Steve Pratt talks to poet Linda Francis’ about launching her project, called Botanical, at Durham Book Festival

POET Linda France has always been interested in flowers and written about them from time to time. Then a Leverhulme residency at Moorbank Botanical Gardens, which is part of Newcastle University, changed her outlook.

“A lot of people don’t know it’s there,” she says. “I was there nine months – not even a garden year, so I didn’t see the full cycle of seasons.

It was very clear I needed more time with a subject that really hooked me. I’m passionate about it.”

She became interested in not only our relationship with plants that grow in botanical gardens but how they might safeguard the future of the planet. “Moorbank is hosted by the school of biology so I was talking to scientists and ecologists about how important plants and botanical gardens are keeping us alive,” she explains.

“Botanic gardens are principally about conservation, education and research. Simply saving those species that still exist and the good they do more generally – the grand chain of events that keep us living. We do depend on them.”

They stabilise water in arid lands and are used in medicines. The yew tree, for instance, is being investigated for helping dementia patients.

Clinical trials are looking into how other plants can help in healing or to comfort.

Newcastle-born France, currently based close to Hadrian’s Wall, near Hexham, in Northumberland, will be launching her major project Botanical at the Durham Book Festival. “It’s a vast subject and once you start getting into this jungle there’s always something garden or plant related, and that shows how important they are.

It’s as if there’s a human need for them although we’re not necessarily aware of how truly vital they are.

“A lot of people – whether watching gardening programmes on TV or visiting garden centres – enjoy plants and flowers. It makes them feel better being in a garden and around plants.

Even people living in flats in towns have a few plants on their sill.”

FRANCE won an Arts Council lottery money award to research and develop her thoughts on botanical gardens and how they might help the world. She’s keeping a blog of her progress over the next few years.

That began more as a blog about nature and culture. “That was a first for me. I had an operation, was convalescing and thought I’d do a blog. It was useful in terms of testing a different voice. Poets generally err on the side of not saying much,” she says.

She’s planning to visit ten botanic gardens around the world. “Every time I talk to someone they say you must go to so-and-so, it’s great.”

First stop was a recent research trip to Padua in Italy to visit the oldest botanic garden in the world, which is on the same site and has the same layout as when it originated in 1545.

After Christmas, she plans to go to the southern hemisphere as part of her research into seasons.

“I’ve been working in a tropical house in Moorbank. It’s a very alien environment and I wanted to see in its natural environment, so I’m going to Australia in our winter and their summer.

“Our seasons have been disrupted more generally.

There’s a lot of research, commentary and responses to changes in the seasons. Things like unusual rainstorm events have really focused people’s minds on climate change. They see it not as some fancy notion of scientists noone has to pay attention to, but something that affects all our lives.”

She’s going to Sydney botanic gardens, visiting Singapore on the way and travelling home via Tokyo when the cherry blossom is out.

“One of the things that happened while I was at Moorbank was the tsunami and I felt it very keenly. I’m interested in Japanese cultural society and their poets. I wrote a poem about it.

“The tsunami was a powerful thing in making the world smaller and giving a sense of how fragile things are at the moment. I think this summer people have been complaining more. If we have a nice sunny day, people are bright and happy – before one of our Northern winters.

“People want to know what they can do about it. One thing we can do is grow things. Just growing, that’s going to be helpful. Gardens are very down to earth. I struggle with my garden.

I live in a not very conducive spot over 700ft above sea level with lots of wind.”

The result of all her research will be a book of poems and prose, incorporating old botanic illustrations that show the planning of these gardens at different stages.“What I’m doing fits in the spaces between gardening manuals, botanic books and the ecological side of things. I’m a poet and it’s a literary tradition I’m interested in.”

Her “companion poets” for her project include Goethe with The Metamorphosis Of Plants, first published in 1790, and DH Lawrence (“a really keen botanist, who wrote some lovely flower poems”).

“Everyone writes for their times.

There’s. a great rise in nature writing at the moment. People are aware they need to pay attention to the natural world.”

  • The Linda France event is at Durham Town Hall (Burliston Gallery) on Oct 28, 3.30pm. Box office 0191-3324041 and galadurham.co.uk Durham Book Festival continues until Oct 30.

Information durhambookfestival.com