Lindfield with Joyce Chalcraft

Here we are with another semi-grandmother of Jane's, Joyce. Her sister, Iris, lives in Australia and has been a family friend throughout the generations. We spent a night in her house in the village of Lindfield, near Haywards Heath. It's a beautiful little place with a famous village pond.

On Sunday she took us to Wakehurst Place, a National Trust home built around 1560. The house is actually not all that special inside but the surrounding gardens are owned by Kew Gardens (in London) and they're spectacular. The garden's beds are arranged by continent and they have plants from all over the world, including plenty from the Himalayas. We did a fascinating walking tour of a small section of the garden which took an hour to give to a sense of its size!

The Millenium Seed Bank is also on the property. This is also an amazing place where the seeds of all the plants in England are collected and stored at minus 20 degrees. They project that the seeds will keep for 1000 years and therefore they'll be able to stop any plants from becoming extinct. They also hold 10% of the world's plant and its moving up to 20% by 2020. Pretty encouraging to know just incase something nasty happens.
This tree was thought to be extinct. It's called a Wollemi Pine. It was discovered by David Noble, a parks offficer working West of Sydney. The seeds have been germinated and now botanists are trying to work out which conditions it prefers. Britain has this tree, one in London and another in Edinburough. A fossil of the trees foliage is dated back 90 million years. Its one old tree! They have to keep it in a cage in case someone decides to pinch it. And it has a thermometer on the cage to monitor the tempurature.