new arrival

It may be some time until normal schedules are resumed.

Westminster vertical gardens

I've been to a conference. Four stories up, there's this little garden. I couldn't see a way in. Maybe it's just for looking at, as you pass from seminar to workshop.

It was very hot all day. On the way back to Victoria and an air-conditioned bus to take me home, the older developments begin to shade into Nova Victoria, green walls sprouting in the white sunshine.

visiting a new garden in midsummer

A new garden is always a lovely thing, especially in Midsummer. Two of my friends have just moved into a new house, and though they chose it for the kitchen rather than the garden, the garden is not without its benefits.

The Peony is wonderfully scented, but cramped between two large shrubs, drunkenly collapsing into the lawn. The lawn has a good substrate of meadow weeds, hardy grass and moss. That's how I like lawns, with a liberal sprinkling of hoverflies and bees in the clover, but YMMV. The Maple is a hero tree - wonderful shape, healthy leaves. It's high summer, so the leaves are green, but you can just see a fringe around the leaves suggesting intensity in autumn, subtlety in spring.

There are some attractive hardy perennials about the place. Check out that sparkling ice-white Astrantia, and there's good old reliable Geranium Rozanne, blueing up the place beautifully.

Here's the main action item; an eau de nil Hydrangea with big electric green leaves. It's a bit crowded back by other shrubs and the lawn, but it's a good plant.

I almost missed the Passion Flower, tucked out of the corner behind one of the two sheds. Some Campanula was disappearing under Dogwood stems. A Fuchsia was uncertainly budding amidst its own dead stems. Creeping buttercup brawling with variegated ivy in a quiet corner.

The lawn is cramping the beds. The shrubs are all too close. There are a few big holes where there was maybe decking, or a BBQ area. But some of these may make it into the new garden that's coming.

the best of the school competition wheelbarrows

Just a little moment with the best of the wheelbarrows from the School Wheelbarrow Competition at Gardener's World live. I don't think this won (my Google fu has failed me on finding the winner), it's more of a personal winner. I admire the way they stretched and extended both the theme (Around the World in 30 Wheelbarrows) and the wheelbarrow itself (nice use of marine ply and acrylic food bowls, kids). Touches of that massive gardening movie, The Martian. Plus some nice plants, but they don't get in the way of the overall garden narrative. Which is as it should be:

Love, love love the little rustic space shuttle planter. Every garden needs one of those. But this is definitely a concept that spilled out of its wheelbarrow, grew wings and flew. To space.

Footnotes: though I think they used painted clay here, you can buy simulated Martian regolith from The Martian Garden. For educational use, apparently. Final word to the first Martian:

in the frame at gardener's world live

As we headed up the motorway, the weather had a threatening air. As we were waved into an abandoned car-park and directed to the back door of the show by a hi-vis rando and eventually captured by an irate supervisor furiously brandishing a walkie-talkie my heart sank, somewhat. But inside was the usual melee of plants, shopping, garden bobbins, shopping, slebs, shopping, stonishing gardenlets made by children, designers, hort students. Oh, and shopping. As usual the sharing of the venue with the Good Food show provoked some confusion; zig instead of zag and the greenhouses and innovative composting solutions are suddenly replaced with sausages and balsamic vinegar. But this does mean that the food wagons are superior stuff. Although we were up on a non-Carol day (boo!) there were five celebrities on our scratch card by the end of the day; Frances Tophill and Monty filming in a show garden, Mark Lane giving a lovely talk in the members lounge, Arit Anderson finding treasures in the plant village, Adam Frost in the hard landscaping gardens (found by following the enormous boom that gives all the panoramic views of the show) and Monty again, rhapsodising at length about his tools on the main stage. 

I "forgot" my wheelie trolly. This was supposed to help me shop less. Ha-ha! More on that later, but just quickly, while it's still fresh - what were my ten stars of the show at GWL?

