Plastic, Brexit and Laurel

Great conversation on the podcast tonight covering so much.

Plastic is a major issue in so many industries and unfortunately horticulture is not immune. I recently re-designed a garden bed for one of my clients and ordered some of the plants online and others from a local nursery. The plants that came mail order were all wrapped in plastic or in pots and the ones from the nursery were in pots. The amount of packaging that went into the landfill bin was shocking and it would have been even worse if I couldn’t have given a lot of the pots away for reuse. Taupe and paper pots were both mentioned on the podcast and are certainly viable options to think about, but as the end consumer I do feel a bit trapped by my suppliers and all I can do is feedback what I want.

I want E Bird Horticulture to be a sustainable business and reduce the amount of waste I produce to be minimal and will strive to reduce waste from the business any way I can.

Brexit is a massive issue to even try and tackle in a 30 minute podcast and I don’t think we got to the heart of it, but again so many issues were raised. Food security and grow your own were mentioned by a number of listeners and both Lee and I spoke about pest and disease issues and the potential advantages that Brexit brings to the control of these issues. I also raised the point that a lot of scientific research in the UK is funded by Europe and the loss of this funding will have major impacts on both the quality and quantity of research coming out of the UK for the future.

In the Latin section this week I spoke about Laurel and two different common hedging plants - Common or Cherry Laurel

Prunus laurocerasus ’Rotudidolia’ and Portuguese Laurel

Prunus lusitanica. Both are in The Prunus genera and the Roseaceae family. Surprisingmy the true Laurel are in the Lauraceae family of which one of the two genera in this family is Laurus nobilis commonly know as the Bay tree. A widely used culinary herb. This is just another example of why common names can be so confusing !

The image shows the common (Prunus laurocerasus) and Portuguese Laurel (Prunus lusitanica) side by side.