This year marks 100 years since the Magnus Spence Herbarium was gifted to the museum, a collection of over 900 pressed plants, algae, and bryophytes gathered across Orkney in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To celebrate this, and with funding from the North Isles Landscape Partnership Scheme's Legacy fund, we’ve embarked on a wildflower planting initiative in the Museum’s outdoor space, featuring native, locally sourced species. Orphir-based horticulturalist Martin Kenny is leading the planting with advice from Jenny Taylor and John Crossley.
Martin has so far placed five new planters, built at St Colms social enterprise, on Stromness Museum’s pier. They feature species such as sea mayweed and sea campion, kidney vetch and red clover. Later in the year, a small interpretation panel will introduce visitors to the herbarium, while QR codes will link to herbarium photographs and plant fact-files on our website.
The plants are proving to be attractive to pollinators. The project seeks to advance our 'Museum without Walls' ambition and offer an accessible way for visitors to connect with Orkney's natural heritage and our natural history collection. It is interesting to see the living plants alongside photographs of pressed specimens taken as part of our current Natural History Digitisation project. Hopefully the planters inspire folk to try sustainable wildflower planting in their own gardens and community spaces!
