Lonely Planet?
A few pictures from a recent visit to this beautiful Essex town.
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Imagine knocking down some old Nash Regency terraces to build council houses. If that idea fills you with horror, you should probably stop reading now. If, on the other hand, it might capture a democratic moment, a time when we wanted to build houses for the people and cared less about the interests of the few, read on.
Derwent: Davies and Arnold, Zone C
This was the vision of Eric Cook in 1944. Cook, a left-wing journalist, was the vice-chair of St Pancras Borough Labour Party. (Elected to the Council in 1945, he died aged only 42 just three years later.) Admittedly, his idea had had some help from the Luftwaffe but the buildings were poorly built (‘by Regency jerry-builders’, he said) and thought at the time to be beyond repair. Modern bulldozers, he went on, could easily create ‘one of the finest building sites in all Britain…the ideal site for…
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A sea of snowdrops at Colesbourne Park
If the answer to the title of this post is yes then you probably won’t want to continue reading. I know, I know, you can’t get stirred for galanthomania at this time of year. But lets face it, flowery delights in February are a little thin on the ground, we’ve all had enough of winter and are a bit desperate to see some signs of life in the garden. That’s not to take anything away from the beauty of snowdrops but I do think they owe a certain degree of their popularity to the fact that they bloom so early in the year and there is little else to compete for our attention. For a period of about four weeks from mid-February to mid-March gardens with collections of snowdrops are at their peak and it’s hard to not be blown away by the spectacular sight of carpets of…
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Beech Tree, Clumber Park via Woodland Trust
Old School Gardener
Thinking of growing your own cut flowers this year? Here are 10 flowers to grow from seed
via Gardeners’ World Magazine
Is gardening a crusade or a hobby? This question occurred to me after reading a New York Times article about a symposium featuring Douglas Tallamy, Chair of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. Tallamy is also the author of “Bringing Nature Home”, in which he argues for the environmental importance of using native plants in home landscapes.
Yellow Coneflower and Wild Bergamot
In his presentation, Tallamy maintains that gardens should not be judged on beauty alone: Gardens should, among other things, help sustain the diversity of life.
Tallamy’s argument is all about insects. His research shows that native plants support way more insects than exotics. To give just one example, native oaks support 537 species of caterpillar, as opposed to a Japanese elm (Zelkova serrata), which supports none. This is because most insects are specialists able to digest the foliage of only a very limited…
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Anemone by Andrea Mc Donagh
A few more clippings from a book I bought in a charity shop last summer ….
Celsius Curse:
Anything that survives the coldest, wettest summer since records began will perish during the mildest winter on record.
First Law of Arboriculture:
The magnificent mature tree you spotted in the National Trust garden and a similar sapling bought later at your local nursery at great expense take a hundred years to mature. no one told you this. Even if you did live to see it, the full-grown tree wouldn’t look the same in your garden.
Au Soleil:
The carefully selected, ideal situation chosen for the specimen, shade-loving shrub in November will get the full force of the sun all summer.
Law of Planters Can’t Be Choosers:
A gardener who is hunting for shrubs or trees looks first at the specimens suitable for his land, then at the substitutes on his list, and finally buys the one he can afford.
From : ‘Mrs. Murphy’s Laws of Gardening’ – Faith Hines (Temple House books, 1992)
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