tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17115258152481142602024-03-13T09:11:50.098+00:00THE PUNK GARDENERcleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.comBlogger699125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-82591494000481806182023-05-27T16:33:00.002+01:002023-06-16T08:24:25.918+01:00Alexandra Palace and ideas for a garden construction<p>The People's Palace on the hill sometimes feels like a blueprint for how all public spaces should be. I feel at home there, among the graffiti and security guards, the temporary barriers and the street food stalls. At the bars, I see a chunky section on the list marked "lows and nos", the phrase I've been bellowing at confused barstaff for almost a year now. Happy Days.</p><p>The walk from the tube takes in the glorious wisteria pergola at <a href="https://www.accessable.co.uk/london-borough-of-haringey/access-guides/barratt-gardens">Barratt Gardens</a>, which is busy today with people hanging out and picnicking etc. under the flowers.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-RaR10iSLYt4h2awf2QrGmlXA79ZlqYqN8TISSraEJWDmYmLoYIoMFQGfUSxXIhABwe_FfDp3u95mzOYrKN0YwV_QtoPydqLQdLkw4gqkc6yF_d9Y-buE6bGi-h8xfOH2O04JGXg9Ink2gENdnF7fO-jczo0KdQoj6ACadUl5shWAs-xZFE646Hu_A/s4000/20230524_172350.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-RaR10iSLYt4h2awf2QrGmlXA79ZlqYqN8TISSraEJWDmYmLoYIoMFQGfUSxXIhABwe_FfDp3u95mzOYrKN0YwV_QtoPydqLQdLkw4gqkc6yF_d9Y-buE6bGi-h8xfOH2O04JGXg9Ink2gENdnF7fO-jczo0KdQoj6ACadUl5shWAs-xZFE646Hu_A/s320/20230524_172350.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZav0mdwsRTNCvXubw28oaT_m8sAEYXMkPXql2QaCDM7F_QW_KdF3JlpobhCrLMZ4B3UKvQFLC8aoN3_DsxF2VBelitimSHOThOgHlWC3vwUaJlhRoMO_Q6xSsktlG5Cl2ocsX0lLboMRLS49KVOFslSa97tZRWyJUYR49OqrBa53kDDL_a6SrcJtpA/s4000/20230524_172258.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZav0mdwsRTNCvXubw28oaT_m8sAEYXMkPXql2QaCDM7F_QW_KdF3JlpobhCrLMZ4B3UKvQFLC8aoN3_DsxF2VBelitimSHOThOgHlWC3vwUaJlhRoMO_Q6xSsktlG5Cl2ocsX0lLboMRLS49KVOFslSa97tZRWyJUYR49OqrBa53kDDL_a6SrcJtpA/s320/20230524_172258.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The walkways and pathways feature some elements which make a space feel like contributions and lingering and taking photos are more allowed; an illustrative mural on a terrace end, a property boundary display case (empty). </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaV62zMDY07IUMG5qoqt31vvd8vWnu3TaClYeIYVGw6EfWz7ZcpGnAtUxfWGsj60e8LY8GLTDMCEGkF8vkt5jhvzvyqMxRdV6kbiKzu_zo6KXTfDEtLgHoD3FDEfxkzQiJk473yTkTBw4SDDTtvUTdw5skOzch4hj4qqSPGzVZzllEWBGqEbvo7On7Ig/s4000/20230524_171617.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaV62zMDY07IUMG5qoqt31vvd8vWnu3TaClYeIYVGw6EfWz7ZcpGnAtUxfWGsj60e8LY8GLTDMCEGkF8vkt5jhvzvyqMxRdV6kbiKzu_zo6KXTfDEtLgHoD3FDEfxkzQiJk473yTkTBw4SDDTtvUTdw5skOzch4hj4qqSPGzVZzllEWBGqEbvo7On7Ig/s320/20230524_171617.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4KZx9hr8qdqJiLp6WdL_aqWqAqwNdO-aHU5WMqvAhxNpZnWgsvmBzOSf6fIDqg5bjXHSgOGj1MTJCgwyUdQMX2bofmdA-8C1U1Xym2jsv1RwiYuDsbM1vLVU2VBLzO7dyMqD7NooURKklmSNm2tzqYPvWleNQE4Q6l0k7FFhaFxoUqHcHiQdfcUWgRA/s4000/20230524_172131.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4KZx9hr8qdqJiLp6WdL_aqWqAqwNdO-aHU5WMqvAhxNpZnWgsvmBzOSf6fIDqg5bjXHSgOGj1MTJCgwyUdQMX2bofmdA-8C1U1Xym2jsv1RwiYuDsbM1vLVU2VBLzO7dyMqD7NooURKklmSNm2tzqYPvWleNQE4Q6l0k7FFhaFxoUqHcHiQdfcUWgRA/s320/20230524_172131.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Alexandra Park is vast, contains multitudes. Rest, recovery, green grass, tall trees. And then the palace at the centre of it all. Paths are made by human feet: there are only enough signs for safety's sake. It's usual to wander off the track a bit on the way to Alexandra Palace.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2btBAeKOKnVrcc6tlu9iYffT0ZuhkTnhKjyCGD1lvTz15SwH6S0WruRDGSOKRcAUJvaF8ed1h4z61qMCsaep4Zua2CrGkddv3bybElfmKrMkJFKlAvy1uXhp2zIXLX7cAOW8HYS7R9UNNTBepWrhVlT8TjQqlvMbxXIW_b1ybVjoFzqgdK_OxZgsHuQ/s4000/20230524_174848.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2btBAeKOKnVrcc6tlu9iYffT0ZuhkTnhKjyCGD1lvTz15SwH6S0WruRDGSOKRcAUJvaF8ed1h4z61qMCsaep4Zua2CrGkddv3bybElfmKrMkJFKlAvy1uXhp2zIXLX7cAOW8HYS7R9UNNTBepWrhVlT8TjQqlvMbxXIW_b1ybVjoFzqgdK_OxZgsHuQ/s320/20230524_174848.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaeBlAgI9CxENHlfsQ-I9EXTYtMEoYVZzyaAo7w8mlV-P0Se2AP_mrlzCqBb-PbuZbZyYojsFs1_HljCN_F8DP9wkyfn-0mS_7Wp_LwAesauJJMiARkOEc7qMY3Pjz8KOope14lMCw5--9C2HABXuhbMB2qr5qUjIV4gs8_1AP1R2xI9zuzxySqzkmlA/s4000/20230524_172651.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaeBlAgI9CxENHlfsQ-I9EXTYtMEoYVZzyaAo7w8mlV-P0Se2AP_mrlzCqBb-PbuZbZyYojsFs1_HljCN_F8DP9wkyfn-0mS_7Wp_LwAesauJJMiARkOEc7qMY3Pjz8KOope14lMCw5--9C2HABXuhbMB2qr5qUjIV4gs8_1AP1R2xI9zuzxySqzkmlA/s320/20230524_172651.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We were there to see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55UYm4Oy2xY">Fourtet/Squidsoup</a> (that's a link to a pre-pandemic show) and they have filled the central arena with a grid of hanging glowing tentacles, which light up, respond to, play with and track the music. They remind me of David Attenborough's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHM02ptBGB0">glowing mucus cave-worms</a> a little.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMhmpoYlOFDni0w9GN5w2Bn6DQdXP-9ZFxG2e2Gln56jM3l9X5tn18qkPUA2ngdiv2BZ7uP2M6VbJKhsJyZSEoo33MKrJjWZJ0AIHHwlgYhUBy3IJPKpy3aKfNX-bASuJLBHdcRadn5KhvdNz0ljPS0WXiOxubvWeV2H7XFt-St1G0rEaSX6C00Bqjpw/s4000/20230524_165927.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMhmpoYlOFDni0w9GN5w2Bn6DQdXP-9ZFxG2e2Gln56jM3l9X5tn18qkPUA2ngdiv2BZ7uP2M6VbJKhsJyZSEoo33MKrJjWZJ0AIHHwlgYhUBy3IJPKpy3aKfNX-bASuJLBHdcRadn5KhvdNz0ljPS0WXiOxubvWeV2H7XFt-St1G0rEaSX6C00Bqjpw/s320/20230524_165927.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdo0VmXq_Rsz3t_PoehWABib9IBD_L-B56jVp0VgWp7vMTRjFqyf3lMeMjW_ozz5oFlks-DbTVJ7souuWtUaV5kIve2OFJhdyzzrB8KkdVnLaxB8pWGBwyIuI2bVHjvyrOKq5TkdJXCbntpE6d0ThAifYlnqyL_kDI8mJ8ojgpeF_4wL-SeWrlZ3Zz1A/s4000/20230524_192026.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdo0VmXq_Rsz3t_PoehWABib9IBD_L-B56jVp0VgWp7vMTRjFqyf3lMeMjW_ozz5oFlks-DbTVJ7souuWtUaV5kIve2OFJhdyzzrB8KkdVnLaxB8pWGBwyIuI2bVHjvyrOKq5TkdJXCbntpE6d0ThAifYlnqyL_kDI8mJ8ojgpeF_4wL-SeWrlZ3Zz1A/s320/20230524_192026.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /></div>I found the secret library door when I went the wrong way down a road. I still have some problems with wayfinding, here and there. But when you have time to get lost, it's fun to get lost, sometimes.<div><br /></div><div>Edited to add: it got filmed!</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VbYCmerTWZw" width="320" youtube-src-id="VbYCmerTWZw"></iframe></div><br />So, in the garden, my garden or yours, hangdown light trails could sit beneath a pergola, tangled with vines. I have a vine that would jump at the job: though perhaps in that context it might work better to reference grapes hanging down, or indeed, wisteria. </div>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-68032647141229954842023-05-11T18:45:00.006+01:002023-06-04T14:16:00.465+01:00neon brights and sparkle sights<p>The tulips have started blooming now in the garden. This year they are huge, dramatic, absurd. Even the species tulips have done amazingly well, growing in huge dramatic clumps.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiOFI5NIMlZ7oHqcfcM9E6Qhw8zmpARZaYASuJK6Is_jIc3TRklf06K2a0cnOuYGswXIW9QpyumEIfwFypv8bj1Gxr73pyzLe2Ea78wHgdx-YyVHelRkfR20CCXg67tXzLCPCqDKiSIfTtLiiUXb_kwG6isuuLynSKpCEmR1Vs06Fm2t6wonP24FXog/s4000/20230507_183745.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiOFI5NIMlZ7oHqcfcM9E6Qhw8zmpARZaYASuJK6Is_jIc3TRklf06K2a0cnOuYGswXIW9QpyumEIfwFypv8bj1Gxr73pyzLe2Ea78wHgdx-YyVHelRkfR20CCXg67tXzLCPCqDKiSIfTtLiiUXb_kwG6isuuLynSKpCEmR1Vs06Fm2t6wonP24FXog/s320/20230507_183745.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_VOhSlt9XX7tymF7wC607PRKv7hpqCCae6I9Rnipi0cw1JtrGzMPBwbUX0CPHlqIbS-P17D7kQMR9yssiTht9QMNUx4DkGCJjkQzgq6wlaSdbnUgb_u09lsUEISB3_g4SCeSLCpIwf7pm-GjcIKKz6OYOh5CzR5YxyQkgW5HgnL1h0CbmcTYw3ha-mQ/s4000/20230507_183645.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_VOhSlt9XX7tymF7wC607PRKv7hpqCCae6I9Rnipi0cw1JtrGzMPBwbUX0CPHlqIbS-P17D7kQMR9yssiTht9QMNUx4DkGCJjkQzgq6wlaSdbnUgb_u09lsUEISB3_g4SCeSLCpIwf7pm-GjcIKKz6OYOh5CzR5YxyQkgW5HgnL1h0CbmcTYw3ha-mQ/s320/20230507_183645.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha6Gj4Gwtz35HEiT5KjznB3vV8jwDotXHyy9xPt95RN28KRYmlrWUpA_LIIChp2SWqfpSp34fnXSpWDo_gMnxbjKrsoD9VW_a-cjMX_2o9fp_qQZpHvE_mS1PujpNhUvjO92BF6SMQBgbGybzwRJEIMSqGsV72AOF0fnwnW6InpDjcGCizP3KtVrWcFg/s4000/20230504_181122.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha6Gj4Gwtz35HEiT5KjznB3vV8jwDotXHyy9xPt95RN28KRYmlrWUpA_LIIChp2SWqfpSp34fnXSpWDo_gMnxbjKrsoD9VW_a-cjMX_2o9fp_qQZpHvE_mS1PujpNhUvjO92BF6SMQBgbGybzwRJEIMSqGsV72AOF0fnwnW6InpDjcGCizP3KtVrWcFg/s320/20230504_181122.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGyIs833Ww9sgtElaGDdmhLKJDY5BKX9cjnmWcPwDLJJLGK3AX3EyvDB5Xgkp2wf17si2kY8UmMi8VCZRhpDOpOc7cOS2v_gacUmxRJdegJQ_PnecdF3WaKoz-ZZ0GDrD8--AC0SThXXjpob0V1EXmTIFyzynS_430ChhDW2AkXkTaEKafBFmu6t1ufw/s4000/20230503_164035.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGyIs833Ww9sgtElaGDdmhLKJDY5BKX9cjnmWcPwDLJJLGK3AX3EyvDB5Xgkp2wf17si2kY8UmMi8VCZRhpDOpOc7cOS2v_gacUmxRJdegJQ_PnecdF3WaKoz-ZZ0GDrD8--AC0SThXXjpob0V1EXmTIFyzynS_430ChhDW2AkXkTaEKafBFmu6t1ufw/s320/20230503_164035.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCh9j-yzrXt6W6CPtQ2mV2V9wlOVxUWgzPzhwoQBG0ShhE0mfl-TTFkgPBxlz3D_n1yXCOtXD-WhHv29DW3wbO8_Sk0Q0QgDoQeChGaSlMErvkxomrPd2j2Wz6xPNlz62PM39KVWrc6u72ytdJwdFU75SE56Kxw8Ne-XkK4Glbmccv-iYLPQWFqgoIw/s4000/20230503_164010.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCh9j-yzrXt6W6CPtQ2mV2V9wlOVxUWgzPzhwoQBG0ShhE0mfl-TTFkgPBxlz3D_n1yXCOtXD-WhHv29DW3wbO8_Sk0Q0QgDoQeChGaSlMErvkxomrPd2j2Wz6xPNlz62PM39KVWrc6u72ytdJwdFU75SE56Kxw8Ne-XkK4Glbmccv-iYLPQWFqgoIw/s320/20230503_164010.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEpI7bAGhyLqzqoMRb_sbAm_IqDHwV6qECFxhyUnVw9XUHy-VO4RgnFD3T0ot_0DVBC7blHtBXwMSI9lcGPaoCE9rvFLCli1Eol9Y5whHuIG3s1E0aZWKTACTFE3S6cBWoEzdB3jMUJ_MCnpeRjEEMF-UdcrBF_jyHIElvyVN0toQ6lbAQu6JlkdpGA/s4000/20230503_163708.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rq93rrUO-N6zqp-etcCI26QNy7AuIlBD6IGNAAEldpfyhQkCNUqEq2wmnIiB_VCy-88urQ1Pu2jh2ny0_BnxgBhwOFsY-kS1cf0JmDYNc8_A4qW-DjEJNhBUWnTZkXVNwbHvSUrt3_mn_QV-jotMGPusGRS2-QgbsImR3HqzYB0Rx945EIpStlefxw/s320/20230430_111336.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz5TBo-A8XjuSSx-PIuriAJs0wsEDVs4uAEm7MlbYHWycIA1YGHRPyjP7p0aJ0mvDq99_Lh4oCONmitxO_NNIMQwedQi64YaY2CcY7sIbYGFyTphWXLOgsF1K85SvglmqsHWJD_IJ36NwHq9S8t9NfPQyYqs9b1ejWblH62AbUkoqm9ApCAHclYa3b5g/s4000/20230430_111325.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz5TBo-A8XjuSSx-PIuriAJs0wsEDVs4uAEm7MlbYHWycIA1YGHRPyjP7p0aJ0mvDq99_Lh4oCONmitxO_NNIMQwedQi64YaY2CcY7sIbYGFyTphWXLOgsF1K85SvglmqsHWJD_IJ36NwHq9S8t9NfPQyYqs9b1ejWblH62AbUkoqm9ApCAHclYa3b5g/s320/20230430_111325.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />I've found myself particularly fond of coronet tulips this year, though the white peony types (which become dramatically streaked with plum tones as they age) are very striking indeed. They are lighting up the garden.