Weeding the Web

Gardening with Dogs - or Dealing with Doo-Doo

One of my first ever blog postings was about composting for dog owners. Clearing up after your pooch in the garden isn’t nice, but it has to be done. Certainly, when I had a terrier, there was no way I was ever going to get him to poop somewhere appropriate on demand (or do anything else on demand, for that matter).

One option is the Pet Poo Loo Wormery that I mentioned, but here’s a report from Marion Owen of PlanTea who visited City Farmer, a demonstration garden and compost site run by Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture in Vancouver.

Their solution has been to build a sunken DIY dedicated composter, keeping it sweet with a septic tank additive. It’s certainly popular. Presenter Mike Levenston reckons that, with 40 million viewers of his videos, plenty of these exist around the world.

City Farmer also provides instructions in words and still pictures (not to mention an insight into what happens in Calgary when the snow melts - ugh!), but see the video below for a quick explanation, and the one beneath for a visit to Sharon Slack, that's been working well for 15 years!

Wine bottle water feature from Style Gardens: a DIY garden project

NB April 2016 Links to stylegardens.co.uk no longer exist, so I've removed them from the post below. 

Phew! Gorgeous day! And if there’s one thing to make you feel cooler, it’s sitting by water. Not to mention relaxing beside it with a glass of wine.

But what to do with all those wine bottles? Well, this idea from Style Gardens helped them to win Gold in the Royal Welsh Show in 2000 and nicely combines Adam’s ale with the nectar of the gods. 

Style Gardens’s website is, frankly, a puzzle to navigate, not least because all the pages seem to have the same address, so I can’t link you straight to the relevant pages. Find photos and description of the prize-winning garden and water feature under Garden Design on their Ideas page (see tabs along the top of the screen), and instructions on how to make it under Garden DIY on the Ideas page (you’ll need to click through a few more pages from there – just follow “projects”).

It is worth a mooch round their website, though, if you need some ideas and advice on garden design. Here’s an example: “One thing you learn when studying garden design is that circles ALWAYS work well... A circle is a very strong, geometric shape, and it 'draws the eye', as the jargon goes, meaning that it encourages the viewer to focus on the internal space, and makes it possible to ignore unsightly surroundings.”

Good. I’ve just decided on a round paved area in the middle of my vegetable patch!

Gardening by the Moon

Planting by the moon - it either appeals or it doesn’t. Personally, I don't why, if the moon can affect tides, why it shouldn't affect other things too. My suspicion, though, has always been that to get good results you need real application.

For a rundown of just how simple or complicated planting by the moon can be, see The Gardeners’ Calendar. It explains the difference between the synodic cycle (which depends on the moon’s waxing and waning), the Biodynamic cycle (developed by Rudolph Steiner and more attentive to the zodiac signs) and the sidereal cycle (which takes into account the moon’s orbit). You’ll also find a daily update on what activity is good in which cycle.

It all sounds pretty confusing, so if you've had any experience (success or failure) of growing by the moon, then do click on Comment below and let us know how you've got on.

Taking on the World: Tom Hart Dyke and Lullingstone Castle Gardens

How many hearts were a-flutter at my local horticultural society recently? Impossible to tell. With our — how shall I put it? — well seasoned membership, enthusiasm is shown by attendance, rather than demeanour. But, going by numbers, it was regarded as quite a coup to land a talk by Tom Hart Dyke.

Tom, renowned plant collector, shot to national prominence in 2000 when he finally emerged from nine months’ captivity in the Columbian jungle. To this day, he and his travelling companion, Paul Winder, have no idea who their captors were, nor what they wanted.

But it was certainly terrifying. Informed one day that they would be executed the coming evening, Winder spent the day in prayer, while Tom — “I wasn’t going to bother Him upstairs” — distracted himself by planning his ideal garden. And it’s this garden, changed very little from the original plan, which now supports the family estate at Lullingstone Castle in Kent. The whole experience, though, has had a deep and lasting effect on the family, and The Times has a a touching interview with Tom and his mother, Sarah.

Tom caught the gardening bug when he was three and his granny (much revered and often mentioned) gave him a packet of carrot seed and a trowel. His passion for his subject is immense and one is left in no doubt of how “amazing” and “fascinating” he finds the plant world. Such is Tom’s eagerness that occasionally one fears that he’ll run out of breath before running out of sentence. Occasionally he does.

The World Garden — “my Columbian dream” — aims to show the origins of many familiar plants. Wild varieties make up the central displays, in beds shaped like the continents, while corresponding cultivated varieties are ranged around the edges of the two-acre walled garden. Every winter a fifth of the garden is dug up and moved into shelter.

This year it wasn’t enough. While I was mourning the loss of a single potted myrtle, our cold, wet February wiped out over 1000 of Tom's plants, including (as he alarmingly put it) the entire Canary Islands. Tom seemed sanguine. It all contributes to our knowledge of the plants and over the years he’s made interesting discoveries of what is and isn’t hardy and, with his seven volunteer helpers, lost plants are quickly replaced.

And transplanting isn't all that's been happening. Last weekend, not content with one World Garden, Tom unveiled the World Garden in Miniature, very cute and featuring alpines. You can read more on his entertaining blog.

Tom's engaging writing style also gets an airing in his weekly column for the Gravesend Reporter, which has a nifty e-edition, although their page counts are a bit off and you might have to turn the pages, rather than use the search facility, to find him.

The next event at Lullingstone is the Flower Festival on 6th June, but you can visit Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays until 26th September. For more, see Visitor Information. In the meantime, the slide show below gives a flavour of the World Garden, and the video a preview of Tom's Hot and Spiky Cactus House.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, glowing cherry-red...

Russell Crowe will pound across cinema screens from tomorrow in the guise of Robin Hood, and with a whole new backstory (and main story) unrecognisable to those of us who have grown up with the legend (and, indeed, the unsurpassable Errol Flynn version).

Having seen a trailer, which prominently reminds us that the director Ridley Scott was also responsible for Gladiator, I’d say we’re in for more of the same — lots of murky forest, wide CGI vistas and a strange predilection for making every scene dreary with a blue or brown filter. Still, I could be wrong.

So, in celebration of (OK, and protest at) this latest reincarnation of one of our most English heroes, I thought I’d ferret out a connection with that most English flower, the rose.

Growing a garden as a business: the example of Alnwick

Back in November, I wrote about my disappointment with Alnwick Gardens.

This week, the Duchess of Northumberland has written in the Financial Times about her current and future plans. Alnwick has not grown any more attractive to me with longer hindsight, but I do admire her focus on promoting the gardens.

A lot of thought is going into keeping Alnwick firmly on the map and other garden owners might benefit from taking note on how she is attracting visitors.

Daddy, my Poppy hasn't grown yet

Letters of Note is a captivating blog dedicated to gathering fascinating correspondence of all kinds.

Some are letters from the rich and famous, and it's touching to see those who have replied thoughtfully to unprovoked, and sometimes needy, correspondence (among them, Iggy Pop). Others speak loudly of the character of their authors - Mark Twain's could surely be by no one else, and if I'd received George Bernard Shaw's missive, I think I'd have curled up and died, rather than give such a spirited response.

But this is a garden-related blog, so where is the gardening link? Well, children can cause a headache even with the best of intentions. See Daddy, my poppy hasn't grown yet for a great example of a father trying to repair the damage wrought by his son's enthusiasm.