Glasshouse Greenhouse: Haarkon's world tour of amazing botanical spaces

"The authors of Glasshouse Greenhouse set out to visit, document and photograph the world’s botanic gardens’ glasshouses – including those at Oxford Botanic Garden. As a child, I grew up in a house full of books – books falling off the shelves and piling onto the floor. I was surrounded by them. And I developed a curious habit of sniffing the pages of every book I picked up – one I haven’t quite shaken off. Some smell old, like vanilla; others smell fresh, like rain on warm ground. Glasshouse Greenhouse is one of those sumptuous books that smells so good it’s worth buying for its smell alone. It’s also a visual treat, with tropical foliage sprawling luxuriantly over every page. This is one of those books you can keep on your coffee table and feel happier just for knowing it’s there. Because we are a botanic garden, we grow plants from all around the world. This means that there is an incredible diversity of plant species in a small area. In fact we grow 5000 different types of plant, some of which hold significant conservation value. They’re also an important resource for engaging people with the importance of plants – and this is a challenge: as animals ourselves, we are attuned to seeing other animals; we tend to perceive plants as a green backdrop against which we exist, as I mentioned earlier. Known metaphorically as ‘plant blindness,’ this is concerning because we depend on plants for our very existence. Inspiring large audiences with the wonder of plants is important – especially new generations who will be the next custodians of our world’s flora. This is something I take very seriously. Parasitic and carnivorous plants have always intrigued me. They challenge our perception of what a plant is, and how it behaves. Most plants rely on energy from sunlight and nutrients from soil to grow and survive, but parasitic and carnivorous plants obtain their nutrients by other means. They’ve evolved fascinating, and seemingly cunning, ways to achieve this – and every year scientists unearth new surprises about them. They are full of intrigue. In fact these plants grow in just about every terrestrial habitat you can think of. But rainforests – as some of the most biodiverse places on earth – are especially rich in them."