Time Out's annual spring gardening issue this week contains absolutely loads of interesting horticultural bits and bobs, even if you don't live anywhere near London. Being Time Out, there's some care taken to highlight the best council estate gardeners in London. Several of these require looking up immediately - check out Christine Blower and her rabbit for a start.
The recommendations of gardens to visit highlights the China Landscape being created at the British Museum forecourt in cooperation with Kew Gardens, which willl run from 3 May until the end of October. Kew has traditionally strong links with China, which is one of the best places for plant-hunting in the entire world.
There's also a piece about how to get good results from a really small plot, although the answers won't surprise many - mirrors at the end of the garden to give the illusion of space.
I don't know about you, but I also definitely don't want my urban rooftop paradise to be planted with conifers and heathers, no matter how resilient they are to extremes of hot, cold and wind.
Alys Fowler's windowbox tomato recommendations were of more interest to me: Odessa, Green Zebra and Brandywine - what great names. (Try the Real Seed Company, Chileseeds, or possibly just Lidl for the best Eastern European varieties.)
Finally, for those Hoxton types keen to stay bang on-message, there's a section on coming gardening trends. Time Out's top five:
- Antique seed-swapping
- All-green gardens (colour-wise, that is)
- Lunar Planting
- Living Roofs
- Vertical Gardening
I'm not entirely sure that four and five aren't exactly the same thing, just done in different directions, but there we go. Give yourself 10 marks for each one you're already doing in 2008 and then go and have a snooze in the nice spring sunshine.
No comments:
Post a Comment