1. Municipal inspiration Two of the best gardens (Canal and River Trust and Design it New York) were directly inspired by public greenspace, the first imitating a wildish tow-path, complete with volunteers fishing and riding bikes and a plastic heron, and the second evoking the public benches and towerblock backdrops of NY's High Line. People are often coming to gardens late nowadays, after they've spent years gasping in tiny new-builds and buying season tickets to the local botanical gardens to get their garden fix. People like that (yes, me) have favourite public green spaces and our gardens reference them. Nice to see that on show.
2. White flash planting Dark corners, gloomy corners and basement corridoor gardens were one of the problems seeking solutions explored in detail this year. If it had been a sunny day, the open nature of the showground might have made this feel a little silly; as it was, the white popped under the dark British sky. Euphorbia ice mist was the signature plant, backed up by the white flags of cornus, various and variegated absolutely everything but definitely Fatsia Spider's web. Subterranean Sanctuary and Deep Green showcased this in the Beautiful Borders. The classic white garden often annoys me, with its  aura of vast country piles. This brings the look into the practical, modern, urban zone with big bold leaves, almost a cold tropical flavour.
3. Farmville Vegetable Patches Absolutely epitomised by The Dahlia Garden, this grids up large, often exotically-shaped or coloured vegetable plants in small enough numbers that you can give the plants tender, loving individual care. Flowers are interspersed, but not cottage garden style; they also go into the grid, a line of Dahlias or Petunias or Nigella sitting tidily alongside the Brassicas and Leeks (so architectural). There's a magnificent new masculinity about the plumped and contoured plants, the deep chocolate background (even mulch makes the plants look better), the firmly espaliered or lollipopped miniature fruit trees and the thrilling flamboyance of the oversized, glossy, pixel-polished planting.  
4. Object of desire 1: Stumpery Among all the wellbeing and mindfulness-inspired borders, there was an out-and-out stumpery. Moss, of course, makes the rain look good. Tiny woodland flowers look exquisite. One of the delightful chunks of rotting wood (the stumps were inverted, for extra interest) had obligingly grown a toadstool. The effect was ridiculously calming, forest bathing on a flower fairy scale. In the floral marquee, many fine demonstrations showed how this could work with tropical flowers, air plants, orchids, water planting, perennials, bonsai, bedding and (of course) ferns. Source some rotting wood, and make your beetles happy.
5.  Object of desire 2: Chickens Up in the allotment corner, there were chickens in tidy little modern pens, with chicken pushers handing out advice to punters about how a chicken could be fitted into any back garden. Which is kind of true, as long as you understand that once the chickens are in the garden, it's their garden now. Among the more regular broods, they had Silkie chickens, and Silkie chickens in the rain are hilarious, once you get over fretting about them getting chilled and dying. I'd like to see more chickens in towns, wandering about like pigeons and hedgehogs and rats. Silkies would do well, because once you choose back gardens as your territory, it is survival of the cutest.  
6. Planted and perforated barriers Gardener's World Live loves its fences, walls, screens and borders because it's a way to make a small space feel super-large, a temporary space feel permanent. Green poured in through the inset planted windows in the walls of the Creative Roots Garden, verdancy storming the castle of order. Doll's house bricklets were interplanted with erigeron and asplenium and tiny straps of hardy grass in the heritage gardens. Green gleamed through the cut-outs on the inevitable rusted screens in the contemporary spaces. The Revelation Garden (yes, it did come complete with four horses of the apocalypse!!!) had gone completely literal with the idea of our father's house having many rooms - meaning that large garden features could exist in a small garden space, but also that you could glimpse gardens through gardens, like a magic box, dream or fantasy maze. Speaking of which:
7. Green screens Some of our father's rooms had walls or fences, but others were 100% green screens, and these were having a moment. Low barriers made of tall grasses or trained shrubs-of-interest were a particular feature, against walls or free-standing, little stepover barriers that emphasised the importance of the plants. Higher up, visibility screens of trained vines and splayed woody climbers hovered above hedges thinned just a little, to allow tantalising glimpses through to the neighbour's garden beyond. The presence of the television cameras hammered home how these backdrops also frame the action in the garden; and a smooth, tidy, even green screen makes the stars of the show look good.
8. Rainbow Planting There was a little bit of this at Chelsea, but we got a bit snippy about it, because it has missed out indigo. But at GWL, among the various Beautiful Borders, was a fabulous, basic, 100% in-your-face PRIDE border, single colour-block planting with rainbow flags overhead, from The Bearded Botanist. The crowds loved its simplicity and cheerfulness, and take-home easiness. The many pride-flag variations have my head spinning this year; I really like the straight-ally flag (and may end up buying the t-shirt, thus further contributing to bisexual invisibility). You could plant that up, couldn't you? It'd be awesome! 
9. Hardwood/softwood cuttings Ah. Paradise Plants. The find of the show. Their stand was covered with astonishing shrubs marked with the magic words "You can't buy me but you can buy my babies". beneath, little pots of rooted cuttings were selling like hot cakes... and the empty space where there should have been a spectacular huge Kleims Hardy Gardenia did suggest they were flexible on the whole you-can't-buy-the-big-plant thing. I'm a big fan of hardwood/softwood cuttings myself. Find a shrub you like, while it's in flower, so you know exactly what you're getting. Nip off a twig. Root them in any handy pot. Wait for the magic to happen. Five years later, an astonishingly healthy shrub, perfectly suited to your garden.
10. The bedroom is becoming a shrubbery To end on a Peter Greenawayish note (with all dark undertones intended) there was a fair amount of bedroom-in-garden this year, including a literal bed, but also an orgiastic hot-tub surrounded by wildflowers smashed flat (by the rain, presumably, though it had a proper festival foot-trampled feel), at least two glass-wall interiors letting out directly into gardenspace and a plethora of sheltered, intimate nooks and crannies and trysting-spaces. Privacy and display both catered for in the modern garden. So practical!

