Category Archive

This week is the UK’s National Plant Health Week. The purpose of a national week designation is to have a concentration of articles or events during a limited time to spark conversations, thoughts and hopefully actions. Twitter is alive already with tweets #PlantHealthWeek. Here are a few to show the range of organisations engaged. Defra (Dept for Food and Rural …

Being a natural optimist, this final blog on my IYPH2020 will focus on Hope and I hope you’ll stick with it to the final paragraph – the video is worth watching. Against the backdrop of truly difficult times, I want to end this blog series on IYPH 2020 with some positive examples, all which make me feel good and give me strength …

Fall: the American term for autumn is so much more apt. This month I want to explore a couple of ways that plants figure in this season, beyond pumpkins at Halloween. As we enter a second lockdown in the UK, I also suggest seeing autumn as the start of the new growing season might help our mental health too. Gardens helped a …

My topic for this brief and late blog is Life. I almost didn’t write one this month as life hit my family hard in September; my husband was diagnosed with leukaemia and hospitalised for treatment. My goal this year was to write about how IYPH2020 related to me in daily life so this topic really is relevant. I have been sending …

This month’s topic is borders and I don’t mean flower borders. It relates directly to the FAO’s key message 1 http://www.fao.org/plant-health-2020/about/en/ “Be careful when bringing plants and plant products across borders”. It’s relevant in August as many people will have travelled on holiday but I also want to ponder a little on the function and value of borders relating to protecting plant …

Food. We all like it, we all need it and most of us take its availability for granted. In lockdown we have had a taster of not being able to shop for food when we want to or the expectation that we can enjoy a wide selection of cuisines in restaurants. But what if it weren’t simply a question of …

This month my focus is creativity. You might think that’s a bit abstract but stick with me. Pandemic lockdown has given me time and space to try new things (more on that later) and so it seems have others, young and old; making music, art, crafts, technology, writing etc. In doing so many have discovered they have new skills and …

Spring has arrived and the Coronavirus lockdown means if we’re lucky to have gardens we are likely giving them more attention. For this month’s blog I’ll be focussing on plant health in gardens and ways in which every one of us can support the International Year of Plant Health by the choices we make. This is a time to source …