercus robur, they all have a large distribution range. So we're now looking at their dryest range to understand how those trees have adapted...they will grow right up to the edge of Azerbaijan, right on the dryest edge of their range. So we're selecting seed from those areas to bring them back to Kew to understand how they've adapted."
And the change needs to translate to all green spaces and gardens, large and public as well as domestic and small.
"A lot of the plants that we all go to the garden centre to put in our own private gardens, those trees have been selected for us realistically by the Victorians. A lot of those plants are available in commercial nurseries, they're all from the original plant collectors from the Victorian era especially, and they're the same cloned material that's just passed round.
"So it's really not just changing the planting palette within Botanic Gardens...This is a change of planting palette... and that does need support and investment in further research from government in order to support the commercial nurseries as well.
"I do think it's going to be the biggest shift we've seen since the start of the organisation back in the 1840s".
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In the hot summer of 2022, RBG Kew lost more than 400 trees. By July 2024, Kew announced that it believed over 50% of its trees could be at risk by 2090 due to environmental changes due to climate change.
This week's guest is Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and he joined the HortWeek Podcast to relate the research Kew has done that led it to such a stark conclusion.
"What we started to look at first was mortality data, but we soon realized that that's a really unstable data set. can't always know why a tree or a plant has died in the landscape. It's not always due to environmental factors.
"We then started looking at climate modeling...and using species observation data to start building a better picture of the impact of climate change on the living landscape here at Kew.
Perhaps surprisingly, the focus was not on identifying vulnerable species, but "the provenance of the seed".
Kew studied its own environment, located as it is in "an urban heat island" on the edge of Greater London with relatively thin and poor soil, "so the effect of climate change is always exaggerated".
To understand the plants that suited this environment, they found themselves in the Romanian steppe which proved a good match.
His next trip will take him to Georgia to find more species that might thrive at Kew.
Rather than building more and more glasshouses to create the right condition for plant collections, with their huge energy bills, botanic gardens must play to their strengths and grow the plants that fit their ecosystem and climate profile.
"And the native, the English native one is a really interesting question.
"You've got Quercus robur, they all have a large distribution range. So we're now looking at their dryest range to understand how those trees have adapted...they will grow right up to the edge of Azerbaijan, right on the dryest edge of their range. So we're selecting seed from those areas to bring them back to Kew to understand how they've adapted."
And the change needs to translate to all green spaces and gardens, large and public as well as domestic and small.
"A lot of the plants that we all go to the garden centre to put in our own private gardens, those trees have been selected for us realistically by the Victorians. A lot of those plants are available in commercial nurseries, they're all from the original plant collectors from the Victorian era especially, and they're the same cloned material that's just passed round.
"So it's really not just changing the planting palette within Botanic Gardens...This is a change of planting palette... and that does need support and investment in further research from government in order to support the commercial nurseries as well.
"I do think it's going to be the biggest shift we've seen since the start of the organisation back in the 1840s".
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Previous Episode
Fighting for our right to roam, with Kate Ashbrook of Open Spaces Society
Kate Ashbrook is an author and has been the general secretary of the Open Spaces Society for 40 years and counting, but she is first and foremost, a campaigner.
On this week's HortWeek Podcast she recounts some of the best changes she has seen during her tenure - "the greater awareness of the importance of open spaces for the public and the greater awareness among the public of the importance to them of open spaces, paths, getting out there, enjoying the countryside and green spaces in towns.
And the worst... "After 40 years, open spaces, commons and paths are still very much under threat. We haven't made that step change, which means that governments, local authorities recognise that actually open spaces and paths are so important that we need to invest in them fully. They may say they're important, but they don't actually put the money and the resources in."
Current focuses include closing the "green space gap" in the current National Planning Policy Framework:
"We don't see in the consultation, governments giving prime importance to green spaces. We think they should be at the core of all planning policies, thinking about the wider public and what people need and then framing the development around that... we shall be making suggestions of how government can give greater priority to green spaces."
Rachael and Kate also discuss biodiversity net gain and how that interacts with the society's goals and wider issues.
With a new Government in place she talks about her hopes for policy change and support for offering greater access to land and protection of common land that has always been at the core of the OSS's mission.
She outlines the Open Spaces Society's long history - from its foundation in 1965 - which is bound up with the creation of the National Trust. And she recounts some of her own, fascinating career path and what motivates her.
"I really want to help people to campaign. 50 years ago, I got into campaigning because I met a wonderful person called Sylvia Sayre on Dartmoor and she was 50 years [older than me] and ]encouraged me and helped me and gave me opportunities. And I am thinking, well, I'm now the age that she was when I met her and it's my turn to kind of pass the baton to the younger generation. And I'm out there looking for people to talk to and to learn from and to help."
Find out more at https://www.oss.org.uk/
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Next Episode
Get Children Growing with inspirational horticulturist Ross Dyke
Crop technician Ross Dyke has a new project called Get Children Growing. He's a Plant Pod host and works at Bonterre CIC alternative education establishment near Worcester, teaching horticulture skills. An unassuming networker, he is also studying at Pershore College and is a Colegrave Seabrook and IPPS scholar.
He left school at 14 and worked in various jobs before moving to Webbs Garden Centres and becoming a horticulture industry lover.
To get Get Children Growing off the ground, to bring sunflower grow kits to children in schools across the UK, Dyke has worked with Amy Stubbs from British Garden Centres and Skinny Jean gardener Lee Connolly and with help from Mr Fothergill's, Westland, New Leaf Plants and Webbs Garden Centres.
He said: "I believe every school should have a garden and it should teach children where food comes from and even where cut flowers come from. Because you go into these garden centres, you see the flowers in the pots and if you're a child, you don't know where they've come from, you don't know how they've been grown, you don't know how they've been nurtured. So I just want to educate the younger generation and you never know, it might inspire some to say, do know what, I want to do that for a living."
For more Get Children Growing details, see www.theplantpod.co.uk
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