<p></p><p>Garden lighting is dimming now; we are rewilding, learning to love our weeds, resisting the dig, and with that, reducing light pollution (<a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/wildlife/garden-lighting-effects-on-wildlife">which seems not to be great for insects, though some birds get longer foraging times</a>). Not that garden solar lights are what they used to be; every now and again, I dig a tiny item which long since lost its faint gleam out of a tangle of alkanet and sling it in the small electricals recycling, from where it is probably refiled into mixed waste for energy recapture. </p><p>I remember how delightful my first set of garden solar lights were, pulsing gently white along a path through the night. Over the years, they were optimised and cheapened, became smaller and lit more weakly. and now they are gone.</p><p>I wish I could navigate back to that sparkle in the night, though. </p><p>Maybe the approach back is through the wonder of bioluminescence. People <a href="https://www.thespruce.com/bioluminescent-plants-next-big-thing-6274445">spray coating plants in bioluminescent paint</a> aside there's <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-019-0558-x#:~:text=Bioluminescent%20plants%20have%20always%20existed,known%20plant%20displays%20autogenic%20bioluminescence.">not much available</a> though perhaps we're simply not dimming lights down far enough; I remember the shock of eating at <a href="https://london.danslenoir.com/">Dans le Noir</a> and seeing the <a href="https://seafood.oregonstate.edu/sites/agscid7/files/snic/glowing-seafood.pdf">faintest of weak glows</a> from a weakly bioluminescent seafood dish, to frail to be seen except in complete darkness. </p><p>Otherwise we're looking to the garden wildlife to pick up the sparkles. <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2365873-the-garden-dormouse-glows-under-uv-light-but-we-dont-know-why/">Dormice glow</a> and are a safer proposition than <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-do-scorpions-glow-in-the-dark-and-could-their-whole-bodies-be-one-big-eye">garden scorpions</a> and glowworms and fireflies would be lovely but they don't live round these parts. </p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-29740775734529928212023-03-28T18:47:00.003+01:002023-03-28T18:47:28.846+01:00concrete that grows urban spontaneous vegetation<p>I'm a big fan of freestyling ferns, though I'll be the first to admit that they do go wrong, here and there. They prise things apart, they gather soil, they set up little biomes aorund themselves.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/42043265822/in/photolist-2ir9wBn-fnwt7z-qoGA5h-wEsYfk-onRJCu-2jnQ3a3-2jnQ3aP-o6BgUs-x1HL5b-2ir8mhW-2i6QLj8-2i6UhUe-2i6UhVS-P6tMk9-HVLB7S-gjZKpY-jaJyk3-HY7c2V-2kofjEs-HEcdNC-2gdU2UN-J2JUx5-MFV9Jr-YEBUB3-4D1iE5-V9a6wK-2aunfFT-W9m4hY-274dJau-2jnQ3fJ-2oi1ycN-2jnNUJY-2jnKZtv-2jnQ3kZ-tdDrfC-KjLzg6-J4WESM-6uiqw5-22XZAQ7-2gMDcnD-21W54Z1-2aHzij1-2du9t8e-J4WAAa-2du9uZv-2c6utU4-2kojKe8-2mvNQ4F-XEVSy6-HVKZFG" title="stair garden"><img alt="stair garden" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/912/42043265822_aa9c63d51b.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br /></p><p>Concrete decays over time. Brick crumbles. The ferns gather in the cracks and gaps, with sometimes spectacular, sometimes worrying results.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/11924573744/in/photolist-2ir9wBn-fnwt7z-qoGA5h-wEsYfk-onRJCu-2jnQ3a3-2jnQ3aP-o6BgUs-x1HL5b-2ir8mhW-2i6QLj8-2i6UhUe-2i6UhVS-P6tMk9-HVLB7S-gjZKpY-jaJyk3-HY7c2V-2kofjEs-HEcdNC-2gdU2UN-J2JUx5-MFV9Jr-YEBUB3-4D1iE5-V9a6wK-2aunfFT-W9m4hY-274dJau-2jnQ3fJ-2oi1ycN-2jnNUJY-2jnKZtv-2jnQ3kZ-tdDrfC-KjLzg6-J4WESM-6uiqw5-22XZAQ7-2gMDcnD-21W54Z1-2aHzij1-2du9t8e-J4WAAa-2du9uZv-2c6utU4-2kojKe8-2mvNQ4F-XEVSy6-HVKZFG" title="freestyling ferns"><img alt="freestyling ferns" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/3813/11924573744_a4c9210e8d.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br /></p><p>Leaving concrete out to get grizzled and old automatically creates green spaces (I have plenty round the house that needs the moss scrubbing off it at the moment). So the<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriewinkless/2016/03/18/new-concrete-materials-are-more-green-than-grey/?sh=438ca77b218b"> ancient clipping I had on my wall about a specially designed four-layered concrete that turned concrete green(ish)</a> always had that slight absurdity about it...</p><p>Q: How do you make a green wall?</p><p>A: You stop weeding it</p><p>Though Dr Manso-Blanco's statement still stands: "just like trees and flowers, certain types of lichen and fungi flourish in different seasons, and no two cities have exactly the same mix of microorganisms in the air. In theory at least, bioreceptive concrete could provide buildings unique to their surroundings and which change throughout the year."</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Urban spontaneous vegetation</h3><p>Which brings me up to date and to the rather lovely <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479723002347">Diversity and distribution variation of urban spontaneous vegetation with distinct frequencies along river corridors in a fast-growing city</a> which discovers the value of abandonment most succinctly:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Vacant lots in urban fringe harbored the most number of species.</li><li>In communities on vacant lots of less urbanized areas, the richness of dominant species was greater, whereas in green spaces created by planted vegetation, occasional species were more diverse.</li></ul><div>There is a hint here of leaving rather than planting, of valuing the volunteer and local species that grow alongside the introduced attractive greenery. </div><div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Green space microenvironments are hospitable to some rare species. </li><li>Such patterns, if linked to ecological and ornamental value, can provide a new perspective and nature-based solutions to urban rewilding and landscape design.</li></ul></div></div><div>The weeds picking up value as volunteer greenspace, the moss elevated from decay to embroidery;</div><div><br /></div><div><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/27342843640/in/photolist-2ir8mXJ-2ir8mhW-2i6QLj8-2i6UhUe-2i6UhVS-P6tMk9-HVLB7S-gjZKpY-jaJyk3-HY7c2V-fnwt7z-qoGA5h-2kofjEs-wEsYfk-HEcdNC-2gdU2UN-J2JUx5-MFV9Jr-onRJCu-2jnQ3a3-YEBUB3-4D1iE5-2jnQ3aP-o6BgUs-V9a6wK-x1HL5b-tdDrfC-KjLzg6-J4WESM-6uiqw5-22XZAQ7-2aunfFT-2gMDcnD-21W54Z1-2aHzij1-2du9t8e-J4WAAa-2du9uZv-2c6utU4-W9m4hY-2kojKe8-274dJau-2mvNQ4F-2jnQ3fJ-XEVSy6-2oi1ycN-HVKZFG-2jnNUJY-2jnKZtv-2jnQ3kZ" title="natural green walls"><img alt="natural green walls" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/7658/27342843640_1ed600f9d0.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div><div><br /></div><div>...and all along the walls, the ferns.</div><p></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-16904453319492714932023-03-22T18:39:00.008+00:002023-03-26T09:46:18.632+01:00planting for the wet and the dry<p>Once again, I feel like the spring is too dry, too wet, too dry again. </p><p>And so I am reading about multiyear megadroughts followed by record breaking rainfall (and occasionally watching friends dealing with the consequences) and the idea that a city might slow the flow rather than manage water through <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/27/parched-eco-architecture-los-angeles-megadrought-water-capturing-parks">waterflow acceleration through urban areas via fast-drain gutters</a>.</p><p>The duality of water, both threat to banish and resource to retain haunts my soggy city. As more gardens are paved over in the never-ending need for parkingspace, workingspace, livingspace, cookingspace, it gets hotter, more humid and drier at the same time. I plant for the dry, and my plants die in seasonal moulds and drenches. I plant for the wet, the droughts swiftly dispose. I'm left with the urban heavyweights, which increasingly means problematic, complicated, ivy firecely competitive and inclined to pry the hard standing apart. Ivy comes in, and everything else moves out.</p><p>Lush water-capturing ribbon parks with pebble rivers and tough, reliable planting are a local feature. But the "drywells" described in the linked article (holes taking the water from the stormdrains) are a commonplace concept. <a href="https://www.susdrain.org/delivering-suds/using-suds/suds-components/infiltration/soakaways.html">Soakaways</a>, like the one outside my house.</p><p>But language does matter, and does make things more palatable; would you rather be stuck in a ditch, or admiring the irises in your <a href="https://www.urbangreenbluegrids.com/measures/bioswales/">bioswale</a>?</p><p>(Later on in the article is the much-suggested idea of making people pay an <a href="https://www.truegridpaver.com/impervious-surfaces-taxes/">impermeable land tax</a>, where each square foot of impermeable pave-over is charged.)</p><p>But the item that really caught my eye was "<a href="https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/streets/green-alley/">green alleys</a>". Which brings me back to ivy, and the dark threat of an ivy-overhung urban cut-through, where kids see witches and adults see muggers in the dull green shadows, and I was wondering; have people tested to see which kinds of vegetation make an alleyway feel safer, less risky?</p><p>Which leads me to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916501333002">Environment and Crime in the Inner City: Does Vegetation Reduce Crime?</a> (paywalled so <a href="https://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/trees-for-public-safety-reducing-crime-rates/">here's a summary on a blog</a>) although I'll save you the read, and share the findings that, well, it can, if it's cared for and people like it. </p><p>I'll end on a happy note with some working-out-well community alleyway transformations. They feel like a nice idea, don't they? But we all know spaces where the results of such schemes have been less aesthetic, especially five years or so in, and the odd line here and there about how much effort was involved hint at how this won't work for all.</p><p>But where it's working, what a beautiful sight!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fNZRwzaifsA" width="320" youtube-src-id="fNZRwzaifsA"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-57439853823701908502023-03-17T19:27:00.003+00:002023-03-22T09:24:45.179+00:00sooty moulds and the black mould menace<p>Winter is black mould season in the estates up and down the UK. We tolerate it, then snap at it, we bleach it off, we dry it out, we run our dehumidifiers and hope our lungs will take the strain. </p><p>Here are some of the things that can make your black mould worse:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Owning stuff that produces or absorbs moisture, like books, clothes, plants and pets</li><li>Preparing and eating food, turning on taps, washing anything and drinking hot drinks</li><li>Keeping your house warmer than the outside world in winter</li></ul><div>As you may have gathered, most of the things that make a house a house can also cause black mould. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mould garden is waiting my attention at the moment. I have a couple of spray bottles of mould killer waiting, and I'll be right on it, any moment now.</div><div><br /></div><div>Things could be worse.