little green fingers

Garden mirrors, Ground Force and scruffy scarecrows

 

I've just done something a little bit Ground Force.  Thankfully it didn't involve painting trellis a frightening shade of lavender, installing a water feature or forgetting to don a bra. Instead I put up a mirror.

It was one I found when clearing out our shed and I thought it might be a welcome addition to Oscar's garden. After all, if there's one thing my son loves it's the chance to practice his mournful expression.

The task itself was easy - rub down the old paintwork and then recoat in an exterior wood paint (I used Farrow & Ball's Mouse's Back - mainly because I had some left over but also because it's less offensive than Ground Force Lavender). I then attached 19mm mirror hanging glass plates in brass which I screwed into the frame and then into the bricks using rawlplugs and brass screws.  

The finished mirror does a good job at breaking up the wall in Oscar's garden and, from a distance, looks a little like a window (although admittedly one into a scary world peopled by small waving children and past-their-best scarecrows).

Artificial grass, TOWIE tans and never saying never

In my book fakes aren’t necessarily a bad thing.  I’m not averse to the odd spray tan (provided the needle doesn’t tip towards the TOWIE end of the scale), my hair is quite used to a helping hand in the colour department and I think I can confidently say the orange handbag I bought in that Chinese market is not a genuine ‘Birkin’ (the fact it began shedding its skin in the manner of a snake on a growth spurt should have been a giveaway).

And then there’s artificial grass.

I used to have quite a snooty attitude about this. “Pah!” I thought. “Never!” I thought.  But I shall never say never again (not that it’s wise to live life entirely by Bond movie titles; whilst diamonds are forever, the world really ought to be enough for anyone and I know Buddhists will disagree but I’m fairly sure you only live once).

So yes, I have softened towards artificial grass.  And before you get cross with me, I don’t mean in all circumstances, but there are times when it’s a good option. 

Take the project I finished last week. A day nursery right in the centre of Peterborough. Convenient?  Yes.  A green oasis?  Not exactly.  In fact the garden consisted of a modest-sized space between two tall buildings, bordering a car park and a street and laid to concrete – enticing huh?

Oh, and the brief (that really should have been delivered by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen in ruffled shirt and suitably theatrical arm gestures) was “natural with a hint of magic”

Well, guess what - turf doesn’t grow on concrete, you can’t put a safety surface under turf, turf doesn’t grow well in shade and turf cannot be cut into pretty rolling hill shapes and glued to the wall or used to cover the roofing felt on your playhouses and bins. Artificial grass on the other hand…

 So there you have it. Some fakes are good. Although to be fair, not in the handbag department. 

 

Pot snails, press trips and giant moles

"Christian!  NON!"

There is something almost pleasurable about hearing a child reprimanded when you know that, for once, it's got nothing to do with you.  Instead I was able to smile knowingly at Christian's beleaguered parents in the gardens at Villandry with a look that I hoped conveyed just enough "I feel your pain" sympathy and not too much of the "...but I'm so pleased he's not with me".

Yes, last weekend I was in France on a four day, child-free press trip to the Loire Valley. It's OK. You’re allowed to hate me.

I had explained to the family that this was work but the looks that came my way made it very clear that no-one was buying this story and that if I didn't come back with at least their bodyweight in chocolate, I would not be welcome.

To add insult to injury I was planning to write a piece on child-friendly gardens in the region but without actually taking any of my kids with me.

As it turns out, the gardens we visited were historically fascinating (Chateau de Chenonceau) and beautifully atmospheric (Chateau de Valmer), boasted world leading plant collections (Chateau de Bourdaisiere) and the most impressively vast and downright gorgeous potager I've ever seen (Chateau de Villandry), but child-friendly?  Not so much.

It’s not that children wouldn’t be welcome – they most certainly would.  And, of course, these gardens all offered plenty of space for running around and screaming in a manner designed to fray the nerves of anyone in earshot – always one of the top five favourite activities for my own kids.  However, they were all just a bit too... grown up.

Thankfully, we were also taken to Chateau du Rivau – somewhere I’d written about before, but which I’d never had the chance to visit  - and here, most unusually, keeping the kids entertained seems to be top of the agenda.

