Hi Bulb Buddies,

I want to say a big thank you for all your hard work on planting day. You helped to plant 11,183 bulbs across the country and from the photos I’ve seen, it looks like you all had a great time doing it!

Weather records should be kept from 1st November. Please make sure that your thermometer and rain gauge are in a suitable place next to your bulbs so that you can take weather readings every day that you are in school. Don’t worry if you are on holiday this week, you can enter ‘no record’ for any days that you are not in school. 

There is a resource on the website to help you prepare for taking Weather Records. I’ve attached this here in case you haven’t already seen it. This resource helps you to answer important questions, such as ‘why rainfall and temperature readings are important to our investigation into the effects of climate on the flowering dates of spring bulbs’!

Use your Weather Chart to log the rainfall and temperature every school day. At the end of the week, log into the Amgueddfa Cymru website to add your weekly findings. You can also leave comments or ask questions for me to answer in my next Blog. 

Let me know how you get on. You can share photos with me via email or X/Twitter.

Keep up the good work Bulb Buddies,

Professor Plant

The Secret Garden is a horticulture and history project funded by the WCVA’s Volunteering Wales Grant. We work with adults with Learning Disabilities and community volunteers to develop and care for a cottage garden based at St Fagans National Museum of History. We also support project participants in researching the history of the garden, Ysgubor Fawr cottage on-site, and its past inhabitants using St Fagans’ archives and Glamorgan Archives.

The Secret Garden project has two themes. It is both a gardening and historical research project. We offer the opportunity to take part in hands-on gardening sessions at our garden at Saint Fagans to learn about and trial gardening techniques from the past, such as planting for medicinal or cleaning purposes. Participants will also research the garden, the cottage and its inhabitants in partnership with St Fagans National Museum of History and Glamorgan Archives.

Participants who attend the Secret Garden Project are able to learn a variety of skills including teamwork, communication, co-ordination and much more to help assist and support them in their personal development. A safe and secure working environment ensures that participants are able to learn at their own pace whether they are learning about horticulture or history. The Secret Garden Project is able to cater for their needs and have a positive impact on their health and well-being.  

Our activities are free of charge, and we encourage anyone to join. Participants can take part in either the gardening or history element or both if they wish! 

Head to the Innovate Trust website to learn more about the Secret Garden, and how you can get involved - The Secret Garden | Innovate Trust (innovate-trust.org.uk).

It's Planting Day Bulb Buddies!

176 Schools from across the UK will be joining together to plant 11,183 bulbs for this fantastic project.

We run a Planting Day creative media competition every year that encourages schools to showcase planting day at their school. Watch this space to see the winning entries in November!

Meanwhile, we'll be following every stage of the Investigation on this Blog. We'll hear from pupils directly, as they share their comments when uploading their weekly weather data. We'll regularly check in with schools to hear about any extreme weather in their areas and any issues that might affect their weather stations or planting areas (in the past this has included hungry squirrels!) 

We'll watch with pupils for the first signs of spring and share their excitement as the first shoots and then the first flowers appear. 

We will then review the weather and flower data for the period November 2023-March 2024, and compare it to data collected since 2005 to see if we can spot any trends. 

We hope that you will join us on this fun journey as we explore the effects of weather and climate change on spring bulbs. 

Professor Plant

Over the past three years staff from History & Archaeology & Natural Sciences have been on a journey with artist and animator Sean Harris exploring the future of the Welsh landscape and our relationship with it. This entailed workshops in Loggerheads Country Park, installations in and around the Clwydian Range AONB, and has now culminated with a new exhibition in the Senedd and Pierhead Buildings in Cardiff Bay.

The exhibition combines items from Amgueddfa Cymru with animations and artworks created by Sean. The artworks give voice to two iconic birds: the Curlew – which may be gone from Wales in less than a decade – and the Great Auk – whose tragic demise, raises stark questions of our capacity to learn from past mistakes. Together they speak of the far-reaching consequences of our actions as consumers and an unsustainable relationship with the natural world.

Incorporated within the displays are the Great Auk (and replica egg) which became extinct in the 1840s, and the Thylacine or Marsupial Wolf that became extinct on mainland Australia at least 2,000 years ago. Prior to European settlement, around 5,000 thylacines remained in the wild in Tasmania. It was perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty hunting was introduced. It became globally extinct when the last known specimen died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.

Also on display are 11,000 year old perforated and decorated deer and wild cow teeth from Kendrick’s Cave, Great Orme, that once formed a necklace worn at the end of the last Glacial period. These, along with hyaena remains from Coygan Cave, Laugharne, were chosen as a way of connecting us to other species lost from our landscape, and to the ways we as humans have commodified their remains. 

This exhibition brings important messages about habitat and species conservation into the heart of Welsh Parliament and hopefully helps shape a better future for generations to come. For the Amgueddfa Team of Jules, Jen and Elizabeth this has been an exciting journey culminating in seeing these rare and special items from our collections on public display alongside Sean’s amazing art.

