#wetlandsketches – peat cultures

A place for shelter and spending the winter

On a windy February lunchtime, I set out for the Natuurtuin (natural garden) in Wageningen University grounds.

The board explained that the garden was laid out using local soil types. Along the edge of the path leading to the large pond, heaps of earth have been brought to the surface.

Green shoots were springing through the mole-hills.

A gentle sound of bricks being tapped into place came from the adjacent block of ground, with a swish of sand being swept across them.

A pump suggested underground construction. I had learnt from the notice-board that rainwater from the large pond is used as grey water in Lumen (one of the university buildings).

Further along the path, I saw that the natural garden is bounded by a heap of rubble. I am learning to see this as a sculpture – a work in more-than-human progress.

I was prompted to read more about this artwork which was created in 1996 by the sculptor Krijn Giezen. He was known for re-using debris to create structures that might eventually be seen as a natural part of the landscape, as plants grow over them. Giezen proposed a hollow wall that would with time provide shelter for wildlife, including bats.

This proposal for a Shelter and Overwintering Place for Flora and Fauna seems to have been criticised by staff. Some people were uneasy about the use of waste materials, and could not envisage what the completed work would look like. The installation was also complicated by the municipality’s requirement for both a building and environmental permit.

Despite being reduced in scale and scope, Giezen’s work survives as a refuge amidst new building work.

Trees are slowly becoming established. This work really grows on me too.

I returned on an even wetter day to see what creatures might be using the shelter, and realised that this artwork must be watched over time. Perhaps video conveys the place better than a photo can; you can see and hear the raindrops on this short clip:

Parts of Giezen’s wall seem to have become a research site. I assume the way some trees are wired up means that they are being studied.

A Coot was foraging by the banks of the large pond, unperturbed by the water-drops running off its back.

The natural garden affords different kinds of foraging and shelter; it is a place with heaps of possibilities within a University of Life Sciences. I appreciate the pioneering environmental art of Krijn Giezen: right behind the bike-sheds, he has created a place that rewards attention.

Postscript

The next day, the builders took the barrier tape away. Pieter Slim kindly guided me to the focal point of the wall which I had not been able to see earlier. At the western edge, there is a tailor made entrance for hibernating bats – protected from martens who are also catered for.

This post is one in a series of #wetlandsketches in and around Wageningen University, a centre of expertise in the Life Sciences. As author of this post, responsibility for the content, and any unintended errors, is all mine.

My thanks to Pieter Slim for highlighting Giezen's project. 

Reference: Jansen, B, Ruyten L, de Windt, R and Zaal, A. (Editors) Lumen, Gaia, Atlas: Architectuur, kunst en tuinen van de gebouwen van de Environmental Sciences Group. Wageningen University: 2010.

Missing Bog Moss

“Water lifts its wings in Sphagnum Moss“

This line encapsulates the dynamic relationship between rain and Bog Moss, and was written by Jos Smith (poet and academic at the University of East Anglia, UK).

My line-drawing responded to the idea that Sphagnum species (bog-forming mosses) are typically 85% water.

Sphagnum moss growing in a pool at Fochterloerveen, Northern Netherlands.

The green in the photo above is made by a species of Sphagnum moss that especially loves water. This was taken in January in Fochterloerveen (Drente Province, Northern Netherlands). The bog pool is surrounded by Molinia grasses that are beautiful in their own right, but whose success can pose questions for land managers.

Domination of a peatbog by Molinia grass might be the legacy of fire. Usually, a strand of Sphagnum moss has just one head (called a capitulum), but these plants can respond by growing many heads if a fire burns just the top layer off (as described by Dr Emily Taylor, recorded in a previous post).

I miss the presence of Bog Moss in the landscape, and went to look for it in Wageningen University Library. The botany collection has a definitive book on Dutch Bog Mosses: De Nederlandse Veenmossen by ACAM van der Pluijm and GM Dirkse.

The diagrams in this book describe typical Bog Moss structure, and give information about how to key out different species. All Bog Mosses have hyaline cells that expand when the plants become saturated with water, within their varied structures. Before now, I have experimented with how lines can show the presence of water in the hyaline cells of these remarkable plants.

Thank you to Jos Smith for permission to quote from an unpublished work, ‘Upstream Thinking’, created in celebration of peat restoration projects in south west England.

This post is one in a series of #wetlandsketches tracing how peatland lives might ‘appear’ in and around Wageningen University, a centre of expertise in the Life Sciences. I am also making connections to other artwork on wetland themes. As author of this post, responsibility for the content, and any unintended errors, is all mine. Kate Foster

Follow #wetlandsketches on twitter: @peat_cultures

From the Miocene

The World Soil Museum is an independent foundation in Wageningen University with a display of soil monoliths and an extensive reference collection. ‘Monoliths’ are vertical sections of soil that are up to two metres deep and show the varied layers of soil. As a collection, the diversity of soil colours and textures is striking. I have to make frequent visits to learn to draw from this splendid array.

A different kind of object stands upright in the museum: it seems to be a sculpture of a tree trunk.

I draw to learn about it’s form. A series of ‘knots’ hint at a ring of branches.