First of all, it could easily be mistaken for Sleeping Beauty’s palace – it’s reminiscent of the Disney Castle, but without the worry that a seven foot tall Goofy may round the corner at any minute. And if the kids needed to get more in the mood, you can even hire princess and knight costumes in the Chateau’s shop.

Everywhere there are things for children to spot.  Some of the ‘art’ and installations might not be to everyone’s taste, but the garden itself creates enough intrigue to keep kids entertained for hours. Beginning with a courtyard which married squash and pumpkin displays with giant moles and real life strutting peacocks, you walked through garden after garden, each with something to thrill the under 10s: plant pot snails, tree necklaces, hammocks galore, ogres' hideaways, giraffe see saws, Rapunzel's tower, giant legs walking through the woods, Alice in Wonderland's maze and garden looking glasses, gnomes at home, oversized wellies and gigantic plant pots.

Best of all, it's very near to most of the other Loire Valley gardens and only 40km from Villandry.  If only all parents knew, things could be so different.

"Christian! NON! Nous tu permettrons d'aller au château du Rivau. Maintenant, relâchez le chou. EN CE MOMENT!"

 

Crank calls, TV shows and mud pies

"Hello?  Is that Dawn Isaac?"

"Yes."

"Don't worry, this isn't a crank call."

At this point I became slightly concerned.  Was this the same as someone saying "I don't mean to be rude..." before beginning a character assassination?  Still, I thought, how cranky can a call really be?  Indeed, what exactly is crank? Most of these questions were still running through my head as I realised the woman was still speaking.

"Were you on Love Your Garden last week?"

"Ah", I thought.  "So this is it." 10 seconds on ITV and already I am suffering from press intrusion.  Next thing you know I'll have paparazzi hiding behind my compost bin and I shan't be able to put out the milk bottles without donning a baseball cap and dark glasses.

"Yes. Yes I was," I sighed, wondering in the back of my mind what outfit I should select for the Leveson Inquiry.

"Oh good.  Can you tell me what that plant is.  You know, the dark, kind of purpley one with the pink flowers."

"Um, yes, it's Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace'".

"Sambuca?"

And then proceeded a relatively long exchange where I spelt out each and every word, so worried was I that the poor woman would end up trying to plant a dodgy bottle of readily flammable booze.

Yes, this is undoubtedly the beginning and end of my TV appearances.  Myself, my garden, but let's face it, mostly my very gorgeous four-year-old son featured in a small piece on Love Your Garden last week. If you haven't caught the series, it is basically Alan Titchmarsh doing garden makeovers and "any resemblance to programmes living or dead is entirely coincidental".

I get the sense people in gardening circles may be a little sniffy about the show.  I do understand their concerns.  Many will decry the fact that Latin names aren't used, and even more will complain about "instant gardening" which is expensive and often unrealistic, but to be honest I think this completely misses the point.  This is not about gardening, but giving people a garden to enjoy - these are two very different things but the latter will almost always lead to the former. I've designed enough in my time to realise that non-gardeners who ask for a low maintenance space are simply scared by the idea of looking after plants.  Give them a great garden they want to be in and before you know it they will be boring you with details of how well their roses are doing this year.

What's more, any prime time programme on gardening is good in my book.  People may not neccessarily want to recreate exactly what they see on screen (particularly, I hope, not the £10K hot tub...) but it will get them thinking about how to make more of their own outside space.  And finally, I loved the fact that the programmes have almost all shown families in the gardens and been designed with this in mind. 

For me this has been the missing link in most gardening programmes.  Too often on TV we see pristine spaces with a single gardener giving us a tour and waxing lyrical about individual flowers or a perfectly maintained border. 

This is fine for "gardeners" but what about "people with gardens"?  There is a world of difference between the two.  Most fall into the second category and have an outdoor space they want to make something of, but it's never as easy as this.  If you are a family, then this space has got to serve multiple purposes, appeal to a wide range of ages and withstand an awful lot of heavy use.  If you can do all this and still create an attractive space populated with plants, then you also have the possibility of making a whole family of "gardeners".

