Andrea Wulf

Article: The Guardian, Green-fingered Grief Sweeps the Nation

If you are struggling to cope with the havoc wreaked in your flowerbeds by recent extreme wind and rain, you're not alone. The Royal Horticultural Society has diagnosed a new national affliction: plant bereavement.

About half of all callers to their plant advisory service are dealing with the trauma induced by wilted, leafless or damaged plants. Luckily, the team from the RHS are able to deal not only with horticultural questions, but also emotional ones. Many gardeners, they say, feel personally connected to their plants, particularly when they have been nurtured for many years, or given by someone special.

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Review Sunday Times: The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power and the Seeds of Empire by Joe Jackson

On June 14, 1876, at 3am, 30-year-old Henry Wickham threw pebbles at the bedroom windows of Joseph Hooker, the director of Kew Gardens. Wickham had just arrived from Brazil and was too excited by his cargo to wait until a more suitable time. He had smuggled 70,000 seeds of Hevea brasiliensis (the rubber tree) from the Amazon valley, the only place where they grew. The rubber from these plants was the best in the world - and was used in British factories to make everything from machine belting and tubing to rainproof coats and plimsolls. Essential to industrialisation and the growing consumer societies, it was almost as important to the Victorian economy as oil is today.

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