Jonathan's Mistletoe Diary

Well, the BBC Gardener’s World with the Tenbury Mistletoe Auction was just on the telly, and I missed most of it. But saw enough to see Monty Don discussing the wholesaler’s prefernces for English mistletoe – rather than the travel-weary French stuff. And to confirm that as I feared the already-dated footage (filmed last year) meant that the threatened closure of the Auction site wasn’t mentioned – indeed MD stood there and exclaimed about what […]

A morning spent on the floodplain of the River Salwarpe, just upstream of its confluence with the Severn. Not to look at mistletoe, but to discuss reedbed creation. The areas we were looking at are between the Salwarpe and the Droitwich Canal, and as part of the canal restoration project we are planning to create new reedbeds on land next to the canal to compensate for those currently in the old canal channel. We started […]

A mixed mistletoe day today. Everything from checking obscure refs about turn of the century mistletoe-harvesting pics (don’t ask, unless you are really, really interested…) to modern-day druidic mistletoe events… And a bit more on that mistletoe toxicity stuff from yesterday, or was it the day before? I won’t go into the picture refs, as it would take an age to explain. But am keen to say more on the Druid event – but that […]

Some further fallout from the RoSPA advice today, but nothing worth repeating. But there is a good mistletoe feature in the daily Telegraph Weekend supplement (see pic below) – covering that last auction (ever?), and featuring Stan Yapp (pictured), and a quote from me. Er, that’s it for today. Daily Telegraph article 11th December

Mistletoe is in all the headlines! But for all the wrong reasons. RoSPA and the TUC have issued killjoy guidance for employers on office parties, and inter alia have suggested mistletoe should be banned in case it leads to sexual harassment charges! I think this is little OTT – and so do the nation’s media. The guidance certainly gets coverage, but it’s mostly poking fun at RoSPA and the TUC rather than suggesting following their […]

Off to Rothamsted Research station this evening – to speak to local branch of the Institute of Biology on, er, mistletoe. I cut it fine as the journey along M25 and M1 was at crawling speed – what is it with our road system? – this was at 6.30 in the evening! And obviously so common a phenomenon it didn’t even make it to the local radio traffic reports. But I got there, just in […]

Another mistletoeful day. Off to Tenbury Wells to meet up with Stanley Yapp, the well-known mistletoe-grower and harvester. We’re due to take part in a BBC TV interview, firstly in his orchards and later at the market, where mistletoe should be arriving for tomorrow’s auction. I drive up early and call at the market first. Nick Champion is already inspecting the lots, and the place look full, despite the early hour. Not so much material […]

First stop the orchard, where Stan does his stuff, traditional harvesting with a ladder, hooked pole etc (see pics). Then it’s the turn of the biologists – Matt and I talk about mistletoe biodiversity, and especially the half-dozen insects that are obligate mistletoe feeders. Stan up his ladder with mistletoe pole

Stan using the pole to pull down mistletoe (click to enalrge)

Then it’s off to Tenbury, and lunch, before visiting the market. This is much as I saw it this morning – not much new material, though some is still arriving, on the back of a variety of unlikely vehicles (including a 1974 Austin 1100 Vanden Plas – you don’t see many of those around these days). Some filming at the market, which already has an air of sadness over it – as this could be […]