This is very much on my mind at the moment as part of my summer holidays will be spent putting together materials for the family garden design course I'm running for Mumsnet next month.  I'll also be choosing the biscuits (this is Mumsnet after all, they have a reputation to uphold) so if I can tempt you with my Jammy Dodgers do come along.

Oh, and if you fancied seeing Archie giving a tour of our garden and putting a mud pie in David Domoney's face, it's here (at least for the next three weeks) - 20mins 15secs in. I shall await the crank calls.

Drawing pins, long grass and village picnics

We have no drawing pins left in the house.  This can only mean one thing: we are in for a very busy June.

Yes, right now, my entire drawing pin collection is holding up a scary collection of notices around the village. And, in true Linda Snell form, I seem to be involved in all three events.  It begins with our NGS garden opening on June 9th. For some reason, I am shocked to find that this is three weeks tomorrow.  I  shouldn't be shocked; we have a piece of new fangled technology in the kitchen - a calender I think they call it - but still, in my head, we're not opening for at least another three months.

A week after this there is the village barn dance, which I won't be able to attend as I shall be gardening and crafting with children at Gardeners World Live but that doesn't excuse me from decorating duties (14 table coverings, four confederate flags, half a dozen strategically placed hay bales and 50 metres of my homemade bunting... in case you were wondering).

And in between the two we have the official opening of our village playground.  Yes, it is complete.  In fact it has been complete for a few weeks but a) I forgot to mention it at the time and b) by the time I remembered I had other things on my mind like broken arms, trips to China and very large tents.

(To be fair I still have very large tents on my mind as one of the marquee stakes managed to go through not only a water pipe but also a waste pipe. However, dwelling on sewerage and cross contamination is not a nice way for anyone to spend a Friday afternoon - unless you are an evil mastermind with a particular interest in pollution I guess - so instead I'll talk playgrounds.)

The latest cause for celebration is completing the work which has been funded by our grant from WREN for £45,000.  This has enabled us to add to the excitement of a mound (which, in these "flatlands", was already quite exciting for the kids) with a climbing wall and double slide.  We also put in a bird nest swing, more picnic tables, a basketball, football goal and cricket stump area and a very cool mini BMX track.

We have also added a couple of features for which I fought quite hard.

The first is a figure of eight pathway across the whole area so that people can walk through and enjoy the playground in all weathers, and which also doubles as a great cycle path. 

The second is long grass.

To be fair, this didn't exactly take much money - well OK, it took none - but it will make a big difference to the space.  Leaving sections of the grass long for the season will bring in insects which will, in turn, bring in birds and other wildlife.  It will give children different, wilder areas to play in, allow flowers to grow and soften the edges of the field to detract from the rigid boundaries. 

In terms of maintenance, the longer grass will be cut at the end of the summer or start of autumn, although each year we will leave one area uncut to give insects a place to overwinter.

So on June 10th we will be celebrating our new playground with a picnic and an afternoon of sports and games.  And, yes, 50 metres of homemade bunting.

Broken arms, blingy trees and very large tents

 

I have been shamefully neglecting this blog of late. I was meaning to write but there appeared to be rather a lot happening in life - some involving children, some involving gardens, but rarely involving both at the same time.

Firstly we had the Easter break - or the A&Easter break as it shall henceforth be known.  I won't bore you with details but in summary it was one pulled elbow, one suspected fractured arm, one broken arm, one operation and one cast.  To add insult to injuries, the catalogue of children's bone issues had nothing at all to do with tree climbing or outdoor high jinks. No - just jumping up and down on sofas and beds (I'm beginning to think that the Ten Little Monkeys song is, in fact, serious Government-sponsored health and safety advice).

Then I went to China for a week's holiday.  The gardening element was limited to planting up some pots for my Beijing-resident friend Claire, my constant criticism of Chinese tree pruning (or branch massacre to give it a more accurate term) and taking pictures of the blingiest tree trunks (above) I've ever seen (which incidentally were outside a karaoke bar which would not have looked out of place in Vegas).

