The Indiana Jones of botany...Yeah, right

First off, apologies for the lack of blogposts recently. In the summer we moved from our Good Life-sized garden in Surbiton to a house with a garden half the size. What’s more, it has no front lawn and the back garden is not grass, but Astroturf. Yes, Astroturf.

It was a shock, but I believe the counselling is working. There will be a full explanation in the months to come.

Something else that has kept me from writing is travelling and photographing Route 66 from Chicago to LA. Route 66 passes through Williams and Flagstaff, Arizona, both jumping off points for tourists visiting the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and as I’d never seen it before, this was the perfect opportunity. Standing at the edge is a slightly unreal experience because the Colorado River is just so far away and at the top it’s all postcard views and photo opportunities.

However if you are prepared for a bit of hiking things become interesting. Take one of the trails down into the canyon and you are immediately away from the mass tourism. On just such a crumbling, vertiginous path I came across what looked like the spike of a giant verbascum.

Now, like every plant collector (though one of the few plant collectors with an Astroturf lawn) I like the idea of collecting seed in the wild to see if I can get it to germinate. This particular flower spike – of what turned out to be the Utah Agave or Century Plant – was on a rocky outcrop ten metres off the path. Close, but dangerous.

Every year, two or three people stray too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon and fall to their death. On average they fall around 600 feet. The likelihood of me getting a plant that is suited to an altitude of 5000 feet and arid conditions to germinate and thrive in Surbiton would have been very slim, so the balance of risk versus reward was very easy to work out. I stayed on the path.

However I wondered what the Victorian plant hunters, like Sir Joseph Hooker, would have done? Their whole raison d’etre was not to go to the visitor center and get a Grand Canyon fridge magnet. They had to collect seeds.

But did Sir Joseph glue himself to a mountainside? Was he out there creeping along a rocky ledge with his canvas satchel staring into the abyss like the Indiana Jones of botany or did he get his batman to do it for him?

I suspect, like me, he took the easy option. And anyway, I have enough trouble trying to grow verbascum...