There's nothing new...blah, cliché, cliché. but honestly, there isn't, is there? Materials change, engineering advances, but ideas? Coming around again, as the Carly Simon song goes. But here's an idea for vertical gardening that I hadn't seen before.
I recently discovered the far-too-absorbing website Mostly Victorian. To me, brought up with a pre-war (that's pre World War One) edition of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia, which was regularly taken out for the poetry and stories contained therein, the pages on the website have a very familiar look. I guess it was the publishing style of the period.
And what features in a Girls' Own Paper as a "Novelty for Small Town Gardens"? A Wall Garden! A Victorian version of Wooly Pockets.
Doesn't look immediately different from the usual array of pots that you might hang up on a wall, but the accompanying letter reveals that all the pots are custom-made with open backs so the soil is up against the wall, and the plant roots (which the writer seems in constant fear of damaging) "delight in the brickwork".
Easy access, easy planting up, no damage by her cat's myriad friends, and, it seems, less watering required.
The only problem nowadays would be finding someone to make the pots. And possibly the wall.
...Landscape Juice Network
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