</div><div><br /></div><div>At least we don't have <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-whiskey-fungus">distilleries pumping out angel's shares of sweet ethanol into our murky skies</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nine years ago I took apart my last mould garden, excavating down through the layers of failed anti-mould measures, finding mould in every one of them. </div><div><br /></div><div>This blocked ventilation brick, ironically was one of the least mouldy spaces in the room. Emboldened by that, I cleared it out and reinstated it. </div><div><br /></div><div><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/14055149603/in/photostream/" title="newspaper under the plaster"><img alt="newspaper under the plaster" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/2917/14055149603_7a689ab999.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div><div><br /></div><div>I see now why it was blocked; cold, damp air comes in through the block and instantly brings the mould to the space around it, in from the outside. </div><div><br /></div><div>Time to get busy with the bleach and the paint.</div><p></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-17347441572310874452023-03-15T17:19:00.002+00:002023-03-19T23:16:15.123+00:00isolated trees and the films people make about them<p>Before I can put<i> <a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Peter-Greenaway-The-Falls-by-Peter-Greenaway-other/9782906571327">The Falls</a> </i>away I have one last section to revisit, and this is biography 83, Geoffrey Fallthius. This tells the story of a short, unfinished, student film about a tree isolated in building works. Recursively and predictably, the film accompanying this biography shows a short, unfinished student film about a tree isolated in building works. </p><p>Or maybe it doesn't, and I'm actually remembering the photo below, that I took in 2018. I'm going by my memory of the film. Although I own it in multiple formats, none are at hand right now.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/31713074848/in/photolist-26m4jek-2csdone-2csdf6e-2csdgu6-2csdktD-QjnNhy-QjnMew-pTButH-2csdsXg-sh75Vs" title="The Tree Seats are Lifting"><img alt="The Tree Seats are Lifting" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/1958/31713074848_25c2b96229.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>Ostensibly, the film is by Geoffrey Fallthius, student pupil of Tulse Luper. Anagrammatically, actually, and narratively, all names collapse into Greenaway, which in itself feels like a recursion. Peter the stone, and the Green, away. </p><p>This is nonsense of course, Peter Greenaway exists and has the awards to provide it. Unlike Geoffrey Fallthius. Geoffrey -</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">- at 19, the shortest and youngest of the Luper admirers who supported the Luper programme for the naturally evolving landscape. The tree, a <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/wych-elm/">wych-elm</a>, had been planted on the south bank of the Thames, when when the site was the <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=138">garden</a> of a <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=331">London</a> merchant who apparently specialised in the importing of timber for the manufacture of musical instruments. Now <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=145">the tree</a> was isolated in a sea of building construction, and its continued <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=148">survival</a> in the ocean of concrete seemed unlikely.</p></blockquote><p>This vision of isolated green islands in a sea of grey is very current to the direction of modern city trees, towards smaller, more containable, and more isolated plants that do not stab the sewers, or fiddle with the foundations. This is of course enabled by the felling of the existing mature tree stock, an expensive and protracted process marked by anger and demonstrations from some, but not all residents. </p><p>The links above (bar the first, identification link) are from <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elms-map/" target="_blank">The Conservation Foundation's Elm Map</a>, a fascinating site recording our <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=495">fading elm population</a>. It contains a <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=321">myriad of notable trees</a> of which my favourite is the <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=326">Unknown Elm on Flood Street</a>.</p><p>The sad state of our elms has been the subject of talk and more for many a year. I remember an Elm, back in the village, when as a child I was set a tree leaf quest by a science lesson, miring me in controversy when the teacher refused to believe that my leaf did indeed come from an elm, leading to a furious signed letter from some village naturalist. </p><p>It was the only elm in the village, putting me in mind of other famous isolates like the tree of Tenere, here summarised in a video which repeats uncritically the legend of the last tree to leave the desert.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B4D93K11VfE" width="320" youtube-src-id="B4D93K11VfE"></iframe></div><br /><p>Do you believe in the village Elm, like the last Tree of Tenere, holding on gamely against the march of Dutch Elm disease? It certainly isn't in the Conservation Foundation's Elm database, which shows but <a href="https://conservationfoundation.co.uk/elm-tree/?id=1084">one Elm Tree entry</a> for the entire county surrounding that village. </p><p><a href="https://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/trees-and-shrubs/english-elm">Hedgerow shrub elms</a> notwithstanding, <a href="https://www.dorsetbutterflies.com/2020/05/help-us-find-elm-trees-in-dorset/">most mature Elms only linger on</a> in place names nowadays. </p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-42918897846432205522023-03-12T17:49:00.006+00:002023-03-12T17:57:40.978+00:00Last March in the Garden<p>Last March in the garden was rather warmer than this month. Though certain things ("rosemary in wild flower" and "propogator has toms and peppers" and "main season daffs in full flower") are more or less as last year. Last year I also had covid, the nasty immune response variant that knocks out your sense of small and leaves you feeling logie for months. </p><p>Note here though, my first bit of learning: last year I rushed the tomatoes out into the green house and lost most of them, and last year there was snow at the end of March. Lessons here? Let the tomatoes cry in the dark of the verandah a few days longer, and don't trust March not to throw snow in your general direction. Snow certainly happened this week!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVR2dkIoD-rDm-zbNecurN1EME1c9knpTvuemOVtJzKI_fiiZ3AG9AAZApbjWwfg0Z6Om3nl4Kfq4ruisXyQtvoMlNhTyGY2TP72CHDLNZXb0XwxKUHIP8PsSVqW7vGIfwHjgrO3w6U41gdZnp6usF42f3yhMcHyPZVCBfsJKY-d6jRKymFz5CADg-BA/s5184/DSCN6052%5B1%5D.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVR2dkIoD-rDm-zbNecurN1EME1c9knpTvuemOVtJzKI_fiiZ3AG9AAZApbjWwfg0Z6Om3nl4Kfq4ruisXyQtvoMlNhTyGY2TP72CHDLNZXb0XwxKUHIP8PsSVqW7vGIfwHjgrO3w6U41gdZnp6usF42f3yhMcHyPZVCBfsJKY-d6jRKymFz5CADg-BA/w400-h300/DSCN6052%5B1%5D.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Last March in the garden was rather warmer, though there was still snow</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Hellebores looking great is starting to happen this year too. I'm essentially woodland biome, and they dig the greenish gloom, glowing out of the March murk like church candles, grabbing every glimmer of weak early spring light.</p><p>Other things were concerning me, too; peat free potting compost, the overgrown tree next door, and a project to turn an old Girl's World head into a planter.</p><p>That one turned out pretty well.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/52107749981/in/photolist-2nozQEr-2nm1EfS" title="cloud head has settled in"><img alt="cloud head has settled in" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52107749981_c177ba7fde.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>(Ingredients: an <a href="https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393934853596">old Girl's World head</a> found in a loft, white and blue acrylic paint, a bit of compost scavenged from another planter and a vigorous stonecrop that grows like a weed in my garden).</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-70948265459092250852023-03-09T18:24:00.005+00:002023-03-22T17:39:58.480+00:00I'm living in my own private orchid festival<p>I didn't make it to the <a href="https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/orchid-festival-kew-gardens/">Kew Orchid Festival</a> this year. Again! As my calendar reminds me. But there's this: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1DTtMtQOXD3YqgJhW480bTIp5NAsotnLQk3NFxUQGrmQouB74cHRHtQ95a1nkkVP_J7U-aF5P3Dgz5TZsmqLBemayte8BmPU2bIrRaS5Cl16aiBGxKQmbTULYYXBvdU2SOhQ9oVf1pRpYXqYVVC5rIIN-dvvzPwDhGN0LkWgPs-AyT46_HNdkgv6YZQ/s4000/20230316_161735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1DTtMtQOXD3YqgJhW480bTIp5NAsotnLQk3NFxUQGrmQouB74cHRHtQ95a1nkkVP_J7U-aF5P3Dgz5TZsmqLBemayte8BmPU2bIrRaS5Cl16aiBGxKQmbTULYYXBvdU2SOhQ9oVf1pRpYXqYVVC5rIIN-dvvzPwDhGN0LkWgPs-AyT46_HNdkgv6YZQ/w300-h400/20230316_161735.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And also this: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVULVNDjuAgr0kxS0QOfXsyNG3ecGHAyIE34NX4mICiuu8t1o_1g4A_wCMmIeEB7-McAy9FvH3hePqrBthateMzir8z3hF1wlu7VPYy44Kcaaqh7Roivta4YR-TRVKqHhJWYy-EX6XgmceedCwVV6YA7BOK2Az-l2diXuCCIaeJMGz2fPPmdjAFpcZ5g/s4000/20230322_155043.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVULVNDjuAgr0kxS0QOfXsyNG3ecGHAyIE34NX4mICiuu8t1o_1g4A_wCMmIeEB7-McAy9FvH3hePqrBthateMzir8z3hF1wlu7VPYy44Kcaaqh7Roivta4YR-TRVKqHhJWYy-EX6XgmceedCwVV6YA7BOK2Az-l2diXuCCIaeJMGz2fPPmdjAFpcZ5g/w300-h400/20230322_155043.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>And this, still rattling on, though getting on a bit:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdl_LTgzBnMDw27DjVeGhUGATPP0us6ZyzvH-dLOPKMLiPvVQj9czK09fVgyiZF4lD0zu2tnkRZdq7DCYdMVg-ERDE72Neb0FX3zBuTwQCXLNUXZJErZa5-ryFt9YHg725ypfZOP3z2Zxe0QXg-3PviMQ4AmbsLTVL4iLIBSL1xflvnvXt0TNYdf9F4Q/s4000/20230322_155202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdl_LTgzBnMDw27DjVeGhUGATPP0us6ZyzvH-dLOPKMLiPvVQj9czK09fVgyiZF4lD0zu2tnkRZdq7DCYdMVg-ERDE72Neb0FX3zBuTwQCXLNUXZJErZa5-ryFt9YHg725ypfZOP3z2Zxe0QXg-3PviMQ4AmbsLTVL4iLIBSL1xflvnvXt0TNYdf9F4Q/w300-h400/20230322_155202.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>Supermarket Moth Orchids, bought on reduction, nursed through the darkness of interior life.