And then we had the birthdays. Yes, I turned 40 and Archie turned 4. This meant I had two parties to organise. Easy I thought.  Lovely time of year I thought.  The garden will be the perfect venue I thought.  Thinking, it turns out, is very over-rated.

Archie's Bugs and Butterflies bash was held during what appeared to be a geographically confused monsoon.  Thankfully it turns out that bouncy castles will also fit in village halls and A Bug's Life on a giant screen along with some strategically placed flowerpots and watering cans is garden enough for most pre-schoolers on a wet Saturday.

My own bash was saved by a very large tent. Now some of you may already know my attitude towards camping (it is WRONG) but on some occasions tents can be jolly useful. In fact this is why, when designing our family garden four years ago, I specifically planned the lawn to be large enough to hold a marquee for 100. Well, you never know when you might need to have a REALLY big party...

You see, sometimes this thinking thing actually pays off.

Broken resolutions, essay extensions and tractor tyres

Source: Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning

I was somewhat depressed this week by the realisation that of my five new year's resolutions last year, I only managed to tick off one (and, in the spirit of full disclosure, my father actually completed this on my behalf).

I still don't keep chickens, there is no Pete Beale style market stall for the kid's to flog their produce, the school has singularly failed to take up my offer of helping with Gardening Club, and most pathetic of all, I can't seem to blog on even a weekly basis.

So I've decided to treat my resolutions on the same basis as I treated every single weekly essay in college.  I shall ask for an extension.

I shall also... hmmm, how shall I put this? Cheat. A bit. Just, you know, to make sure I keep this blog a little less sporadic.

Yes, much in the same way I always borrowed Jen's revision notes because they were more thorough than mine, better thought through and best of all, legible, I shall, on occasion, use a blog post to point you towards superior content online. This will hopefully mean you see interesting things, whilst I can bathe in the reflected glory of someone else's genius.

This week, a sandpit caught my eye.  I spotted it on the Studio 'g' blog but the original idea was actually from Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning - an Australian blog. Very simple, very cheap (provided you can find a tyre to recycle) and incredibly effective.  The long bamboo poles can be covered with sailcloth or a similar outdoor material but you could just use an old sheet and simply accept it will have a shorter lifespan.

For anyone offended by the black rubber exterior, it would be easy enough to plant around the edges and soften the look.  In a sunny spot, something like Stipa tenuissima would give movement and is a very tactile plant for kids.

Pinterest, pies and playhouses

Source: A Place Imagined

My four, yes four, Christmas trees are still fully decorated, the kitchen cupboards remain stubbornly coated in paper snowflakes and I'm about to bake a batch of mince pies.  It would be an understatement to say I'm a bit of a fan of Christmas and, quite frankly, I'm going to milk my full 12 days worth.

Sadly though, I will have to think about moving on tomorrow and, for me, this is going to involve a little garden planning.  I usually ruminate on ideas in January in the hope that I can have come to some conclusions and pulled my finger out before we're well into spring.  This year I have more pressure than usual as I'm due to open my garden in six months time as part of the National Gardens Scheme and I want to add a few more areas of interest, especially for children.

If you're looking for a little design inspiration, I would recommend stopping by Pinterest.  This is a kind of virtual pin board where you can collect and organise images.  Although you can apply for an invite to be a 'pinner' there is still a lot to find by browsing other people's boards. 

Of course it covers everything under the sun, not just gardens, but there are plenty of pinned images with a horticultural flavour.  Rochelle Greyer, editor of the new online Leaf Magazine and the woman behind Studio G blog always has brilliant boards to browse - you can check them out here.  For more specific kids garden ideas I've put together this board (which includes the playhouse image above) but there are plenty more out there - just put in your search terms and then look at either pins or boards that use those keywords.

Happy pinning.  I'm off to roll some pastry and hum a few carols. 

Playground funding, landfill sites and allium golf balls

'Landfill', 'tax' and 'offsets' - not usually three words I get particularly excited about but right now they may as well be 'Strictly' 'Come' and 'Dancing' for the effect they are having on my adrenalin levels.

Let me explain.

