ISSUE 6 – SUMMER 2020
CELEBRATING THE JOYS OF GARDENING AND NATURE

Welcome to the summer edition of Bloom! It’s packed with practical advice, inspiring stories about nature and a celebration of all things green.

In issue 6, we round up the best plants for a shady window box or border, there’s a pro’s guide to growing mushrooms, as well as top tips on caring for air plants.

Keep flicking and you’ll find the best nature books for children, a love letter to the UK’s landscapes and a line up of prized perennials as chosen by expert plantspeople. Plus more things to do, grow and cook throughout the season…

Beautiful and hardworking, Bloom is for anyone with a passion for nature: so dig in, whether you have a garden, a balcony or a windowsill.

The themes for this issue focus on extinction, reconnection and redesign, alongside a series of dialogues.

LIVING CLOSE TO THE EDGE

The issue opens with photographer Kazi Md. Jahirul Islam’s extraordinary picture essay on the floods in Bangladesh and the damage that they wreak on everyday life in Chittagong. Aaron Davies looks at efforts to save the world’s wild coffee species, many of which are at risk of extinction. And Anna Souter explores how plants, surviving the worst manmade disasters, can offer an alternative model for living in the face of the environmental crisis.

A TIME TO RECONNECT

Victor Steffenson’s words and Peter McConchie’s photographs create a powerful message for our cover story, which looks at how Indigenous fire management methods could help save Australia and improve the environment. We also hear how conservationists in the UK are using a creative approach to engage people with nature. And our picture story from the Choithram Netralaya eye hospital in Indore reveals how free cataract operations can help India’s poorest regain their sight and their lives.

REDESIGN / RETHINK / REWORK

We examine how community groups and retailers are changing the way we access and engage with food and with each other, from a movement to promote simple plant-based recipes in working class areas of Brazil to the Kitchen Social in north London, UK, which brings the local community together around food and activities. We also talk to designer and author Julia Watson about how traditional Indigenous technologies could be adapted to improve modern cities.

DIALOGUES

Climate activist Ayisha Siddiqa describes how her personal history led her to the climate movement, writer Jonny Keen looks at wildlife on a brownfield site, and journalist Paul F Cockburn explores how we need darkness in our lives.

Product Dimensions: 240mm x 170mm

Pages: 128

Courier Issue 35

From leadership principles for troubling times, to tips on refreshing (and reopening) your business, our June/July issue is packed with all the stories and tools you need to reemerge from the global health crisis with confidence, inspiration and a solid plan. 

Also in this issue:

-How to be a resilient (and better) leader

-Tips on boosting your emotional intelligence

-From craft breweries to taxi firms, why are worker-owned co-ops on the rise?

-Business opportunities in the post pandemic world

-On the frontline of managing a chocolate supply chain

-What short-term pivots will become permanent?

-Sustainability’s godfather on the top principles to follow

-Lessons from Mexico’s first zero-waste supermarket

Besides providing botanical content in a simple, personal and cozy way; The Plant offers plant lovers a new look at greenery by featuring the works of many creative people who share our love for plants.

As a curious observer of ordinary plants and other greenery, the magazine presents a monograph on a specific plant; bringing together photographers, illustrators, designers, musicians, writers and visual artists, both established and emerging, from all over the world.

These people share with The Plant their unique perceptions and experiences of plants.

The Belonging Volume

The Belonging Volume takes a planetary perspective to reflect on the significance of our existence and that of the intricate network of ecosystems we inhabit. It explores how intimate knowledge of nature can enable us to feel at home outdoors, and how finding wonder in our everyday lives can profoundly impact our worldview. It listens to the voices of the younger generation and ruminates on the concept of intergenerational equity, and it hears stories of collective action to tackle some of today’s most pressing issues. It inspires us to humbly step back from our anthropogenic view on the world so we may find belonging in nature and come home to ourselves.

A brand new collection of thought provoking stories of adventure, exploration and experience.

144 pages, perfect bound, and printed in full colour on FSC approved uncoated 120gsm paper in the United Kingdom.

The themes we explored for the second issue of Where the Leaves Fall focused on death, journey and seeds, alongside a number of essays in the dialogues section. 

ALL THINGS MUST PASS

In this section we look at how Ana Mendieta celebrated her own mortality in her work, exploring the cycle of life and death and our connection with nature. Transcending the spiritual and philosophical to the actual, Antonina Savytska’s visceral images of the last months of her aunt’s life paints a stark and honest portrait of our relationship not just with death, but the life that leads us there and the patterns and behaviours of the ancestors that live through us. And we look at how societal conventions around death, developed to make the process as comfortable and acceptable as possible, are being challenged by environmentalists with the aim of ‘greening’ the system.

THROUGH OUR JOURNEY

We begin our exploration of journey (as well as the cover image) with The Flower Laboratory’s reuse of heather flowers leftover from a fashion shoot as art, as communion, as rehabilitation. Then we explore the Russian cultural phenomenon of the dacha, the plot of land and residence beyond the city boundaries where people can escape to nature. With ayahuasca, another way to commune with nature, we question the impact of yagé tourism on Indigenous communities.

