There are swathes of the scarlet Hippeastrum reginae from South America. Natural gardening doesn’t work.”īananas, ginger plants and Cape gooseberries ( Physalis peruviana) flourish in the lee of coffee trees, Norfolk Island pines ( Araucaria excelsa) and Podocarpus elongatus trees from the Cape. “Gardeners will tell you how hard it is to sustain a convincing wildflower meadow.
The greatest changes, however, are evident in the top zone, above 2,000ft, which is now covered in mist and completely vegetated - a jungle of trees, bamboos and shrubs interspersed by grassy glades. The drier, unirrigated lowlands support guavas, prickly pears, mesquites ( Prosopis juliflora) and Nicotiana tobacco trees from Mexico. Halfway down the mountain slopes are plants you would see in a Mediterranean garden, including eucalyptus, casuarinas and mimosas. The strategy was a great success and, today, the volcano is called Green Mountain. People could settle and Ascension could become a useful coaling and victualling station. There was no telling which plants would establish themselves, but the survivors would naturalise and develop a new ecology for the entire island that would attract moisture enough to create springs of water. They knew that most would die, but hoped that some would flourish. Father and son began to ship some 220 different taxa - exotic plants from all over the world - for planting on Ascension. Hooker’s father was the director of Kew Gardens - which was a help. The two scientists devised a plan for greening Ascension to make food growing possible and to produce enough fresh water not only for the garrison, but also for visiting ships. Darwin was followed in 1843 by his friend Joseph Hooker, the botanist and explorer. Charles Darwin visited it in 1836 during his second Beagle voyage, describing it as arid and treeless, with nothing growing near the coast. The Marines held onto Ascension Island after the death of Napoleon. It produced about 500 gallons of water a day, barely sufficient for the small garrison of Royal Marines, their crops and their animals. The British Navy did eventually find a small spring in a valley on the ‘wrong’ side of the mountain, however. ALAND ISLAND, ALBANIA, ALGERIA, AMERICAN SAMOA, ANDORRA, ANGOLA, ANGUILLA, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, ARGENTINA, ARMENIA, ARUBA, ASCENSION, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA. Country Life's Top 100 architects, builders, designers and gardenersīritain only took possession of Ascension after the battle of Waterloo, as a precaution against the possible escape of Napoleon from exile on St Helena far to the south-east.
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