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-75141871627466004922023-03-06T22:47:00.001+00:002023-03-07T08:36:15.624+00:00reindeer crossings and my desire to put beards on bridges<p> There's nothing new about the concept of bridges for animals. From <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cow_Bridge,_on_M6_Motorway.jpg">motorway</a> <a href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/cows-crossing-motorway-bridge.html?sortBy=relevant">stock</a> <a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5719826">bridges</a> to wildlife crossings from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/23/how-wildlife-crossings-are-helping-reindeer-bears-and-even-crabs-aoe">reindeer</a> ("renoducts") to <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/wildlife-crossings/">green bridges</a> for grizzly bears, to <a href="https://unusualplaces.org/natuurbrug-zanderij-crailoo/">naturbrugge</a> for wild boar and red deer. They exist and they make the long dark wall of a motorway or an interstate feel less barrier-like, less vast. But natural movement erodes a bottleneck. Could something this narrow cope with wildlife at undepleted levels? A herd would not interpret this as a safe space. </p><p>Lots of people are looking at the problem. <a href="https://www.saferoad-cedr.org/en/saferoad.htm">Meet Saferoad</a>, whose manifesto is straightforward:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>prevent wildlife mortality due to animal-vehicle collisions;</li><li>assure that the barrier effect of roads is reduced sufficiently to maintain viable wildlife populations, such as the construction of wildlife crossing structures</li></ul><div>They're researching it, by the way. Not doing it. <a href="https://www.wur.nl/en/dossiers/file/wildlife-bridges.htm">Wagendingen University are also on the case</a>:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">"It is still unclear how effective wildlife bridges and other wildlife crossings are, and whether recreational use of wildlife bridges can be combined with a function as a wildlife crossing."</div></blockquote><p>Also researching it, not doing it. But plenty of people are drawing green lines across the grey of road barriers. It's the next logical stop after the signs telling us to watch out for wildlife crossing. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/52388376574/in/photolist-2nPo8aY-2dQC3AB-2dQC3z4-2dQC3D2-2f9Qdxh-Rt7wr2-2dQC3Fg-Rt7wxe-FDT1jo-2knUXwB-WbwiXU-ibEFep-ibFnhP-ibEXTN-ibEGSV-833xSB-2gdUfhv-PoawGb-Poay9Q-PrnpK2-2ogvm4b-2mUtqen-2ojk3s9-XUoNux-gjZNku-2nkop43-2nkqP9a-2nkqPaH-KewYB3-24BLsgS-7miibS-2nPnNgz-qYgqsn-qYgrSB-SsBqxz-qY4F4b-2kofiZj-m7B4ZF-29bYmTh-2mUvnLL-pDkpc5-jwd2Mf-7wrLnt-Yy2V3e-Yy2VEX-pDojAN-eeQt3F-uEsLLT-dot1T-cVNhg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="fine strung bridge two"><img alt="fine strung bridge two" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52388376574_e4139cdd68.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Green painted bridge over a dual carriageway. </td></tr></tbody></table><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div><div><br /></div><div>Bridges are expensive. I've had many a conversation with a despairing colleague who is being batted back again and again as as they try to argue that humans need a bridge out of their road-bounded no-facilities new-build estates. Footbridges: too expensive, insufficiently accessible, not absolutely necessary and therefore dropping off the end of the job list. </div><div><br /></div><div>Risky, too, those bleak open spaces above the zooming traffic. I once saw a kid up on one exuberantly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kj3wWKjMSQ">flossing</a> at the traffic height of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnkPddti09g">Fortnite craze</a> and what if I hadn't caught the cultural reference? What then?</div><div><br /></div><div>If only there were a way to combine the wildlife bridge and the human bridge, while making both safer, less bleakly open to the noise and space, while keeping the bulk of animals away from our favourite terrifying carnivorous ape, the human being. If only there were some way to bring more funding and kudos onto the act of building bridges, and stop them being the job you give the least civil engineer, the architect on the bottom of the monkey tree....</div><div><br /></div><div>Which brings me to the next proposition:</div><div><br /></div><div>We really need bridge merkins. No, hear me out. Let's take another look at that bridge, or another, similar one (I photograph lots of bridges).</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4fvKOEsat4rTvlCgHxHFg7nu7BGdAvbE86bx_VbN5wP8x5oP4ehGpqlVmsEB7aApQcCDMMK7zHoQ0bSnM_hV9porlQDoJSIC1SMsXdmZbSELAz23dvB1Ste0R4l4v73-ytvo7Kv1PEoUm5uwDhM5K-6TTJ2JkqOhtKA_peT4SG6Oa4Fa-veJP0zXww/s939/bridge-no-beard.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="939" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT4fvKOEsat4rTvlCgHxHFg7nu7BGdAvbE86bx_VbN5wP8x5oP4ehGpqlVmsEB7aApQcCDMMK7zHoQ0bSnM_hV9porlQDoJSIC1SMsXdmZbSELAz23dvB1Ste0R4l4v73-ytvo7Kv1PEoUm5uwDhM5K-6TTJ2JkqOhtKA_peT4SG6Oa4Fa-veJP0zXww/w400-h269/bridge-no-beard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slightly out of focus motorway footbridge with graffiti on retaining wall</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>We're looking up from underneath at a space that could potentially hold a pathway. Let's suspend planters along the sides, down and out of reach of the scary humans or any road traffic above. Let's link them with a concealed, small safe space, a wildlife run. Let's make sure this is inaccessible to humans with a decent, high barrier above. It'll double as a trellis, further engaging the greenery and creating an insect-friendly route across the roadway.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHN6rsTPY7K3iELO25yEgMSadU9frWkIg5Y63ghL68yjIQBGoLfl38G8xl3da_-40mDy4VfyLUoYz0M_dYik6fi2MMW5u4n_tb4ttngO7nzp7wMvTdTHJtPawMmZi8op4FwFeaJwFt5QrnteEelvDydFoVmcqps9wit_Pyfl-TaziOhdDgXBN10NoVA/s939/bridge-beards.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="939" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHN6rsTPY7K3iELO25yEgMSadU9frWkIg5Y63ghL68yjIQBGoLfl38G8xl3da_-40mDy4VfyLUoYz0M_dYik6fi2MMW5u4n_tb4ttngO7nzp7wMvTdTHJtPawMmZi8op4FwFeaJwFt5QrnteEelvDydFoVmcqps9wit_Pyfl-TaziOhdDgXBN10NoVA/w400-h269/bridge-beards.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Under-bridge planting trough and vegetation roughly photoshopped on underside of bridge </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>As you can see in the image, water dripping down and vines hanging down might create hazards. However, the disturbance of traffic should keep the space clear, so bar a cut or two it should be as manageable as a rural road. </div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe it would be better to call them bridge beards. The alliteration works. They could work as a retrofit or a new build. They might even make bridges a calmer, cooler, quieter space to be and encourage more people (as well as animals) to take that walk to the far side of the tarmac ocean, to see what they can see. </div><p></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-78286823309366633482023-03-02T16:07:00.003+00:002023-03-02T16:07:35.439+00:00continuous impenetrable glass walls and tiger stripe cities<p> Like many people, I have over the years read many iterations of future cities, utopian, dystopian, and all the strange shadings inbetween. Science fiction brings them, but so do books about city planning, old consultation documents, proposals and all the other attempts we make to put a constructable pattern on the future. Trees and the city, in all their many patterns.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/41577452965/in/photolist-Rudy5C-26m4jek" title="escaping tree roots"><img alt="escaping tree roots" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/1727/41577452965_49ae273458.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>At the moment there's a lot of attention being paid to non-bounded cities. On one side we have the greening of the city: trees and shrubs entering the cities like long green chains along waterways and verges, along garden-chains, green edge alleyways house fronts and backs, with its attendant benefits of <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2357065-doubling-trees-in-european-cities-could-prevent-thousands-of-deaths/">air cooling and freshening</a>. <a href="https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/publications/trees-greenspace-and-urban-cooling/">Trees cool spaces</a>, not least because in order to have a tree in the first place, you need things like adequate space, suitable surfaces, a decent water supply. But trees also fight, with utilities, boundaries, smooth surfaces. They buckle the plazas and make pavements swell, unnervingly. <a href="https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/publications/the-role-of-urban-trees-and-greenspaces-in-reducing-urban-air-temperatures/">Maximum cooling</a> for <a href="https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/publications/trees-greenspace-and-urban-cooling/">minimum disruption</a> is the aim, but the tree is an entity in itself, and whether it sprawls out of control or sullenly declines is not altogether in the planter's control.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/37079003264/in/photolist-YuxzRJ-2dUT6R6-RJJZiX-NHxXqF-QkYNLy-2csoR4m-2b62YKx-s5Xr1h-2cwPuJ8-2dUuLUc-EB5HHV-Q9gvrR-22PewH8-29HcF5h-2b94ojr-2cwRoU8-2cNFgYS-2a56piD-2a56smc-2dPU1AW-9Csoxk-2cnX5Yk-2cnX4E8-dy1EcZ-dy1EqV-dy7bcE-2ikmGPo-8pRHtC" title="sky windows"><img alt="sky windows" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/4499/37079003264_1f8d89b6b3.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>On the other we have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jan/21/building-big-as-world-superstudio-anarchist-architects-who-foresaw-rampant-expansion-saudi-arabia-linear-city">the continent spanning imaginary megacity</a>, a glass and steel wall of hyperconnected futurecity that puts human first, the continuous city of Neom, slicing through the desert. There's a nervousness around this, but the natural world washes around the new environment, growing novel bacterias around sewage outflows, hardy mosses on reservoir overflows. It may not be wildlife documentary-style, but it's wildlife nevertheless.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/52715787539/in/dateposted/" title="could be today"><img alt="could be today" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52715787539_31e54cb72a.jpg" width="500" /></a></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-83075072336544142632023-02-24T18:29:00.002+00:002023-03-02T15:34:23.143+00:00february in the garden<p> It's been a warmish month, and the flowers have come on fast, indoors and out. February in the garden has brought snowdrops and bulbicodium daffodils outside, orchids inside.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4aSkT4mWZz0zT1lrab0N1ZWtv-AImlPVP1WTwR5KeowtQO70AO2cJbhAL3Gs8a7kJEveXBtIQUNul_US-VOVY4sN1JRe4sSZ_75t0NnCF-ljWZ-vzBgnlA4oYdhestdvyucRGVzAxjg9AmqE87KHdwuY_tok9ST1q1GrN6dX2QIFsWaDFi2Hqq4mC9A/s4000/20230202_081900.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4aSkT4mWZz0zT1lrab0N1ZWtv-AImlPVP1WTwR5KeowtQO70AO2cJbhAL3Gs8a7kJEveXBtIQUNul_US-VOVY4sN1JRe4sSZ_75t0NnCF-ljWZ-vzBgnlA4oYdhestdvyucRGVzAxjg9AmqE87KHdwuY_tok9ST1q1GrN6dX2QIFsWaDFi2Hqq4mC9A/s320/20230202_081900.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuzzJyKo__ipGDTB4PJEbEQ_wmS4q_nkMNQditYNxWyWB7FcBcnY1jlQbyOyLp1j1-FzHBoYZkr3GtClyKvBEZQKHCUAF1jOfNoD6t91xOCLFBzQY3VG-13pousuo8TI8tb7YUYs55sU70vX6mDIOLm0DjGA98bvSK_pIkgL1ypqJav8ov7GNVYHYmDA/s4000/20230209_183502.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuzzJyKo__ipGDTB4PJEbEQ_wmS4q_nkMNQditYNxWyWB7FcBcnY1jlQbyOyLp1j1-FzHBoYZkr3GtClyKvBEZQKHCUAF1jOfNoD6t91xOCLFBzQY3VG-13pousuo8TI8tb7YUYs55sU70vX6mDIOLm0DjGA98bvSK_pIkgL1ypqJav8ov7GNVYHYmDA/s320/20230209_183502.