Our local play area - yes, the one I was banging on about last year (here, here and here) - has just been awarded a grant of £45,000 from WREN to complete the final phase of its redevelopment. Anyone trying to raise funds for community projects will know how tricky it's becoming. To be fair, we've been very fortunate to date. Firstly, we were awarded a large grant from Cambridgeshire Play Pathfinder (now, sadly, defunct) which helped build a fort, zipwire, shelter, willow tunnel, climbing logs, sandpit and mound. Then we had enough money from Awards for All to complete a trim trail. But after this we were struggling to find any other funds to complete the final phase.

But, we are lucky.  You see, we live a few miles from a landfill site. Now I'll admit, this isn't usually something you boast about and I'm sure Kirstie and Phil would have something to say on the matter, but I for one am delighted by our location, location, location.

You see, if you live within 10 miles of a Waste Recycling Group landfill site, you are eligible to apply for funding. I won't go into the details here, because it would strain my brain, and probably send you to sleep (it involves the phrase - offsetting tax liabilities - I rest my case), but in essence the cash comes from landfill tax and is there to improve the lives of communities living near the sites.

Funding can be for all sorts of projects in the community, conservation, heritage, regeneration or young people categories and has included such things as installing outdoor gyms, restoring wetlands, redeveloping gardens and creating new play areas. If you think this might help you, I urge you to have a look through the details here - and particularly the bit about Contributing Third Parties.

With our grant we are hoping to complete the entire playground project by next Easter with pathways through the area, a new climbing wall and slide installed on the mound, an earth-based BMX circuit, a new birds nest swing, more picnic tables plus a basketball hoop and all weather playing surface.

Of course, for me, I'm at least as interested in the soft landscaping areas. Those beds planted last year and this have been an interesting exercise in learning what will survive harsh winters, spring droughts, zero maintenance and close proximity to over-excited children.

The best performers have to be the grasses - Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' and Stipa gigantea - followed by Verbena bonariensis, which not only flowers for an extraordinarily long time, but has also seeds itself very effectively.

On top of this, I'd put in a good word for Centranthus ruber (which spreads like billy-oh but that's no bad thing in this situation), Achillea 'Moonshine', Sambucus 'Black Lace' (quick to establish and a great, dark backdrop), Veronicastrum virginicum 'Fascination' (great height and no need to stake), Stachys 'Silver Carpet" (great weed-suppressing groundcover - vital when weeding is so haphazard) and Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii 'Goldsturm' (brilliant colour and long lasting).

And just a few last words of caution. Never plant alliums in a children's play area. They apparently look like enormous golf balls, all teed up and ready to be batted as far as possible across the grass.

 

NGS openings and the dangers of to-do lists

 

I did something a little rash last week. I tried to cross something off my 'to-do list'.

You see, having wondered for a year or two whether to apply to open for the National Gardens Scheme, on Thursday I finally did something about it. As with all such important decisions, I didn't really give it much thought, just dropped an email.

"There," I thought.  "I've done my bit. They'll probably take an age to reply" and I put a line through "NGS?" on my to-do list with the smug flourish.

The call came about two hours later. The local organiser was in the area the next day and wondered if he could pop by.

So I had 24 hours. Well, that's a lie.  If you take into account the need to sleep, write, do school runs, feed and bathe children and generally run around after them, I actually had about three hours. And of course, the garden which had looked great in my mind a short while before, was perhaps a little less maintained than I thought.

My mother very helpfully confirmed this. "You might want to take out those dandelions that are seeding all over the place" was her sage advice. I also removed the thistles (one of which had actually reached thigh height).

But against the odds we were ready, and even more surprisingly, the verdict was positive. I had been stealing myself for rejection - not least because this is very much a family garden, catering for children, and I wasn't sure how interesting that would be to the average NGS visitor.

So we're going to open, probably next May and maybe in half term to encourage more children and families to come. This lengthy wait is good as it gives me a year to perfect my baking skills (quality of cake it appears, is at least as imporant as the planting) and several months to listen to wiser and more experienced gardeners whose general feedback has been "Are you mad?".

In the meantime I am also rewriting my to-do list without 'Run marathon?' on it.  It's safer that way.