The Herm bees are now in their 4th year of production and when the Herm honey is on sale in the Herm Gift Shops it disappears off the shelves very quickly.  Ben Makemson (his day job is island maintenance engineer, helping keep plumbing, electrics and the internet running smoothly) is in charge of the bees.  This winter he has had the help of 15 year-old Hermite Will Knight who has taken on the skill of learning beekeeping for his bronze  Duke of Edinburgh award. 

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Every Tuesday from now until 11th September 2012 Herm’s head gardener, Brett Moore, will lead a guided walk of the Herm gardens.  This week the walk was part of the Spring Floral Guernsey Festival http://www.floralguernsey.gg Six hardy garden enthusiasts braved the choppy sea and joined Brett on his walk around the gardens of The White House Hotel, up the hill through the woodland walk and then into the gardener’s nursery. 

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For more information about the garden walks on Herm click here http://herm.com/activities/herm-garden-tours/default.aspx

I’m not talking a foreign language!  Convoluta Roscoffensis can be found on the beaches of Herm.  At low tide look out for ‘green sand’.  At first glance the green colouration of the sea water puddles may seem to be caused by accumulations of algae.  If you put a small amount of the ‘green sand’ into your hand or an empty shell you will see that the colour is due to millions of tiny green flatworms (up to 15 mm in length) continuously moving around.  The Convoluta Roscoffensis gather at the surface of the pools of water to provide optimal photosynthetic conditions for the symbiont Tetraselmis convolutae, a green algae living inside the flatworm’s body.

Next time you walk around the beaches of Herm on the low tide don’t forget to look out for the ‘green sand’ and remember the science lesson you have just had!

It is during the winter months that the island gardeners can get stuck into new projects.  One of the projects for this year is the revamp of the church garden.  This is an ideal opportunity for new Herm resident and assistant gardener, Roseanne Wheeler to put all that she has learnt into practice.  Rosie graduated this year from Writtle College with a BSc in Landscape & Garden design.

The church garden is where the new Herm daffodil is going to be planted.  Horticulturist, Rae Beckwith began nurturing the Herm daffodil in 2001.  After visiting Herm as a judge for the Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom competition he decided to name the daffodil after Herm.

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To read Cheryl’s articles about Roseanne and the Herm daffodil click the links below.

http://www.thisisguernsey.com/news/news-from-herm/2011/10/21/roseanne-is-herms-new-gardener/

http://www.thisisguernsey.com/news/news-from-herm/2011/09/30/award-winning-herm-daffodil-to-reside-in-chapel-garden/

Anyone walking around Herm can’t fail to have noticed the recent abundance of fungi.  There does seem to be more variety than usual – maybe this is down to the very mild November weather we have been having?

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Young Hermites Brandon and Emy have enjoyed helping their neighbour, Mrs B, grow sunflowers.  They have  watched the progress of the plants growth over the summer months and were keen to water them regularly and report on the speed at which they were growing! 

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Every year Herm Island enter the community competition of Floral Guernsey.  This year the team were delighted to be the overall winner and also get a gold award.  The team also came away with the award for the ‘best local environment’.  This is a discretionary award presented to the community or a sector within a community judged to have the best co-ordinated approach to resolving environmental issues in harmony with each other.  Herm was commended for the recent work on recycling.

Herm will now go forward to represent the Bailiwick of Guernsey in Britain in Bloom 2012.

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Note for Gadget Show fans.  The transmission date for the programme that was filmed in the Bailiwick of Guernsey has been changed to Friday 26th August, 8pm, Channel Five.

This photo features for January in the 2012 Herm calendar.  It was taken by Mike Taylor.

The 2012 Herm calendar can now be ordered from the Herm Giftshops please click here for more details http://www.herm.com/gift-shops/herm-calendar-2012/default.aspx

All year round Mike ‘the fish’ Rowe can be seen with a paintbrush in his hand.  In the winter he is joined by his wife Helena, who in the summer months can be found working at one of the beach cafes.  This year Jana Ondrejovicova is helping Helena and they are gradually working their way through a number of hotel bedrooms and holiday cottages.  Jana has spent 3 summers working on Herm, the past two with Helena in the beach cafes.  When I caught up with Mike he was painting the Mermaid Tavern restaurant. 

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I spotted this beautiful array of violets in the grass just outside the Mermaid Cottages.  It won’t be long before the violets will be flowering on the east coast banks amongst the primroses.

.....Stop Press...... The 2011 Herm calendar has now been reduced to £1.00.  Click here for details http://www.herm.com/gift-shops/herm-calendar-2011/default.aspx

Every September the gardeners organise a community barbecue which gives us all a chance to get-together after a busy summer.  For many it is the first time they have had the opportunity to chat to other residents since the spring time!  The children were encouraged to make fruit and vegetable creatures and also to create miniature gardens.  What brilliant ideas they all came up with. 

The adults were asked to compete for the ‘Heaviest Marrow’ title and to bring along any strange shaped vegetables that they had grown.  For the second year running Richard Knight won the heaviest marrow to the disappointment of the others who thought that they were in with a chance.  Towards the end of the summer the cows got into the area where the allotments are and managed to trash most of what was growing there – luckily for Richard they missed his marrow!

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