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I've felt frustrated by the level of flowers; mostly because it's against a bit of background of tragedy; Pieris gone, Bay Tree gone, my 20 year old rhododendron, gone.... <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxlujiu1Dva_6sZaeRQwXioeHTmC080Bh5pLo163E1PoOhWl1f_8BXNQBFdK8v-yY22qFMJAIqt6aN5KKCf-4WJ1H6fRdAYs5i2omCBM32U4ucJhh4laINO94st6NAX1-x1yfum9zOP3yvemmelFN4EUaLUu10a11dxw6UzJKWLjBTQ0UOfqOuNHB8A/s4000/20230213_171955.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxlujiu1Dva_6sZaeRQwXioeHTmC080Bh5pLo163E1PoOhWl1f_8BXNQBFdK8v-yY22qFMJAIqt6aN5KKCf-4WJ1H6fRdAYs5i2omCBM32U4ucJhh4laINO94st6NAX1-x1yfum9zOP3yvemmelFN4EUaLUu10a11dxw6UzJKWLjBTQ0UOfqOuNHB8A/s320/20230213_171955.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDZD4riyhlr3suQMHGpWHfCU7T6JFgqYi9XajJDbu5Nn6JsMyCHBMw-VpenqXyKwCU1jDOSfxb1G0wgj6cd1nsVFQM_DIcx3u02Q0XmeQWKTxwlW544jmnkCe2aCdur1qumm0aIQzcLyI9PyhGL9x4GrksZCCjN0TS1jKqRfcGmjJTNidSzm7GIEqe4A/s4000/20230223_171418.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDZD4riyhlr3suQMHGpWHfCU7T6JFgqYi9XajJDbu5Nn6JsMyCHBMw-VpenqXyKwCU1jDOSfxb1G0wgj6cd1nsVFQM_DIcx3u02Q0XmeQWKTxwlW544jmnkCe2aCdur1qumm0aIQzcLyI9PyhGL9x4GrksZCCjN0TS1jKqRfcGmjJTNidSzm7GIEqe4A/s320/20230223_171418.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>There a sense of pallor about the flowers that come up in early February, the snowdrops and the early iris, the hellebore. So pale, so interesting, so vague in the gloomy half-light of January. Thank goodness for the <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/11348/narcissus-bulbocodium-(13)/details">Bulbicodium</a>, a tiny hoop petticoat daffodil that is like cheerfulness in flower form.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSK7RzzIPXJiY_egtcGwSDEZnuk7ZOtgyhDzxrj6M42gX3iYoWLN82G65Ss_KW-T1bCY98iPVluyr_eJM4qRzhru_RX2alFFMb72Mfu86KZqY3Zl238s6_nb96q9FlQ6dcCPMODYkVW6Gmq5Bqqch9hK94NBUTVS2MYOLVY90DaIqbfMVFvh63WKzm3w/s4000/20230223_171535.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSK7RzzIPXJiY_egtcGwSDEZnuk7ZOtgyhDzxrj6M42gX3iYoWLN82G65Ss_KW-T1bCY98iPVluyr_eJM4qRzhru_RX2alFFMb72Mfu86KZqY3Zl238s6_nb96q9FlQ6dcCPMODYkVW6Gmq5Bqqch9hK94NBUTVS2MYOLVY90DaIqbfMVFvh63WKzm3w/s320/20230223_171535.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRwJpOzA3trLMs5R1DG_JhuisgNj0-qol_ZQKTTZKaUUqJXOOE5rHi-o500rJMj07_LyQwl_ENnW9hUzXfKraX7I4i7EX8RNCbn4cP8HewTaKkkOvaNZrBcHb13DLBFuBYG-yHDmBbnF-7nJaf_sIk0Ie5MWkttxKU3N0ihPllNojnz0-Vu84BhEYdqA/s4000/20230223_171610.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRwJpOzA3trLMs5R1DG_JhuisgNj0-qol_ZQKTTZKaUUqJXOOE5rHi-o500rJMj07_LyQwl_ENnW9hUzXfKraX7I4i7EX8RNCbn4cP8HewTaKkkOvaNZrBcHb13DLBFuBYG-yHDmBbnF-7nJaf_sIk0Ie5MWkttxKU3N0ihPllNojnz0-Vu84BhEYdqA/s320/20230223_171610.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div>Finally comes the <a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/prunus-incisa-kojonomai/T66411TM">Fuji Cherry</a>, which I'm sure was called something else back when I bought it. It's increasingly dissatisfied with life in the pot so I'm tempted to set it free this year. The little black flower on my lockdown bench is a garden regular.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qGki0reRM2SCuJwMUv-i98BblYUrY6SRwsCSLLfyo8udMbSmc2WXJXxRit-pJsiGlp7rgwk_0qxa14AHam_YL1UYJhf5yye9k0vitmN0pwteCSM-0LyfGynR06SzP4E5NT99UVtOqXgBIqTHCN2hFiNEtWc2hrWjYZ_2rmJKpeG-QtxlUsFZtEj7Tg/s4000/20230223_171526.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qGki0reRM2SCuJwMUv-i98BblYUrY6SRwsCSLLfyo8udMbSmc2WXJXxRit-pJsiGlp7rgwk_0qxa14AHam_YL1UYJhf5yye9k0vitmN0pwteCSM-0LyfGynR06SzP4E5NT99UVtOqXgBIqTHCN2hFiNEtWc2hrWjYZ_2rmJKpeG-QtxlUsFZtEj7Tg/s320/20230223_171526.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF48g1_dT9IRet5uBCofFFMrMgnNgq55A64FJNXEBwxNidNgPjpOIl5Nu5wJDzO_shej-ycsjDnoxdL4hM5zM12wAyXfNmu4e5-lt6A_AYezvX70DB7FSTxNJaU54KDHDJyCiQxDg7pxj2I1viV5GNgz_H956CBWYoo-AM6kAlg2MVp85iEynDuoXsXA/s4000/20230224_095801.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF48g1_dT9IRet5uBCofFFMrMgnNgq55A64FJNXEBwxNidNgPjpOIl5Nu5wJDzO_shej-ycsjDnoxdL4hM5zM12wAyXfNmu4e5-lt6A_AYezvX70DB7FSTxNJaU54KDHDJyCiQxDg7pxj2I1viV5GNgz_H956CBWYoo-AM6kAlg2MVp85iEynDuoXsXA/s320/20230224_095801.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div><div><p><br /></p></div></div></div></div>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-11508480720530676412023-02-17T11:56:00.006+00:002023-02-22T19:01:14.933+00:00we are all transmission vectors for the seeds of weeds<p> As a pet owner, one of my regular activities is deburring. In comes one of the furry ones, pleased as punch, carrying a little freight of seeds and burrs discovered in my garden, the next garden, the verge, the scrub behind the wheelie bins at the back of the estate.</p><p>They find them at all times of year, even the depths of winter. </p><p>The standard weeds and seeds I brush from everything are like a skipping rhyme: <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/creeping-buttercup">Creeping Buttercup</a>, <a href="https://www.notcutts.co.uk/garden-advice/problems-pests/couch-grass/">Couch Grass</a>, <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/plants/wild-flowers/enchanters-nightshade/">Enchanter's Nightshade</a>, <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/159259/hordeum-vulgare-var-hexastichum/details">Barley Grass</a>, <a href="https://cropscience.bayer.co.uk/threats/grass-weeds/wild-oat-and-winter-wild-oat/">Wild Oats</a>, <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/green-alkanet">Alkanet</a>, <a href="https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/wildflowers/petty-spurge">Euphorbia</a>, <a href="https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/solve-problems/herb-robert/">Herb Robert</a>.</p><p>The plants my garden would be, if I'd just stop planting all that other stuff in them.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">travelling in space and time</h3><p>Plants, the <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/18258/tillandsia-usneoides/details">odd</a> <a href="https://www.craftyplants.co.uk/product-category/tillandsia-airplants/miniature-small-growing-tillandsia-airplants/">exception</a> notwithstanding, are rooted to the spot. </p><p>But they travel far and often very fast, either generationally, in the form of seeds, or as fragments, as many parts of a plant can can take root spontaneously. They travel by wind and water, and in the stomachs of animals. They travel on you, on me.</p><p>Don't think they travel on you? Think again. Scientist carefully vacuumed samples of clothes and bags on visitors to Antarctica, and found (in common with most animals, the wind, <a href="https://jamestcosta.com/avian-airlift-darwins-duck-feet-experiment/">duck's feet</a> and indeed <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/comparative-plant-succession-among-terrestrial-biomes-of-the-world/landslides/23BB3C73429CF697B3EED1F2B7F13F63#">rocks</a>) humans are a vector for plant propagation.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Visitors carrying seeds average 9.5 seeds per person, although as vectors, scientists carry greater propagule loads than tourists. Annual tourist numbers (∼33,054) are higher than those of scientists (∼7,085), thus tempering these differences in propagule load. <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1119787109"><i>Chown et el 2012</i></a></p></blockquote><p>Even among the small numbers of seeds I handle, many of them are as small as dust. The ones that come from my orchids and airplants - smaller. Me and my furry assistants scampering round in service of our vegetative overlords, scattering seeds as we go.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/5709086469/in/photolist-9Guyvk-2nxhXnM-9Y4JyM" title="what's in the greenhouse?"><img alt="what's in the greenhouse?" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/3378/5709086469_34787e0134.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>Of course it is always important to read the research in the context of its funding. In this case, <a href="https://iaato.org/supporting-science/non-native-species-study/">this useful summary provided by IATTO</a> (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators) is instructive. But it's also important to look at it in the context of prejudicial attitudes.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">a world of rats and sparrows</h3><p>Adverts for cruising to Antarctica bookend my experience of wildlife documentaries nowadays. The value of knowing something exists is intensified by experiencing it, seeing it, and yes - smelling it; and so we go, and so we look, and <a href="https://iaato.org/supporting-science/non-native-species-study/">dandelions bloom in our footprints</a>.</p><p>There's a pile of concern, but it brings discomfort, to me; a lot of the guidance and guidelines and studies come down to; I should be allowed to travel. But not you.... and that is a difficult position to take. </p><p>Wind blows, birds fly, humans travel; and all of us with seeds in our feet, our feathers, our hair, under our nails and in the air in our lungs.</p><p>We breath in the fresh air of a new city, and breathe out orchids. </p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-74996861957158792372023-02-15T08:13:00.037+00:002023-03-06T08:26:09.667+00:00last february in the garden<p> Last February in the garden was a distracted time. I was drawn away by stuff happening elsewhere and urgent. See Feb 7: "overwhelmed by it all".</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfu-QF1FkaSBOPPs6Jm2VLX4sdoSHJOp6LF4vwKA9X4SZSiRqwHMDJc-JrTrgwpMHi_tF46aiT1zPcWQ647Y3Wr66Lkq-yhyKS3sOwAWa28p4UykjSQumY71Nbxa7CmFwmlxQ4JQLpHli-DjseIp_e7PF7YFmbRErKqUcvtp3-5loflG7u92WtMR1H0Q/s5184/DSCN6051%5B1%5D.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfu-QF1FkaSBOPPs6Jm2VLX4sdoSHJOp6LF4vwKA9X4SZSiRqwHMDJc-JrTrgwpMHi_tF46aiT1zPcWQ647Y3Wr66Lkq-yhyKS3sOwAWa28p4UykjSQumY71Nbxa7CmFwmlxQ4JQLpHli-DjseIp_e7PF7YFmbRErKqUcvtp3-5loflG7u92WtMR1H0Q/w400-h300/DSCN6051%5B1%5D.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gardening record calendar February 2022</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>A few things are still in my worry list: "Spriggy looking thin". This is not referring to the width of my privet hedge, but how well leaved it is. In winder nowadays it looks twiggy and a bit bare. It's still there, plus the topiary chameleon is becoming misshapen. Time for a change?</p><p>"Happier up ladders" is nice to see. I was terrified of working at height after the post-stroke treatment left me fainting. But "kept dropping twigs on face" suggests that the visual field problems were still bugging me a lot. </p><p>Finally: "are there wild hellebore?" Yes, my hellebore are self-seeding nowadays. Like my year-on-year Nigella, I can see how the fancy hybrids produce a simpler plant, ;less doubling, clearer, smaller, paler blooms. Not wild yet, but the beginning of the process of feralization.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-13353160801493819992023-02-07T17:36:00.105+00:002023-02-25T13:22:54.997+00:00a count is as good as a kill<p>I've been re-reading the screenplay of a film I was very fond of, The Falls by Peter Greenaway. This is a surrealist experimental series of 92 short films about a "violent unknown event" (VUE) which was possibly the fault of birds (but perhaps not) and provoked a medical catastrophe for a subsection of humans who found themselves medically, emotionally, physically and linguistically changed by an event they could not understand.</p><p></p><p>Here's the trailer:</p><p><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/244480132?h=d7547c3800&color=ffffff" width="640"></iframe>
