Vegetable Plot at Wisley Gardens

Sundays are always good for a walk and that’s what I did. I joined a field trip to the RHS Wisley Gardens with the objective of finding out more about how climate change will affect the English gardens. Well, “will” does not seem to be the appropriate tense for the verb since, according to a gardening expert who was with us, it is already happening. He told us that he is currently experiencing a two week increase in the growing season.

After the field trip I still had time to attend two more talks. The first was “Entering the ecological age: the engineer’s role” with Peter Head, a leading expert in urban development. It all seemed so easy: using electric cars and scooters in the city, putting solar panels on buildings, having solar energy trains, planting vegetables on the roofs of houses, improving public transport and putting the main services around the public transport spots…According to him, the technology for all these examples is already developed. But what makes them so difficult to implement?

At least some cities are moving forward: In Seoul, South Korea a motorway in the middle of the city was replaced by streams and trees. This is vision!!

To finish the day, Dick Strawbridge and his son James gave us tips on how to become green. It was the “Going green with the Strawbridges” talk. If I thought I was not going to learn anything new I was totally wrong: I discovered that there is something called “soap nuts” that is an alternative to washing powder. They assured us that it is effective in cleaning our clothes and I am looking forward to trying it!

Diana

Continue to Day 3