I tend not to enjoy Woman's Hour on Radio 4 (in much the same way as I tend not to enjoy women-only gyms...), but I could not help but listen, absolutely rapt, to today's episode, following Beth Chatto around her garden. It included extracts from the book "Dear Friend and Gardener" by Beth Chatto and the late Christopher Lloyd, and I was astounded and delighted in equal measure to hear her wise words on ecological gardening written many, many years ago:
I can't siphon off water from the enormous downspout because it's cast iron, and there is no way my landlord will allow me to drill into a cast iron drainpipe.
I have desert plants like my Agave tequilana sitting right next to moist woodland plants like Dicksonia antarctica. I long to have a garden where I can make use of or design my own habitats. I want my desert plants to have a dry, rocky gravel bed, where they can bask in the full heat of the sun. I want my cycads and proteas to be able to bake in the rubbish soil they will love so much. I want my palms to be able to sink their roots deep down and to grow big and tall.
I want to be able to make use of damp soggy bits of the garden to grow horsetails, ferns, baldcypress and a massive Gunnera or two. I want to be able to put my plants with plants they would normally share a habitat with. As great as the combined effect looks, proteas should not hang out with ferns.
I know what I would like. I would like a little two-bedroom cottage on top of a hill, with a garden that slopes down to the bottom. I could tier the garden, have different "rooms" or vistas, or at least zones, much like the different gardens Beth Chatto and her late husband created. The pond could be at the moist bottom of the hill, or even better, I'd have a little stream at the bottom to line with bog-loving plants. It would get drier to the top of the garden, so that the desert merged in with the patio from which I would survey my kingdom. Hubster could plant out his succulents, or bring them out in pots on the patio. Flaming torches would surround the patio at night...
Our lottery numbers are 8, 13, 16, 27, 32 and 49. If these could come up at some point in the next year (crucially only in the Saturday draw though), I would be much obliged.
Concerning whether to irrigate or not, [...] my thinking on the subject is based on the assumption that water is our most precious commodity as the world population continues to explode, and modern demands for water are often in excess of actual need. Combine this with the likelihood of hotter and drier summers to come, then surely we must be prepared to reconsider some of our gardening practices.And then I got very melancholy. Because I have my little potted garden, on borrowed gravel on top of old bricks, mud and aggregate. I have to water the plants so regularly in their pots. Even the proteas need very regular watering (which I have discovered to the detriment of my Banksia - I hope it recovers).
I can't siphon off water from the enormous downspout because it's cast iron, and there is no way my landlord will allow me to drill into a cast iron drainpipe.
I have desert plants like my Agave tequilana sitting right next to moist woodland plants like Dicksonia antarctica. I long to have a garden where I can make use of or design my own habitats. I want my desert plants to have a dry, rocky gravel bed, where they can bask in the full heat of the sun. I want my cycads and proteas to be able to bake in the rubbish soil they will love so much. I want my palms to be able to sink their roots deep down and to grow big and tall.
I want to be able to make use of damp soggy bits of the garden to grow horsetails, ferns, baldcypress and a massive Gunnera or two. I want to be able to put my plants with plants they would normally share a habitat with. As great as the combined effect looks, proteas should not hang out with ferns.
I know what I would like. I would like a little two-bedroom cottage on top of a hill, with a garden that slopes down to the bottom. I could tier the garden, have different "rooms" or vistas, or at least zones, much like the different gardens Beth Chatto and her late husband created. The pond could be at the moist bottom of the hill, or even better, I'd have a little stream at the bottom to line with bog-loving plants. It would get drier to the top of the garden, so that the desert merged in with the patio from which I would survey my kingdom. Hubster could plant out his succulents, or bring them out in pots on the patio. Flaming torches would surround the patio at night...
Our lottery numbers are 8, 13, 16, 27, 32 and 49. If these could come up at some point in the next year (crucially only in the Saturday draw though), I would be much obliged.
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