Gardening Vertically


Gardening vertically's in vogue at the moment. We have Patrick Blanc's amazing creations which look like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; the RHS shows have been full of edible verticals this year, like Freshly Prepped at Chelsea. There's lots of absolutely stunning ideas and results. I've also seen a couple of vertical gardening products at the shows, so you can go and get the look yourself.

I even considered them for my boring fence project. Using climbers, vines, trellis and wires is just so yesterday, especially when you can install something exciting to do the same job, with very different plants. However, I still haven't got a clue how you'd look after those fancy planters effectively and without bringing the fence down. Sometimes it's good to get out and about and have a look at what the neighbours are doing. The pictured Euonymus from just round the corner, is a good reminder that sometimes simplicity is best.

Comments

  1. Victoria Summerley21 August 2009 at 17:04

    Absolutely! There's a story in today's Evening Standard about the living wall at Paradise Park in Islington, which I think is the best-known example in London. It's now dying because the watering system failed and the local council is being accused of wasting £100,000 on it. Moral: euonymus rules!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carrie21 August 2009 at 18:13

    climbers, tellis, vines out of fashion! Cripes I must go to...Who am I kidding there isn't a trendy nursery in Northern Ireland, I'm never going to get this sorted out. I shall be fashionably unfashionable?! Honeysuckle Climbing Roses and Jasmines rule!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Karen - An Artist's Garden21 August 2009 at 19:02

    Can you imagine a vertical garden in this part of wales with the wind!!
    Apart, of course from the gardens that are naturally vertical because they cling to rocks.
    Have a good weekend
    K

    ReplyDelete
  4. easygardener21 August 2009 at 20:16

    The Euonymus works very well. I can't see the point of vertical gardening if it costs a fortune to maintain and water.
    I'm still looking for climbing plants that grow up and not outwards - and that flower all the way up, not just at the top where you can't see them.
    Self pruning would be nice too :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Frances21 August 2009 at 20:36

    I clicked to see the gardens of Babylon and was agape at the beauty of it. But reading further, they say there is no soil? And they are lightweight? Hmmm. There was a great wall in the veggie area at the Chicago botanical garden during our spring fling visit planted with herbs. It was outdoors and had to have a drip system to keep it irrigated. Cool looking though. A dry stack wall on a slope with gems planted in the nooks would be doable here. Some of the vines are such beasts about sharing space with others though. :-)
    Frances

    ReplyDelete
  6. Joanne21 August 2009 at 21:19

    The vertical gardens are interesting but beyond the means of mere mortals so i will stick to my vertical climbers on walls, trellis or whatever else is there. When the garden gets full there is no other way but up and even that gets crowded at times.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hermes22 August 2009 at 07:01

    I think thry are very interesing, but did you see the article:

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23735279-details/The+living+wall+of+Islington+is+dead/article.do

    ReplyDelete
  8. VP22 August 2009 at 10:17

    Victoria - we have a Sedum vertical wall in the Eco-home development in Chippenham. I must go and see how it's faring...

    Carrie - it's me that's kidding! Whilst I admire the vertical gardens of Patrick Blanc, I do sometimes think we forget there are less complicated solutions which are cheaper and effective. Besides, I've realised that this kind of solution won't work for my boring fence - it just won't support the weight!

    Karen - I think you've nailed it there - you have them already and they're provided by nature!

    EG - it does doesn't it. They only clip it back once a year, so it almost meets your specifications ;)

    Frances - aren't they wonderful? I believe it's hydroponics instead of soil, but as Victoria says, someone's still got to look after it properly and they're the kind of skills that are becoming rarer in the horticulture industry.

    Joanne - one of the solutions I saw (at RHS Inner Temple show) was meant to be a simpler one which could be used at home. However, I don't know of anyone who's actually tried it in that context - I'm available for testing if needed!

    Hermes - thank you, you've saved me from looking up the article Victoria referred to :) Here's the link if anyone else is interested.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Flighty22 August 2009 at 10:29

    I don't have a head for heights and get dizzy on a stepladder so I don't think that this form of gardening is for me! xx

    ReplyDelete
  10. VP22 August 2009 at 10:36

    PS I've spoken to both product manufacturers and designers at various shows about their designs and products. Before the vertical walls are put in place, there is quite a long period of growing the plants on the flat first to make sure they're established.

    The simpler (and more affordable, but still relatively expensive) product does use some compost. With this one, you either take it off the wall to water, or by a water tank to go over the top to feed the internal irrigation system. Have a look here for more details if you're interested, but I suspect it's going to take a lot for most of us to be tempted away from hanging baskets, flower pouches, trellis, climbers etc. etc.

    Looks like I should do another post on this topic!

    ReplyDelete
  11. VP22 August 2009 at 10:38

    Flighty - your comment came in whilst I was writing my PS. Sounds like your best bet is the traditional climbers route and to get someone else in should any of them get out of hand!

    Have a great weekend everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Arabella Sock22 August 2009 at 14:55

    The euonymus looks very smart and bright and in keeping with the house.

    I do quite fancy a mini vertical wall with a selection of herbs and salad leaves in like one of the gardens at CHelsea. I think it would need rather more attention than I am likely to remember to give it though.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Joanne22 August 2009 at 20:47

    Veep
    I notice Wisley for the last two years have grown a wall of begonia near their front entrance not sure that I like it though.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Mrs Mac22 August 2009 at 23:37

    I trained ivy to grow all up our fence. I want it to get thick and bushy as we have robins and wrens that breed round here.

    The neighbour on that side cuts the ivy as soon as it reaches the top of the fence- he goes along with a pair of scissors. They do it when we're away. I caught one of them going along the bottom of the fence pulling it up by the roots once. Grrrr...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Gail23 August 2009 at 13:31

    Le Mur vegetal is spectacular....I have the perfect small wall for one...Now, if only it came with a assistant gardener to keep it neatened, watered and healthy.

    Ivy and many euonymous are on the noxious invasives list here...they are hard to control in this climate zone!

    gail

    ReplyDelete
  16. Victoria Summerley24 August 2009 at 12:03

    Thanks, Hermes, for giving the link to the Standard article. I always forget to do that!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Garden Mad25 August 2009 at 00:23

    I love reading the comments generated by blogs. I agree that the trendy stuff is sometimes not right for the average gardener even if the idea is relatively simple. They have lots of helpers - remember that wall featured in Gardeners World? If I did that the soil would just fall straight out.

    ReplyDelete
  18. VP28 August 2009 at 16:20

    Arabella - they do look tempting don't they? However, perhaps the practicalities - and prabably expense - outweigh the effect?

    Joanne - that's interesting. What are they using to hold the begonias onto the wall?

    Helena - that's another alternative and exactly the kind of thing I'm getting at with my piece here. However, I also trained ivy up the fence and it's now taking over my garden :( Perhaps that's what your neighbours are afraid of too?

    Gail - they are fantastic aren't they, but out of each for most of us I fear. If Ivy and Eonymus are bad down your way, I'm sure there must be some alternatives that are good for you to try?

    Garden Mad - good point. I suppose the show gardens etc. are always going to take things just that bit further because they need to have that wow factor. However, I'm sure solutions will be found that will bring them within reach of mere mortals like me. BUT it's still good to remember what other options there are to add height in a planting :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from you and welcome thoughtful conversations :)

Comments aiming to link back and give credence to commercial websites will be composted!

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more