{"id":513610,"date":"2025-10-20T05:27:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T05:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/513610\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T05:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T05:27:16","slug":"king-hails-work-of-sussex-seed-bank-as-wonderful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/513610\/","title":{"rendered":"King hails work of Sussex seed bank as &#8216;wonderful&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The King has celebrated the work of a seedbank at a Sussex gardens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Speaking with actress <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theargus.co.uk\/news\/25152592.sussex-town-cate-blanchett-stars-call-home\/?ref=ed_direct\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cate Blanchett;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Cate Blanchett<\/a> for a podcast, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theargus.co.uk\/topics\/king-charles-iii\/?ref=ed_direct\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:King Charles;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">King Charles<\/a> described the Millenium Seed Bank at Kew\u2019s wild botanic garden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theargus.co.uk\/topics\/wakehurst\/?ref=ed_direct\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Wakehurst;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Wakehurst<\/a>, near Haywards Heath, as \u201cwonderful\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The pair spoke, alongside Kew seed scientist Dr Elinor Breman, in the private gardens of Windsor Castle in July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">King Charles at the Wakehurst seed bank in 2019(Image: )<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Since its launch in 2000, nearly 2.5 billion seeds from more than 40,000 species have been carefully cleaned, dried and stored in walk-in freezers at minus 20C in Wakehurst.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Charles, who said he was \u201cvery proud\u201d to be a patron of Kew, said on the podcast: \u201cI think it\u2019s wonderful what the seed bank is doing, but we\u2019ve got to speed up the process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During the conversation, Blanchett, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theargus.co.uk\/news\/24270051.cate-blanchett-made-first-ever-ambassador-wakehurst\/?ref=ed_direct\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:who became Wakehurst\u2019s first ambassador last year,;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">who became Wakehurst\u2019s first ambassador last year,<\/a> said: \u201cThe only frustration for me about inaction on climate change is that there\u2019s so many extraordinary initiatives right there ready to be scaled up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThere\u2019s a willingness there, but there\u2019s just not the direction of the funds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Cate Blanchett at Wakehurst(Image: Wakehurst)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Charles replied: \u201cAnd there\u2019s that lack of awareness too, as you were saying, about the actual detail of all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In what is the King\u2019s second-ever podcast recording, the trio discussed the seed bank and its origins, its achievements in the past 25 years as well as ongoing work around the world today, including in Australia and South Africa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dr Breman brought plants, seeds and conservation test kits to show Charles and they spoke about the future potential for the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Charles opened the Millennium Seed Bank in 2000 and has taken an active interest in its progress since, returning to visit in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Inside the seed bank at Wakehurst(Image: Jeff Eden\/RBG Kew\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Read more<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The podcast episode which launches Kew\u2019s fourth Unearthed series is released on October 20 and will be followed by a three-part series looking at the past, present and future of the Millennium Seed Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The King became a one-off disc jockey in March after he was left \u201csurprised and delighted\u201d to be asked by Apple Music to showcase 17 of his favourite songs by artists including Jools Holland, Michael Buble and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to mark Commonwealth Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The King has celebrated the work of a seedbank at a Sussex gardens. Speaking with actress Cate Blanchett&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,6882,7730,7731,167880,1760,167691,7710,519,167879],"class_list":{"0":"post-513610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-cate-blanchett","10":"tag-charles","11":"tag-charles-iii","12":"tag-dr-elinor-breman","13":"tag-king-charles","14":"tag-millennium-seed-bank","15":"tag-royal-families","16":"tag-royal-family","17":"tag-sussex-gardens"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115404842276009745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}