Mistletoe was due to be featured, live, on Sky News’ Sunrise show this morning. But David Cameron’s announcement about police and guns changed their schedules, and so the mistletoe got dropped. Which was a tad annoying, as Dave’s announcement wasn’t exactly exciting and could (surely) have waited until Monday (should I write to Dave to complain?). Whereas I had travelled over to Isleworth (in west London, where the Sky studios are) the night before, ready […]
Biodiversity , Current Affairs , Mistletoe , Orchard , social history
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Getting a feel for GOT’s mistletoe
A quick visit to the Gloucestershire Orchard Trust (GOT)’s newly-acquired orchards at Longney, to admire/assess the mistletoe there. GOT have recently bought two traditional orchards, Long Tyning and Bollow, plus another orchard (now mostly gone) in an adjoining field. All next to the tidal Severn just below Gloucester at Longney. I’ve known the site for many years, partly as part of a circular walk we like to do along the river, but also because of […]
Current Affairs , Media , Mistletoe , social history
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Morrisons turns into Mwah-issons for a day
Is kissing under mistletoe on the decline? Research commissioned by Morrisons supermarkets suggest it might be. Only 14% of those surveyed said they kissed under mistletoe last year, which is not many. And, worse than that, 71% of those under 35 had never been kissed under mistletoe! So perhaps the custom is slowly dying out, at least among the younger generation. Which would be a shame, as the custom or some variant of it, has […]
Current Affairs , Gardening , Media , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science , social history
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Mistletoe in the media, so far, 2015
It’s been a surprisingly quiet year, so far, for mistletoe in the media. Though we still have nearly two weeks to go before Christmas, so there’s still plenty of time for more… Most of the coverage I’ve seen is in local papers. There have been the usual reports about the Tenbury Mistletoe Auctions and Festival in the regional and local press including the Shropshire Star, Western Morning News and Ludlow and Tenbury Wells Advertiser. Local TV covered […]
Current Affairs , Gardening , Media , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science , social history
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Too little mistletoe?
It’s all very well talking about the ‘bumper crop’ and too much mistletoe if you’re in a mistletoe-rich area (i.e Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Somerset) but most of the UK has very little mistletoe. So the situation across most of the country is, as usual, too little mistletoe. Why so much in some areas over others? It’s all to do with mistletoe’s preferred climate, which means it thrives and spreads naturally in key counties but […]
Current Affairs , Gardening , Mistletoe , Orchard , Science , social history
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Too much mistletoe?
Can you have too much mistletoe? I don’t mean hanging in the hallway – where garlands of the stuff might be needed if you’ve a high-maintenance kisser in the house. I mean in the tree, where it grows as a parasite. Can there be too much there? The answer of course (as I’ve said many times before in this blog) is that yes, a tree can have too much mistletoe, and if left unchecked both […]