</p><a href="https://vimeo.com/244480132">THE FALLS (Peter Greenaway, 1980)</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/spectacletheater">Spectacle</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.<br /><p>I was thinking about it in relation to two things, the first being <a href="https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/">The Big Garden Birdwatch</a> and the second being the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/04/rhs-asks-gardeners-find-interesting-weeds-rare-plants">RHS calling on people to record weeds</a>. In <i>The Falls</i>, naturalism is viewed with suspicion, the counters and the recorders and the observers interrogated for their intentions, with parallel drawn to hunting, and the cruelty of nursery rhymes, where birds die, repeatedly, fall, inevitably, stanza upon verse upon repetition upon rhyme. </p><p>One of the touchstone phrases in the <i>The Falls</i> is:<i> </i><b>a count is as good as a kill</b>. This runs both ways; it is as good for the person (the twitcher, the birdspotter) to check the bird off the list, as to shoot it. But also the act of counting is often one of disturbance and distress: mist-nets, rings, the adrenaline rollercoaster of capture and release, and the invasion of your territory and space by giant carnivorous apes might not kill you, but it's not great for you either. It's a stressor. It really is. </p><p>And also for plants of course. Observation, handling, noticing, spotting. None of these actions are possible without changing what is observed. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98743&page=1">The act of study changes what it observes, and that change can easily include damage</a>. But it's still better for the plant than yanking it up, pulling it out, burning it and destroying its seeds. A count <i>is </i>as good as a kill for the human doing the counting.</p><p>But for the thing being counted, it's definitely the better option. </p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/26389220379/in/photolist-GcVDQg-28i5NDf-26CJrwN-D3tb9J-2ZaQF-216LoW1-29jocNb-26CJpmq-GcUT1X-281vWi6-D3tQem-214EnQ1-RLHDJC-D3tjk3-GcUXXv-2dUDNsK-214E98m-KQ5JJ4-219AFov-D3tDGu-CK99sw-216KTUU-7hunjV-Mo52EG-2dUDqga-RLHA5o-22Pe8tc-236N6W1-2dQ4H2s-gjYbwB-8Hduh1-236NxTw-2ir5JSo-2b94isY-2ir9vZq-2b94gaS-6T1e2A-Q9r8aM-RFGr3s-2cNGefU-2cvVynZ-G3KDih-Driyyf-2cNG9Vb-GCqKpk-2cvVner-2ir9w9d-2ir9wiB-2ir9wfF-Q9qDRt" title="Luke and Leia"><img alt="Luke and Leia" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/4567/26389220379_71f0279d37.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-6744289128803897652023-02-05T16:51:00.006+00:002023-02-06T18:00:11.250+00:00sea rice and ice blossoms<p>In April 2021, I was very ill indeed. From time to time, I would start to do things, and then stop, defeated by the complexity of placing one thought in a sequence with another.</p><p>This post, abandoned in April 2021, consisted of two lines; the title, and this:</p><p><b> Lockdown and illness have beaten the garden quite hard. </b></p><p>It was interesting, trying to garden through the stroke. The damage to my vision had brought difficulties with light tolerance, with feeling confident in open spaces, with watering eyes that responded poorly to changes in light. Things appeared at the wrong distance, or blurred. At the same time I was depressed. I'm a public health professional. I know the impact that having one stroke has on future likelihood of stroke incidence. My stroke had lost my faith in the future.</p><p>And it's hard to garden when you don't have faith in the future.</p><p>What about the title, though? What about the sea rice? Well, that I tracked down relatively easily.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">could this marine grain be edible?</h3><p>A few weeks before I didn't write this blog post, I had read<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/09/sea-rice-eelgrass-marine-grain-chef-angel-leon-marsh-climate-crisis"> an article about Michelin-starred chef Ángel León and his interest in whether the grains of eel grass he had found growing in the sea could be eaten</a>. I had read how it had been <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.181.4097.355">gathered by humans, maybe for a long time</a>. </p><p>I started thinking about Octopus Gardens, and how people have started <a href="https://www.concrete-online.co.uk/the-benefits-of-coral-farming/">farming coral in shallow water</a>. </p><p>These people are hybrid farmers, farming tourists, documentary makers, university staff and travellers alongside their coral. But all farms are human farms. That's how they exist. We are this era's megafauna.</p><p>Could we add Eel Grass into our commensurate species party? <a href="https://www.dugongseagrass.org/">Have we done so already</a>?</p><p>All this and more I couldn't express very well in words at the time. </p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/6706806471/in/photolist-bdE8Uk-D7Eaov-6TBiP-aQo1Ck-BEeGxp-2dUEmKa-jnHhno-9dCayP-jnCNu6-aQnYnB-47X8JH-r6TAJt-2dUDqga-98UVZ4-DwTnbv-jnEmE4-KizjWJ-jnHixu-DwToya-dNBJ5Y-9dCc5T-jnEnzv-dELE3G-9dCamK-RLHDJC-dEFgA2-2dUDNsK-5KMzGf-RLHA5o-dEFf7n-Wrwa7a-8ZRUg9-dELzLu-2b94isY-2dQ4H2s-2b94gaS-2cvVner-Q9r8aM-2cNGefU-8ZRUEw-6TBiT-rggWzQ-2cNG6fA-Q9qDRt-8ZRUTL-2kTDFBj-8ZRV7W-aQnWYM-dELAEA-q5kUKA" title="frost on the chrysanthymum"><img alt="frost on the chrysanthymum" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/7015/6706806471_b928a63dd1.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">the flowers that look alive even though they are dead</h3><p>As far as the ice blossoms go, I would not have been talking about <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/12/17/167469845/suddenly-theres-a-meadow-in-the-ocean-with-flowers-everywhere">frost flowers</a>. I would have been talking about the slightly darker phenomenon, where <a href="https://www.boredpanda.com/natural-winter-snow-ice-art/">an ice storm encloses blossom</a>, and the flowers are encased in a vitrine of ice. </p><p>You can tell by the time of year. April is the cruellest month.</p><p>The chrysanthemum above is dead I think. Two years of neglect and some sharp snaps of cold have done for it. It's a tough cookie, but not -10 tough.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-9690507822296165222023-01-29T23:30:00.004+00:002023-01-29T23:30:33.723+00:00crack gardens on the small screen<p>Is there an abundance in your area? Do you wish there was? I'm thinking about <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00184bp">Abundance London</a> whose name was mumbled over on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00184bp">an episode of Gardener's World</a> way back in June 2022.</p><p>There are four months left to watch it, and if you don't want the usual run of Monty, Dogs, etc. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00184bp">skip to 37-ish minutes in</a> to see an urban charity planting gardens in the cracks in the tarmac and pavements.</p><p>I remember writing about this years ago, <a href="https://punkgardener.blogspot.com/2019/10/urban-greenvasion-green-line-planting.html">crack gardens linked together with green lines</a>. It's pleasing to see things leaping off the screen, real and established, and making an amazing difference to their local areas. </p><p>Abundance networks run all over the country, gathering fruit that would otherwise go to waste, distributing food, raising awareness, gardening their way through to a better world.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/9929332123/in/photolist-diQbRU-oTqD5o-4AjG6-oTsucx-qYgU6D-VuKT46-UpE6Fo-VuKJ3k-VCFRBo-9zFVL1-2Jp1J-wner5t-wmMmmr-2hmJ1Yi-2hmJKye-4y7P16-8THsQv-UbqXnc-g8qqvr-pxiFqU-dcWygj-KoPYx-qPzQWV-g8nXYA-qnhZL4-482eeU-2JqLc-59AbEm-88Hz-24gbwL2-2kojLnf-93avCo-XASoqy-7h34UJ-27ckCY7-jaGL5i-g8oKPn-XASmxf-2e1Ehsv-6sH9Vv-TgiNhA-2e1Ehup-2e1EhyT-28dunbb-2jdfYem" title="fruit of my tree"><img alt="fruit of my tree" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/5339/9929332123_5cbdc5a4e4.jpg" width="500" /></a></p><p>These are fruit of my apple tree, which did not fruit last year, the weather being too poor. Here's to this year's crop being at little better. </p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-74493151632659051792023-01-20T18:20:00.016+00:002023-01-23T19:11:07.167+00:00life in the carbon dioxide induced super-glacial<p>After last week's news around how <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research">Exxon knew about global warming in the 70s</a> (not really a revelation, I remember this being referenced in <a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/saga-of-the-swamp-thing-book-one/">comics</a> <a href="https://comicvine.gamespot.com/animal-man/4005-22707/">in the late 80s</a>) I was staring gloomily at the ruinous mess left behind by the second week this winter of deep minus figures and wondering what, if anything, I could do about the cold and the wet....</p><p>And then I remembered; it's winter, in the Midlands, and cold and wet is <i>exactly </i>as it should be. So let's list and celebrate some of the plants that will do just fine on miserable wet soil and cope with a temperature plunge to -10° starting with one of my all-time favourites: the Hydrangea.</p><p>The Hydrangea I have out back is called <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/335310/hydrangea-paniculata-little-lime/details">Little Lime</a> because my garden is small and the classic <a href="https://www.rhsplants.co.uk/plants/_/hydrangea-macrophylla-altona/classid.3976/">mop-heads</a> can get big and I need something pale and crisp to cut through the gloom. With my alkaline soil it may pick up a speckle of pink as it gets older, if it makes it through its first few years. It's a garden show purchase, and I dithered a lot about where to put it, but hopefully it'll be happy.</p><p>Trooper #2 is <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/9452/i-jasminum-nudiflorum-i/details">Winter Jasmine</a>, sparkling out its golden flowers on bare stems right now. I got my winter jasmine in the standard way, via a rooted cutting, and had been spreading it round the garden a bit, but in pots. When all the pots dried through this summer, many of my cuttings growing on went. But a few were tough enough to see it through. Winter Jasmine, you're going on a few more fences this year.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/8402741981/in/photolist-q5rmSp-gbUrt-dNwfrK-937mRD-p8NYyM-ENKFiR-EiPF3q-km7c-USJp-QTrzZM-zWyEzS-qtWm17-qPzV3R-FCAh3H-2iQcddq-JmdWre-EaPhWL-DQkPvr-DQkK8Z" title="winter jasmine"><img alt="winter jasmine" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/8361/8402741981_bb0f3b290d.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br /></p><p>Trooper #3 is <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/bird-cherry/">Bird Cherry</a>. I have a self-seeded interloper sneaking up skyward out front. It'll take a bit of abuse so it's time to start shaping it to make sure I maximise flowers. It it already routinely baubled with sparrows and bluetits waiting to get onto the bird feeder, which is hanging off.....