Find out more about the exhibition, including Senedd open times here.

We recently welcomed Memory Jar, a support group for people affected by dementia in Cowbridge, to St Fagans National Museum of History. This visit was part of Museums Inspiring Memories, a three-year partnership project between Amgueddfa Cymru and Alzheimer’s Society Cymru that aims to use our museums, collections and resources to develop practical ways to improve the quality of life of people affected by dementia.

Now into its second year, one of the project’s aims is to develop a more comprehensive and sustainable programme of dementia-friendly activities, both at our museums and in the community. At this stage in the project, we are starting to develop and trial activities, inviting community groups to come and take part and tell us what they think. This, in turn, will help us shape and develop our offer and programme before its launch next Spring.

The visit 

On the 9th August, 29 members of Memory Jar joined us for a tour of two of the galleries at St Fagans – ‘Wales Is…’ and ‘Life Is…’. This was followed by tea, coffee, cake and conversation about the visit. We asked the group what they had enjoyed and if they had any suggestions about how we could improve future activities. 

In the ‘Wales is…’ gallery, the group took part in a tour with Gareth Rees (Dementia Voice Lead for Museums Inspiring Memories) and Loveday Williams (Senior Learning, Participation and Interpretation Officer). Gareth and Loveday introduced some of the objects in the gallery, the displays of which have been curated to reflect the different meanings and perspectives of ‘Wales’, including themes of ‘Multiculturalism’, ‘Pride’, ‘Politics’ and ‘Conflict'.

In the ‘Life is…’ gallery, the group were given a tour and description of some of the exhibits on display, led by Gareth Beech, Senior Curator of Rural Economy. In this gallery, displays of objects are organised into themes which describe different aspects of life in Wales over time, from cafes to cookery, rural life, industry, holidays and childhood. One of the popular objects here was the old, cast iron Preston & Thomas fish frying range, which generated a lot of conversation and memories in the group.

Following the gallery visits, we all came together as one group. As well as general conversation, each table was asked to give their thoughts on one question in particular using stickers: ‘How did the gallery visit make you feel today?’ For this question the team provided six options: three positive (Happy, Interested and Inspired) and three negative (Unhappy, Bored and Uncomfortable), as well as a space to contribute any other feelings they may have had. People were also able to give feedback about the day by sharing with us their favourite items in the gallery, using post-its, pens and images of some of the objects. We also asked the group what they had enjoyed about their visit and how they find visiting museums generally. 

All in all, feedback was very positive, with many reporting that they had enjoyed the visit. Many people indicated that they had felt happy, inspired by and interested in the gallery tours. Others said that it made them feel ‘nostalgic’ and ‘patriotic’. Some of the objects had sparked conversations and triggered some memories of family life, including the old hand mangle, which reminded one lady of her mother and grandmother using one of these.

“A lovely reminder of the past” 

“It made me think how close my memories are, wherever I came from (Yorkshire), or later Wales for 40+ years. Wales should be proud of its tradition and continue to keep welcoming others” 

“Displays and written information were at wheelchair level. Good.” 

“My fav object was the harp and music items. It would have been nice to have some Welsh music playing.”

“I found the experience very nostalgic”

“More chairs!” 

(Some of the participants’ feedback)

“The buzz of animated conversation continued in the bus all the way home to Cowbridge. A lovely atmosphere of people who were enjoying a great day out. Back at Memory Jar the week after the visit, we had the opportunity to look at photos of the day and to talk about things people remembered at the museum. Many very positive comments were made about how people had been inspired to reflect on aspects of their own story, with lovely memories of their own earlier days. One comment in particular made the whole thing worth doing: John, who is one of our quieter and less vocal members, was the first to respond to the whole group discussion about the visit. ‘Want to go again!’, he said, with a big smile, to be echoed with acclaim by the whole group.”

(Email from Colin, the Memory Jar group organiser, after the visit) 

Thank you 

The team wish to thank Memory Jar for their help in developing this work; we were delighted to show them around and to invite them to share their views about how we can make our museums more dementia-friendly in the future. We’d also like to thank Rotary Cowbridge for providing transport for the group, and the National Lottery Community Fund, who kindly support the Museums Inspiring Memories project. 

The visit by Memory Jar provided the team with a valued opportunity to begin exploring what our offer will be for the community. The enthusiastic response by the group, and the positive feedback, showed that heritage does have an important role in the everyday lives of people affected by dementia. As the work to pilot and develop our offer across all seven of our museums continues over the coming months, we look forward to further developing our work with Memory Jar and other groups and individuals across Wales.

Get in touch

For more information, the team can be contacted either by email on mims@museumwales.ac.uk or by phone on 029 2057 3418. If you’d like to receive our quarterly newsletter, please let us know, using the contact details shown above.