Header image: Suited up to simulate the conditions of working outside on Mars. Jonathan Clarke (the author, left) with visiting engineer Michael Curtis-Rouse, from UK Space Agency (right). Jonathan Clarke personal collection, Author provided.
07.08.2023 - 11:44 / blog.fantasticgardeners.co.uk
With over 30% of Brits admitting their mother is the most important person in their life and half coming to realise they are indeed turning into their mums, it’s no surprise we don’t scrimp around Mother’s Sunday.
If we let figures speak for themselves, it becomes quite evident what an important meaning we ascribe to this celebration – every year, we send over 30 million Happy Mother’s Day cards and spend one and a half billion pounds on flowers and presents such as jewellery, beauty products, and gardening tools.
Pardon the cliché, but we all know this, of all holidays, should be the least about trivial gifts and cheesy Facebook messages. As we are about to celebrate the mum-praising day for yet another year, we decided to find out more about mother’s day traditions in the UK and what British mums really want for their day.
So, here’s our collection of facts about Mothering Sunday you probably didn’t know and some mum-verified advice on how to make next Sunday really special.
Although Laetare Sunday – the fourth Sunday of Lent – had been associated with mothers and family since medieval times, it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that a push towards an official day celebrating mothers in England was started. Constance Smith – a vicar’s daughter from Nottinghamshire, was inspired to start the Mothering Day Movement after reading an article on Anna Jarvis and her campaign for an official day to honour mothers in the US.
Constance Smith was a High Anglican and believed that the liturgy of the Church of England for the fourth Sunday of Lent truly captured the idea of a day honouring mothers. So, when choosing the date for Mothering Sunday in England, she went back to the Laetare Sunday, which was when children who
Header image: Suited up to simulate the conditions of working outside on Mars. Jonathan Clarke (the author, left) with visiting engineer Michael Curtis-Rouse, from UK Space Agency (right). Jonathan Clarke personal collection, Author provided.
Here in the UK it’s traditional to take a couple of weeks off work over the summer and head off to somewhere with better weather – or at least somewhere that you can get away from it all for a little while. It’s one of the ironies of life that this takes you away from the garden at a time when it really could use your help. If you have a gardening neighbour then you can rely on them to take care of your garden while you’re away, but if you don’t and don’t want to come home to dead plants, weeds and giant marrows then there are a few things you can do to prepare your garden for your absence.
This week is National Gardening Week, and the theme for 2019 is Edible Britain – a chance for gardeners across the country to show their love of home-grown produce.
Throughout history, herbs and spices have been extremely popular, used as medicines and aphrodisiacs as well as making their way into dinner. A plant that the Romans (and ancient Greeks and Egyptians) would have been familiar with was Silphium. They thought it was the finest of all seasonings, as well as a top notch medicinal plant. The Romans got a taste for meat from animals fed on Silphium, and it seems that the herb may well then have been grazed into extinction. It never seemed to make it into cultivation. Another possible explanation of Silphium’s disappearance is that a change in the Mediterranean climate meant it could no longer thrive, and died out naturally. According to Pliny, the last known Silphium plant was given to Emperor Nero as a gift.
Food waste is a hot topic at the moment, and deservedly so – the environmental damage done by producing 10 million tonnes of uneaten food each year in the UK is impressive, associated with around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The monetary value of that food is over £17 billion a year, and 60% of the waste could have been avoided.
Header image: This lettuce produces a bone-stimulating hormone that could help stave off bone loss in space and on Earth. Image credit: Kevin Yates
Lauren Moore, Nottingham Trent University
Header image (a cup of tea, books and a houseplant on a windowsill) by LUM3N from Pixabay
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