If 鈥渟taying in鈥� is the new 鈥済oing out鈥濃�攁s lifestyle commentators would
have us believe鈥攇ardening has to be the new bungee jumping. TV schedules
are packed with garden advice shows and the Web is awash with horticultural
inspiration. With winter taking hold in the northern hemisphere, and summer in
the south, gardeners are getting active.
Check out the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which at www.rbgkew.org.uk has
heaps of fascinating information. You鈥檒l find pictures of perfect blooms
accompanied by scientific detail on the Millennium Seed Bank project, which aims
to be a Noah鈥檚 Ark of plants designed to preserve plant diversity.
The Missouri Botanical Garden also shares its research with visitors at
(www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research) but keen gardeners may find it even more helpful
than most botanic gardens because it runs planting demonstrations, sells plants
and has a helpful 鈥渨hat-to-plant-when鈥� section.
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The Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra at www.anbg.gov.au/anbg
houses rare and threatened plants, has a section on the use of plants by
Aborigines and lists all Australia鈥檚 botanic gardens. It also has a section that
tells you what鈥檚 in flower this week in Australia.
Weeds, of course, are just plants gardeners don鈥檛 want in their gardens.
You can find kudzu, one of the most successful weeds ever, at
www.cptr.ua.edu/kudzu.
A knobbly, red-stemmed vine with attractive leaves, it took a
while to get going when it was introduced in the US as a garden plant. But in
the 1940s, an enthusiast formed kudzu clubs all over the Southern states to
encourage planting to control soil erosion. He succeeded only too well. Now
known variously as 鈥渢he plant that ate the South鈥� or the 鈥渕inute-a-mile vine鈥�,
it covers 7 million acres and everywhere people are trying to stamp it out. But
it鈥檚 not all bad鈥攗ses for the weed now include basket and paper
making.