LIVING WITH SEEDS

Seeds are a ubiquitous part of our daily lives and in this section we explore different seed interactions – whether it’s searching for endangered flora in Kyrgyzstan, understanding how seeds are used to communicate with ancestors in Zimbabwe, discovering the world’s largest seed in the Seychelles, or exploring the structure and ways seeds disperse through the camera’s lens.

DIALOGUES

Our dialogues offer a range of ideas and different perspectives, including climate change activism in Africa, how death should be celebrated as a part of the food cycle, the water element, bringing climate change to our doorstep, the ecosystems that thrive above our heads, and drawing a garden in motion.

Product Dimensions: 240mm x 170mm

Pages: 128

ISSUE 5 – SPRING 2020
CELEBRATING THE JOYS OF GARDENING AND NATURE

Welcome to the spring edition of Bloom! It’s packed with practical advice, inspiring stories about nature and a celebration of all things green.

In issue 5, you’ll get the full lowdown on planting seeds to create a beautiful container garden, learn about ‘rewilding’ your garden, and get top tips on caring for carnivorous houseplants. We also share excellent suggests for unusual potatoes, delicious herbs and scented plants, as well as stories on the power of community farms, the brilliance of kitchen gardens and even an eye-opening report on having an eco afterlife. All that, plus more things to do, grow, cook and buy throughout the spring season…

Beautiful and hardworking, Bloom for anyone with a passion for nature: so dig in, whether you have a garden, a balcony or a windowsill.

Issue Two - A Borrowed Landscape

‘Borrowed Landscape’ seemed a fitting title for our second issue as so many of the gardens and people we visited allowed their locality to form a distinctive signature to their story. We talk to Fergus Garrett, head gardener at Great Dixter, who takes us on a sensory tour of the world famous Sussex garden. We take to the road to uncover hidden gardens in the Scottish Highlands and Inner Hebrides. Join in conversation with River Cottage chef Gill Meller, to discuss his honest approach to food and writing. We discover the story behind the Japanese Garden created in a secluded valley in Cornwall and explore the beautifully time worn gardens of Rousham, an enduring example of the English Landscape Movements. Where the grounds can be enjoyed in much the same way the 18th century visitor would have explored the paths and lingered over the vistas.

This issue sees us go Au Naturel - uncovering a theme that has had shifting boundaries and conflicting definitions. Our Icon William Robinson was a man who sought to imagine a new, more ‘natural’ style of gardening. Jo Metson Scott photographs his legacy at Gravetye with words by Richard Bisgrove. Jonny Bruce takes us on a journey to three subversive gardens that liberated his thinking of what a garden could be. We revisit Howards Sooley’s photographs of Derek Jarman and Dungeness and he shares memories of this friend Mourned by the Wind.

Concepts of beauty are bought under the spotlight with Against Nature by Bethan Cole, photographed by Drew Vickers, and A Vision of Beauty by Sarah Jane Downing. We also take a look at The Bush with artist Ruth van Beek and explore the idea of being naked in At One with Nature. The vegetable gardens of chef Alain Passard are documented over a year by Alexandre Guirkinger - with an interview by Paul Henry-Bizon and we explore the combination of Food and Flowers with Simone Gooch, photographed by Joaquin Laguinge.

Naturally we consider gender and sexuality, so often defined by people on behalf of others. Here Pleasure Garden commissioned artist Linder Sterling to explore film stills from the old porn studio at Flamingo Estate in Los Angeles and we talk to the designer Erdem Moralıoğlu about fashion and self-expression.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the death of American photographer Linda McCartney, The Plant magazine and musician Paul McCartney, have teamed up to put together a story of unpublished work by the artist and her passion for flowers. Both covers of The Plant 13 are by Linda, the first one with Paul and Heather in Devon (1969) and the other one showing Stella McCartney in Scotland (1973).

Also featuring in this issue the curious world of artist Batia Suter with Natural Grammar, a report on the 12th edition of Manifesta in Palermo through the lenses of Sam Rock and we travel to the rural area of Kangra in India with Tom Johnson to meet the local farmers. Laura
Hawkins and Scheltens & Abbenes take a look on the fashion designer Paul Poiret and Raoul Dufy’s patterns. And Cameranesi Pompili and photographer Ilaria Orsini contribute with Objet Trouvé, a series of selected contemporary flower vases.

Plus: Woman as Tree, Tree as Woman, by writer and art critic Hettie Judah; and a pagan festival in Spain Os Maios by Tex Bishop where people dress like trees. Also From the Earth, a collaboration with French fashion brand Lemaire photographed by Alice Neale. Other stories
take a look on the insidious Plastic Addiction and the bird life in Wissant by Estelle Hanania and Sandra Berrebi.

Last and not least Loose Leaves, The Plant magazine’s short stories section with contributors like gardener Matthew Wright, design curator Zoe Ryan, perfumer Barnabé Fillion, illustrator Christina Zimpel, florist Ruby Barber and Bruno Mayrargue from Librairie Yvon Lambert, amongst others.

Broccoli is the international magazine for cannabis lovers.

Created by women who love weed, Broccoli is a magazine presenting a new perspective on cannabis culture. Playful, informed, eclectic, and thoughtful, it encourages the discovery and intelligent appreciation of cannabis through explorations of art, culture, and fashion.

Sprache: Englisch