The museum label tells me that this 6 million year-old fossil was once part of a forest of Glyptostroboxylon tenerum. Googling tells me that contemporary mammals had largely evolved in the Miocene era, but I fail to track down the shape of the tree itself. It seems many upright trunks were found, but very few that were lying down. What happened? I cannot envisage the environment in which this tree once grew or how it became a fossil.

However, the museum label does help imagine the place where this upright tree trunk was found – an open cast lignite mine at Hoensbroek in the south of The Netherlands.

Detail of label for *Glyptostroboxylon tenerum* in the World Soil Museum, Wageningen University.

Lignite, or brown coal, is peat that has been compressed by the layers above. It is still widely mined in western Europe, as detailed here. While I draw, tonal scales combine with timely reflections and my tongue rehearses names and concepts that are new to me (such as N.V Maatchappij tot Exploitatie van Bruinkoolvelden ‘Carisberg’ – The Company of Exploitation of Lignite Fields at Carisberg).

A small detail brings this fossil’s more recent history to life.

Until recently, it was displayed in the Soil Science and Geology Department (now Soil Geography and Landscape) in Wageningen University. Four drawing pins mark a previous label.

Later, I meet a former student of Soil Science and wonder aloud if it had been tempting to touch the object? No! I am assured that this specimen of Glyptostroboxylon tenerum was well out of reach in the stairwell. I appreciate the close-up view that I am now able to enjoy.

I am marking World Wetlands Day by spending a week tracing how peatland lives might ‘appear’ in and around Wageningen University. Maybe the biodiversity of peatlands can be tracked down in the archives, in the landscape, in artwork, in libraries… ? This project also seeks connections with artists working elsewhere on wetland themes. As artist and author of this post, responsibility for the content and any unintended errors is mine. Kate Foster

Follow #wetlandsketches #art4wetlands on twitter – @peat_cultures

Aspen, perhaps

As homage to Betje Polak’s scientific drawings of pollen, this morning I studied a leaf found on wintery peatland ground in the Hoge Venen / Hautes Fagnes in East Belgium. From the length of the leaf’s stem, I thought it might be Aspen.

Seeing these leaves on the ground had reminded me of how scarce Aspen is in Scotland. The edge between our bogs and forests are often sharp lines of plantation spruce. I once tried to soften such a line, in an earlier project where I cultivated aspen.

Leaf – perhaps an Aspen – with a photograph by Ed Iglehart of Silver Flowe, Galloway, Scotland.

Back in Wageningen, I pinned my sample leaf on a noticeboard – imagining the presence of aspen in a panorama of Silver Flowe (a Ramsar site in south west Scotland). Aspens are known for how their leaves move in wind, making a rustle that can reach a crescendo in autumn. The leaves edges are toothed – a definitive shape that I need to learn.

The tree bark has whitish areas, with a diamond patterns.

This sketch followed. I thought about how a leaf can be collected and stilled. The intricate tonal range caught me.

I was tempted to keep working, but then decided to use this leaf as a pointer to take a breath outside, where the sun is shining.

It takes a hot summer to bring Aspen to flower: perhaps I may learn more about the ancient history of curious and beautiful tree from Betje Polak’s innovative studies of pollen in peat.

Follow #wetlandsketches #art4wetlands on twitter – @peat_cultures

What a nice plant!

I have adopted a small cactus in a jar. She was on the table that has become my studio in the Home Turf Project. As Dutch phrases form slowly in my head, a statement bubbles up: Wat een mooie plant! It’s a bit like you might say if you happen to be given a bunch of tulips: Those are nice flowers! The typical oilcloth I have been lent for my table contributes to this homely appearance, a comfort and inspiration as I start work.

An image of a cactus in a jar with some earth, maybe peat, and gravel.

An uncomfortable question surfaces however. The jar has layers of brown amongst the white pebbles, it is a kind of soil that looks very like peat. I struggle with how to express these diverse little words in Dutch: Waar komt haar aarde vandaan? Where does her soil come from?

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Thinking about Angus

Angus is a Black Grouse whose afterlife persists in an atmosphere of geographical enquiry.

Questions come to mind. Who hunted the moorlands where he came from? Who transformed his body into this pose, and where? Investigating such a skin creates the task of travelling back and forth in time and place: I know this from a previous encounter with another quintessential moorland bird, a female hen harrier (in Dutch blauwe kiekendief, or blue chicken thief). Shared investigations led to reflections on the ongoing persecution of birds of prey to conserve the interests of those who hunt gamebirds for sport. Scottish cultural geographers, Hayden Lorimer and Merle Patchett, added new lines of enquiry to a study skin held in the University of Glasgow Hunterian Zoological collection.

The name that Angus has acquired creates a Scottish connection within a hub of European Life Science, Wageningen University. I am mindful of our contemporary concern over intensified human management of moors that produce grouse. But perhaps this bird originated on the Hoge Venen, the High Moors – perhaps in the Ardennes or the former peat colonies in the North of The Netherlands?

This skin indeed offers a spectral presence of not only one bird’s life but also the ecological web that created it, and the human histories that are imbricated.

Follow #wetlandsketches #art4wetlands on twitter – @peat_cultures