I caught up with the action on the telly last night, and was (this seems a bit of a common feature) astonished to see a whole enormous garden I just didn't find at all! Also, I wasn't in any background or atmosphere shots, boo, despite some determined lurking in-shot behind Francis Tophill... but a good day, and much fun had by all. Also, I have new goal, given me by the lady on the airplant stall. Can I make my Spanish Moss flower?

beautiful sunny chelsea

It's hard to remember that the sun was shining just a few weeks ago. Three days of rain can feel like a month, can feel like forever. Tomorrow is Gardener's World Live, and honestly the weather is not going to be good. Three days of carrying my laptop through the rain (it's been a bit of an intense half week at work) has drifted me from delight at all the beauties of a rainy day (and not having to water the garden any more) - oh swallows in the rain, blackbirds singing loud to outpace the raindrops - to worry about getting chilled, and a cold coming on, and not being in the mood for the bus to take over half an hour to turn up while the passengers build up, spill out of the bus-shelter, and try to shelter under a Horse Chestnut tree. That doesn't work so well, of course. You get dripped on.

Nevermind, lets look back at the blindingly hot weather that was here on the other week. Here's Chelsea, so bright that the camera whites out every time I have the sky or anything reflective in my viewfinder.

Enjoy the brightness:



There's notes through in Flickr, but if you want answers, most of the really puzzling stuff may be found here. Expect the tiny people gardening around the edges of a miniature A Road. That's just a standalone mystery from the Floral Marquee.

unwise purchases of 2019 part 2 - an unlabelled orchid

I honestly have no idea, and neither did the kid who sold it to me. The actual stall-runners were tied up with a man with a huge macro camera filming some of the rarer orchids in forensic detail. I didn't even take a note of the stall name, airily assuming that there would be something in or on the bag they gave me. But it was a recycled wine bottle bag, and there wasn't even a label on the plant. 

poppy variations in a highways dept. wildflower mix

Silent Pool - the best of the Chelsea show gardens

By the time I'd decided what the best garden was at Chelsea, I'd naturally run out of battery on my actual camera. So the phone had to stand in, a quick documentary shuffle around the garden, some words with the garden hosts, a drift through the murmur of the crowd to gauge temperature. It was interesting, but weird, and you wouldn't do it at home, the crowd said. But they really liked the big rock, front and centre in the photos below:

A bit like an underpass, someone said, and of course that's what drew me to it; the symbolic reconstruction of civic decay as decorative space; the delicate evocation of wild irises growing in choked drains, creepers tumbling down the side of motorway bridges. Who made the columns? I asked, but he didn't know. He suggested Living Concrete, but their website only mentions the beautiful concrete back-wall; I think they're from a construction supplier, the smallest size for a standard footbridge, or something like that.

The elevated drain and waterwall is eco-innovative. Grey water gravity-drains through the subtly slanted top drainage channel, filtering through mats of plants, emerging cleaner as it slithers over the huge resin silent pool logo (the blue water-wall, like a waterfall, but almost silent). Big raised boxes of scented flowers - irises, roses, fashionable fox-gloves might help combat the stink that would up build over time if you tried to make this work, or perhaps the slightly fetid smell would become part of it, as it did in a place near a reservoir outflow where I used to go and play as a child.

The menu tells me that ambient sound from the Surrey hills is playing from speakers, but I honestly don't really hear it, and I'm not sure it's the right choice anyway. The ambient sound from a midlands roundabout might work better; reassuring hum of traffic, the almost inaudible click of lights changing, the sudden flights of rooks and starlings feeding on the green (I'm thinking of Chieveley as I write this, which is very much a roundabout for the discerning interchange connoisseur).

There's plenty of coppery bits and bobs (foliage, paint, slug-repelling raised planters), as befits a gin garden. Probably proper heavyweight copper for the tiny shelf at the back, to match the eye-wateringly expensive bonsai. A giant Silent Gin bottle that looks like it's hastily exited a themed bar somewhere. One lonely and very luxurious chair, like a luxe millennial rehash of Concrete Island. The plants have been selected mainly on the grounds of being gin botanicals, but that actually makes for a lovely planting scheme - with the added bonus of low toxicity, if you're reduced to eating the greenery.

Here's a better view of the ground-level rill, a brick-width foot-trap that feels like it would be improved by decorative drain grill of some kind, but maybe they felt metalwork would be de trop, rather than another great opportunity to showcase their logo. But all this water does make the space enchantingly cool, a little patchwork of soft water and sun-warmed brick, urban oasis style. Birds in the rills and dragonflies buzzing in those extended gutters. Bees sipping at the pebbled soakaway. It has that secret hideaway feel, that hint of den, habitat, lair.

The garden won Silver Gilt, which is Silver-and-a-half, that magic category of the almost-winner. There's lots more going on that I haven't even mentioned - a tiny Plant-e generator powering some LED lights, trigger sensors for the soundscape, and a commitment to donate and reuse parts of the garden elsewhere, including for a short breaks charity for disabled children. But there is a tension in the design (which I like, but then I would) where the garden's mission statement is "to transport inner-city dwellers to the rural Surrey Hills, using scent and sounds powered by plant technology" but I actually leave the garden feeling fine about my inner city life and inner-city living - if we can make it look and feel and flow and grow like this.