</p><p>Trooper #4 <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/forsythia">Forsythia</a>. Just as spring shouts, it screams, an explosion of sunshine yellow that says spring is here like nothing else can. I took a while picking my plant: went to the nursery when it was in flower so I could get the perfect yellow spark flower mass. It's well established now, so I can start doing the brutal cutting back that you're supposed to do. Do I dare? We'll have to see.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/32468299147/in/photolist-rgh4Y7-Rt7waa-2iQg1Ju-2iQg1Kb-jaLWnh" title="flowering currant"><img alt="flowering currant" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/4806/32468299147_370dc65975.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>Trooper #5 is <a href="https://www.hedgesdirect.co.uk/acatalog/flowering_currant.html">Flowering Currant</a>, Ribes. It's pink, and I don't always go for that, but there's something so richly basic about ribes pink I'll forgive it that. It's not subtle, but it grows tough and well and puts a cheery sparkle wherever you put it. Pleased to see you, Ribes!</p><p>So here's to it being cold enough to settle the pests and wet enough to fill the water table, and we'll manage, because a UK garden should be able to take the wet and the cold and the murk and the gloom and come up in the spring laughing.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-79460609269703342892023-01-12T18:24:00.004+00:002023-01-12T18:30:12.043+00:00remembering last year in the garden<p>Last year in the garden was not a good year. The lumpy recovery from my stroke (late 2021) smashed head on into a year with very bad weather for gardening. Now, in early 2023, I am counting the cost of groundwater pollution, drought, freeze, chaotic heavy rain and the massy overshadowing of my property by the trees of my neighbours.</p><p>Farewell the Rhododendron I had grown in a pot since the mid-90s.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/14146120857/in/photolist-GrMt9J-HdTSif-GrU8Gc-FeiXqt-HY7CFv-yDKyrY-nQu8du-FrqbnN-2gdU2sF-2gdU2qX-yVkT9o-yX93dr-xZsSgc-eU178j-yVkW8j-bQ5BeF-ny3yTt-J5yX6T-VRhj9f-nNtHtu-nQnufS-nQwfcX-ny2Ht7-nSiNNa-nQnsSS-ny2Tad-ny3tHt-ny2XK5-nSiN8n-nNtMsG-nQsyZU-ny3nvj-2gMCtkG-2kTDFGj" title="OMG Rhododendron"><img alt="OMG Rhododendron" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/3904/14146120857_9a72cb01ee.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>Plus the two Azaleas I had carefully rescued from outside people's houses and nursed back to health. It was too hot, and too dry, for too long.</p><p>Farewell my Bay Tree. When, it started to dry out and sicken, I was puzzled, especially as a Rosemary, in a neighbouring pot, had no such troubles. It was only later that I discovered that the Rosemary had punched through the bottom of its pot and grown a root into the Bay Tree's pot, outcompeted it and sent it on its way. A year that plants fought each other to death.</p><p>I'll not say the others are gone until I'm sure, but the dry summer, the drenching autumn rain and then the brutal plummet to minus 11 was quite the trial.</p><p>January last year, though, I had no inkling of the horrors to come.</p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRpe260kzi4LAREq_fGAtRUKHCXpUG3L3TB9qEFhWXEKal9NgTx2cEa8elmNvOgx4BtHh_WorneP572qW3kSswa5PLew2URHWUhh3qo675CpAt3cVWfbaZnrYUpYW8DkHhhKvdcOrwJMUdRKeUxStFEzVk6M1yhSW8KNn8dIIHxkpOdUX7YLAIvYAYqA/s5184/DSCN5524%5B1%5D.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRpe260kzi4LAREq_fGAtRUKHCXpUG3L3TB9qEFhWXEKal9NgTx2cEa8elmNvOgx4BtHh_WorneP572qW3kSswa5PLew2URHWUhh3qo675CpAt3cVWfbaZnrYUpYW8DkHhhKvdcOrwJMUdRKeUxStFEzVk6M1yhSW8KNn8dIIHxkpOdUX7YLAIvYAYqA/w400-h300/DSCN5524%5B1%5D.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><p>This is my garden calendar from last year. I've kept one for a couple of years. Initially it was so that I could figure out what time of year worked for things like planting. Now it's more like a record of what happened when. I'm not sure last year is going to be a good guide for the future. In honesty, I hope not.</p><p>But there is a moment of reassurance here. Yesterday I went out to look for my snowdrops and according the calendar they're not due till the end of January. My orchids are earlier than last year, some came out for Christmas. The Crassula is in flower again, improbable tiny white flowers in winter's depths. But "things in greenhouse still alive"? </p><p>I don't think I'm going to be saying that again this year.</p><p>All the same, life continues and there are flowers in the garden this new year, here and there.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVo7-9I2yvGL3xTNzIJ47zQjrG8bUI8GOUyjb1uKf7sIY_s1Gnu5JcMIdYqyfS64VO1WYv0yGi-adFWNZsjihvevf3bMYPtmwPpDFD_bEn_maF-KTu6eYrpAzoWcCCWWunIlTQiS-aXD_Tck4N4TfSL27bl7ECPNqq34AhGVmzyDpY-XcaoxwOBxwQfA/s4000/20230111_134613.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVo7-9I2yvGL3xTNzIJ47zQjrG8bUI8GOUyjb1uKf7sIY_s1Gnu5JcMIdYqyfS64VO1WYv0yGi-adFWNZsjihvevf3bMYPtmwPpDFD_bEn_maF-KTu6eYrpAzoWcCCWWunIlTQiS-aXD_Tck4N4TfSL27bl7ECPNqq34AhGVmzyDpY-XcaoxwOBxwQfA/w300-h400/20230111_134613.jpg" width="300" /></a></div></div>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-58637862432151118262023-01-06T19:11:00.001+00:002023-01-06T19:11:09.562+00:00dreams of trees that glow in the dark<p>I live in an urban environment. True dark lurks here and there; a shadow at the alley's end, a slope down under trees, a deep cut through a wooded area. The deep glove darkness of my back-garden, overshadowed by neighbourly, I'll-cut-it-I-promise trees that let me see, through their leaves, the stars. </p><p>But mostly, I live in a constant light-bath. This causes me no concern. The light nights of camping and festivals, a childhood of spending high summer in a curtainless static caravan have left me calm in the face of sunshine, somnolent in the brightness of dawn. These trifles have little impact on my ability to sleep. I imagine the rufty-tufty urban blackbirds feel much the same, napping through the rush hour and hopping out to sing at terrifying volume as the night slides the traffic away to bed.</p><p>But, at the moment, people are thinking, what if street lights were a bit less, you know, light? Ecologists, mycologists, urban planners, energy savers, wildlife advocates, public health agitators and sleep hygienists, all of them looking at our steady golden urban glow and muttering, "light pollution". Could they be set to turn off or dim? Made responsive to need or presence?</p><p>This shifted a soft half-memory in my mind of a green-sky proposal from somewhere in the noughties of a city lit by trees that glow. Eventually, this week, I found the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827885-000-glowing-trees-could-light-up-city-streets/">ancient article</a>, which linked me to an <a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:Cambridge">antique website</a>, all startling justification choices and giddy optimism.</p><blockquote><p>We placed genes from fireflies and bioluminescent bacteria into E.coli. Codon optimisation and single amino acid mutagenesis allowed us to generate bright light output in a range of different colours. Future applications include [deleted content] and quantitative biosensors and biological alternatives to conventional lighting. [<a href="https://2010.igem.org/Team:Cambridge">read on</a>]</p></blockquote><p>It feels like a future leapt at and missed.That urban world where Mr Fox and a scatter of bats flicker between turned off street lamps lit into bare visibility by a soft bioluminescent glow. It's impractical, of course; the light is dim, even to the giddy young eyes of Utopian scientists.</p><p>But lots of things in life are impractical, and nevertheless happen.</p><p>A quick knock at the final paragraphs of the article links things up with <a href="https://www.daisyginsberg.com/work/echromi-living-colour-from-bacteria">Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg</a> whose alongside work here provided the colouring for the faint bacterial/vegetal glow. The video has a similar giddy Utopian charm. Watch and spot the futures that sort of came true, if you squint a little.</p><p><br /></p><p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/19759432?h=8429f4d7e3" title="vimeo-player" width="640"></iframe><br /></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-49889690069091587792022-12-19T19:44:00.083+00:002023-04-27T23:06:07.669+01:00MAKE THE GARDEN DARKER<p>In December 2022 I clipped this article: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/dec/19/the-big-idea-why-we-need-to-make-the-world-a-darker-place">We need to make the world a Darker Place</a> by Johan Eklöf, author of <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447865/the-darkness-manifesto-by-eklof-johan/9781847927156">The Darkness Manifesto</a>. In it he argues for darkness, against light pollution. I worte on it, in shaky capital letters: MAKE THE GARDEN DARKER</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The darker garden</h3><p>At the house I lived in in the 00s, I bought a ten pack of solar lights and stabbed them into the lawn to mark out an otherwise undefined and easily losable path. They gave out a soft, white light. As the night wore on (there were many nights at this house where we would be awake at all hours) the lights would start to pulse gently, eventually winking out, one by one. </p><p>I've had other lights over the years, but none recaptured the simple joy of that first set. In recent years, the lights have become smaller and feebler, the solar panels weaker and less efficient and they have seemed more obviously useless chunks of mixed metal and plastic waste, on the way to the bin. </p><p>But I've also valued the darkness more. I have a back garden shaded by trees, but between the trees from the dark well of my garden, sat in a deckchair curled under a blanket, I can look up and see stars, bats, the faint lights of satellites and planes far overhead. </p><p>So maybe I was talking about that</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The overbright garden</h3><p>But there was something else going on for me, and it's still there, to an extent. In common with many stroke survivors, I suffered from photophobia (fear of light) and visual field interruptions, hallucinations and absences, and I struggled in my overbright garden to manage the overwhelm of so much to process, to enjoy the pleasure of looking at my wild colourful outdoor space, and often found myself, shading my eyes (already shuttered behind sunglasses) thinking: please, make the garden simpler, less intense, easier, less overwhelm, darker.</p><p>Easier to process.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-48933570534092459202022-05-21T18:51:00.022+01:002023-05-11T19:13:08.287+01:00sonification experiments<p> This was another post I "wrote" while ill. Assembled in May 2023 and backdated.</p><p>Sonification, it says. Just that one word. On a page ripped out of a Saturday supplement with Skunk Anansi answering some questions and half an article about people translating bio-emissions of plants into sound. </p><p>So yes -- the article includes some bits from <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/pips-plant-parlour">Mileece</a> and her plant sounds and mushroom collaborations.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J-nIBA0V_No" width="320" youtube-src-id="J-nIBA0V_No"></iframe></div><br /><p>That one's a bit experimental, so worth showing you the hypnotic and accessible output of <a href="https://plantwave.com/pages/science">Plantwave</a> too. Hold on till later in the collaborative composition for some lovely tonal variations.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w0tNEp4m5PY" width="320" youtube-src-id="w0tNEp4m5PY"></iframe></div><br /><p>Finally we come to MycoLyco, who collaborates with Cordyceps.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EYPhCFmtyX4" width="320" youtube-src-id="EYPhCFmtyX4"></iframe></div><br /><p>Listening to the deeper world of your garden, I was thinking. Could I do that? </p><p>Then my partner asked for a <a href="https://somasynths.com/ether/">Soma Labs Ether</a> for his birthday, and we ended up going for walks, listening to all kinds of things. Dams, substations, weirs, cable boxes. Pavements were surprisingly rich soundscapes. Drains sounded amazing!</p><p>We called the device Lady Ether and got her to introduce the band.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-58901494694393636272022-02-13T23:31:00.009+00:002022-03-28T18:19:18.011+01:00getting ready for spring<p>I bought tomato seeds. I wasn't going to but ended up doing so anyway.</p><p><a href="https://www.tomatofifou.fr/recherche-variete-2/recherche-multicriteres/peche-vilmorin-andrieux-detail">Peche Vilmorin Andrieux</a> Vine Stuffing Tomato, <a href="https://www.realseeds.co.uk/tomatoes_vines_big.html">Belarusian Heart Vine Tomato</a>, <a href="https://www.suttons.co.uk/vegetable-seeds/popular-seeds/tomato-seeds-red-zebra_MH-45037">Red Zebra Vine Tomato</a>, <a href="https://www.premierseedsdirect.com/product/tomato-moskvich/">Moskvich Vigorous Vine Tomato</a>, <a href="https://www.adaptiveseeds.com/product/vegetables/tomatoes/tomato-galinas-cherry-organic/">Galina Early Cherry Tomato</a>, <a href="https://www.tradewindsfruit.com/blue-fire-tomato-seeds">Blue Fire Vine Tomato</a>, <a href="https://www.realseeds.co.uk/tomatoes_vines.html">Millefleur Yellow Vine Tomato (Centiflor Type)</a>, <a href="https://www.vertiloom.com/en/imur-prior-beta.html">Imur Semi Bush</a> .... and then I wasn't going to buy any chilli seeds but then I saw <a href="https://redhotpepperpatch.com/shop/ols/products/20-royal-black-pearl-chilli-seeds-med">Albertos Locoto Rotoco Pepper</a> and <a href="https://www.neighbourfood.co.uk/products/foragers-palivec-chilli-pepper/794">Palivec Long Red Chilli Pepper</a> and eh I guess I did.</p><p>A difficult problem though; my propagator shelf is currently covered with interesting pot plants. And it's months before anything can really go outside.</p><p>Another problem; there is a tree shading the whole garden.</p><p>Peche Vilmorin though. How could I resist?</p><p><br /></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-51521560604159121892022-01-27T18:30:00.035+00:002023-01-20T18:52:20.614+00:00everything I wanted and didn't get<p>This is an inter-fill entry, written in 2023 from notes taken at this time. </p><p>Everything I loved and wanted but was too tired and ill to get.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/laurentia-avantgarde-pink-f1-hybrid/4460TM">Isotoma Avant-Garde Pink</a> Laurentia. Same thing.</li><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/marigold-boy-o-boy-yellow/1982TM">Marigold Boy o'Boy Yellow</a> I have the normal type self-seeding through my patio, but you always need more marigolds.</li><li><a href="https://www.vanmeuwen.com/p/dianthus-chinensis-heddewigii-zebra-crossing/8274vm">Dianthus Zebra Crossing</a> It's been a few years since I've had Dianthus, and I do love them</li><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/cephalaphora-aromatica/6959TM">Cephalophora Aromatica</a> Lovely but I'd have to put it our front</li><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/agastache-aurantiaca-apricot-sprite/6954TM">Agastache Apricot Sprite</a> Very orange beautiful</li><li><a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/338913/helianthus-annuus-ms-mars/details">Sunflower Ms Mars</a> if I can get it past the slugs!</li><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/sunflower-maximiliani-early-bird/ka9988TM">Sunflower Early Bird</a> I want a perennial sunflower...</li><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/setaria-viridis-caramel/WKC9751TM">Grass Setaria Caramel</a> So! Fluffy!</li><li><a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/californian-poppy-lady-marmalade/wkb9800TM">Californian Poppy Lady Marmalade</a> Reckon I might be able to put them in the driveway?</li><li><a href="https://www.suttons.co.uk/available-now/flower-seeds/dahlia-bee-party_mh10295">Dahlia Bee Party</a> Who doesn't love a bee party?</li><li><a href="https://www.mrmiddleton.com/sedum-busy-nights/">Sedum Busy Nights</a> Never wanted Sedum before, do now</li><li><a href="https://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/Coreopsis-Incredible-Sea-Shells-Mix-Flower-Seeds">Coreopsis Incredible! Sea Shells</a> and yes the ! is part of their name </li><li><a href="https://www.vanmeuwen.com/p/daffodil-golden-bells/61385VM">Daffodil Golden Bells</a> aka Hoop Petticoat</li><li><a href="https://www.farmergracy.co.uk/products/crocus-orange-monarch-bulbs-uk">Crocus Orange Monarch</a> because everyone wants a giant orange crocus</li></ul><div>In the event I did not buy (or plant) almost anything all this year, and of these things? Bar Hoop Petticoat daffodils I got none.</div><p></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-19283059900576836052022-01-12T21:38:00.048+00:002022-02-15T17:58:35.741+00:00feeling my way forward into 2022<p>The very strange year of 2021 has now given way to the startlingly mild beginnings of 2022. There is, I discover, emerging exhausted from pandemic crisis and health crisis, a bit of a crisis going on in the garden. Flowers and plants I bought from shows and shops still languishing in their pots. Pointing fallen from walls and mortar popped from paving. I tend to favour a slightly post-apocalypic look, but these last two years, the apocalypse has staged something of a take-over.</p><p>As always, the apocalypse has smudged my motivation. It always comes with the temptation to lay down, to let it wash over. But just in the darkest week of the year, gardening catalogues start to land on the doormat. The garden is muck and murk, true. But where there's dirt, there's seeds.</p><p>Easy seeds, like <a href="https://www.gardensillustrated.com/plants/flowers/nicotiana-tobacco-plant-how-to-grow/">Nicotiana</a>. Curiosities like <a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/sisyrinchium-palmifolium-canary/w76469TM">Sisyrinchium</a>. Interesting new bedding I've never tried before, like <a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/laurentia-indigo-stars/t16174TM">Laurentia</a>. Blousy colour-pops like <a href="https://www.vanmeuwen.com/p/begonia-bossa-nova-night-fever-papaya/ka8763VM">Begonia</a> and <a href="https://www.jparkers.co.uk/petunia-frenzy-grand-rapids-mix-1020888c">Petunia</a>. Garish scramblers like <a href="https://www.jparkers.co.uk/coleus-stained-glassworks-royalty-1020566c">coleus</a> and <a href="https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/morning-glory-party-dress/TKA2638TM">ipomoea</a>. </p><p>There's no space for anything. I've put interesting houseplants over my propagator shelf. Which are of course bringing their own catalogue-fall onto the doormat. Ooh <a href="https://www.dibleys-shop.com/products/parasitica">Impatiens Parasitica</a>. <a href="https://www.dibleys-shop.com/collections/begonia-plugs/products/black-fang">Begonia Black Fang</a>. No. time to get everything into propogation mode, already.</p><p><a href="https://www.dibleys-shop.com/products/copy-of-begonia-dark-eyes">Begonia Spinning Gem</a>, though.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0092/0351/5450/products/China_Curl_2.JPG?v=1547980776" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="267" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0092/0351/5450/products/China_Curl_2.JPG?v=1547980776" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1711525815248114260.post-15241391389266422612021-09-16T13:58:00.001+01:002023-02-22T19:43:58.854+00:00zebra gardens and chicken scrapes<p>I was tracing back through my notes from when I was ill and found the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2289213-zebras-rolling-in-pits-help-give-life-to-the-namib-desert-in-africa/">story about how zebras give life to the deserts they roll in</a>. This is proper <a href="https://www.ecography.org/blog/megafauna-and-ecosystem-functions-learning-giants">megafauna as environmental shaper</a> stuff. If this is something you are unfamiliar with, it's the idea that megafauna manage the environment they live in for their own benefit. If that all sounds a bit gaia-suspicious, no need to worry. It can be a co-evolved emergent behaviour, with a little light evolutionary shaping. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Rolling pits to chicken scrapes</h3><p>So, the zebras have their <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.7983">rolling pits</a>, and these have their own distinct biome of zebra-tolerant plants. They also act as water reservoirs, bringing a tiny flush of rich green, fertilised by zebra scurf and soil. How did they find this out? They flew drones over the desert and saw these curious round green patches after rain. Zebra gardens.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/2420135/in/photolist-dpqt-9qaFLh-2hmFbzL-2hmGYjh-2hmGYmB" title="feathery safari"><img alt="feathery safari" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/1/2420135_1dc77caa13.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>Chickens, as any back-garden bird-keeper knows, also do a lot of scraping. I can't find any papers on their contribution to back-garden biodiversity, though. They have a tendency to see laws as to-scrape lists and scoop out dust baths in the dry shady soil under shrubs. </p><p>This can lead to chicken fatigue.</p><p><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremy_dennis/4204610962/in/photolist-7pxJms-4CW7vR-bpcKug-b8K3-7LW3Th-diRnWj-9sikuY-RivW8W-RivU9L-cudhYY-Prxz9-69DP-b8JP-bm46wd-nog9Ka-Rcuegu-KgdKs-Rcu8BU-4i8xcx-7Wfd-SfmiNd-2SAeJ-8wLK2Z-dZTPPR-9fD3pi-SqwmEQ-4sMQ4-4iZefi-nQx7tP-7XaRP-RUofg7-SfmhXf-4vgJwL-Rcu2gY-2iQcdfQ-owBod1-7LS58p-7LW3tY-RUorZC-2iQeWuo-8ry2Qm-3X1Hg1-ShYb3t-ShYg3t-ShYcJV-2aENsmb-a6TgbB-8BQeQq-ewEK7-vz5cZE" title="free chicken's"><img alt="free chicken's" height="375" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/2789/4204610962_f7e99ed409.jpg" width="500" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></p><p>But, in all likelihood, their scrapes do have an impact, not necessarily negative. Rich fertilisation from chickenshit deposits, foliage stripping from busy beaks. Water retention reduced as vegetation cover decreases. Chicken runs need to be moved around, of course. But the grass comes greener, as grass wants over-fertile soil.</p><p>Getting it past the ethics committee might present challenge, but a drone study of the impact of back garden chicken keeping (or animal keeping in general) on soil fertility, cover and diversity might hold revelations.</p>cleanskieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11042779823643632274noreply@blogger.com0