Archive for the ‘London’ Category
London Gardens – Geffrye Museum
Friday, January 27th, 2012
Summer in the Geffrye Museum Herb Garden. Source: www.geffrye-museum.org.uk
With the cold weather outside, it’s a good opportunity to take time out for some gardening inspiration. We ventured out to look at the beautiful Herb Garden at the Geffrye Museum in Hackney, and recently visited it a wintry afternoon in January. Whilst the gardens were closed we were able to look out from the warmth of the garden reading room and look at the formal layout, the herb garden and different planting styles.
The Geffrye Museum celebrates and explores British living rooms over a period of time from 1600 to current day. The collections of furniture, textiles and paintings are all displayed in period living rooms. The museum is located in old alms houses at the bottom of Kingsland Road, and is surrounded by some lovely gardens.
Summer in the Geffrye Museum Gardens. Source: www.londonholic.blogspot.com
The walled herb garden opened in 1992, and has matured into an oasis of beauty and botanical interest, which is particularly fitting considering its location in the East End – an area with strong tradition of gardening. The nearby parish of Shoreditch was home to a group of extremely influential nurseries in the 17th and 18th centuries. The current herb garden was built on derelict land located next to the Museum, and contains over 170 different herbs stretched out in 12 beds. and also includes a variety of plants traditionally associated with herb gardens such as roses, honeysuckles and lilies. The beds are divided into areas for specific uses – medicinal, cosmetic and household.
Similar to the living rooms, the gardens are then divided into different periods. You can visit the 17th century garden and look at the herbs and vegetables traditionally grown, comparing it to the formal structure of the later 18th century garden featuring gravel paths, geometric beds and clipped evergreen shrubs.
19th Century Garden, Geffrye Museum. Photo: Sunniva Harte
The 19th century garden design can be traced to archive photographs and descriptions of an actual garden Victorian garden in Hackney. It features a greenhouse, a shrubbery and an apple tree. Moving onto the 20th century garden the mixed borders are full of herbaceous and traditional cottage garden plants, this garden shows the influence of the gardening designer Gertrude Jekyll.
If you do happen to visit the gardens, we would recommend a Sunday in Spring the gardens re-open in April, and you can combine a visit with a trip to the nearby Columbia Road flower market.
The Edible Bus Stop
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
The Edible Bus Stop: www.theediblebusstop.org
If you were to take the number 322 bus along Landor Road in Lambeth towards Brixton and alight at the stop for Lambeth Hospital, you will be greeted by a celebration of green. A few months ago when the sun was shining – (well we like to pretend that it was anyhow), there were round pumpkins, towering sun flowers, giant red cabbages, blossoming raspberry bushes and deep green courgette plants. You have arrived at the Edible Bus Stop.
The Edible Bus Stop: www.theediblebusstop.org
Local resident Mak Gilchrist had watched the derelict wasteground next to the bus stop with dismay, occasionally it had been the backdrop for some guerilla gardening – which we’re big fans of at the Balcony Gardener! – a few local residents planting old seeds and other plants that would have gone to waste. Inspired by this and fearful of development plans, Mak put together 400 leaflets through doors seeing if people would be interested in creating a local community garden project and whether people would be able to donate either their time or plants. Mak had a fantastic response, and after a donation from the Clarence House sustainable garden programme – the Start organisation that we featured a few months ago, she was able to organise a series of Sunday digs to start work on the wasteground. At the first dig forty people turned up!
The Edible Bus Stop: www.theediblebusstop.org
The enthusiasm and momentum for the edible bus stop has never stopped, the mission is simple: “to create a lush organic growing space for edibles and non-edibles.” The volunteers have received backing from a supportive local councillor who encouraged the landowner Lambeth Council to allow the volunteers to develop the land. The buzz of community spirit is alive, such was the fervor and eagerness of the local residents that they organised a local street party in August to celebrate the opening and blossom of the Edible Bus Stop, and neighbours have started to help each other with their own gardens. “The Bus Stop has literally opened doors on the street,” Mak says. “It has become our very own urban village green.” The garden is so loved in the local community that it has not fallen victim to vandalism or vegetable poaching, as Mak explains “The patients in the hospital opposite the garden are like our security guards – they keep watch when we’re not here!”
The Edible Bus Stop: www.theediblebusstop.org
The Edible Bus Stop is hoping to spread the initiative across London, encouraging other local communities to revitalise their own bus stops. They already have their eyes on a bus stop in West Norwood further along the same 322 bus route, and the Edible Bus Stop has just been accepted onto the Mayor of London’s street tree project funding ideas to create an inner city orchard. “I never imagined the smile it would bring to the whole neighbourhood,” says Mak. “There’s a sense of pride even from the younger generation. I’ve overheard them telling their friends ‘my mum planted that’. People truly love it.”
The Long Table Food Market
Thursday, November 24th, 2011
We have long been fans of those cool people at the social enterprise company Bootstrap in Dalston, their ingenious roof garden located atop the building is a great beacon of community gardening during the summer months. We’re all foodies here at The Balcony Gardener so we were thrilled when we heard of the brilliant link up between Bootstrap and the Long Table creating a night-time outdoor food market. Driven by Nuno Mendes of Viajante fame, the market celebrates the best of London’s street food. There will be stalls and signature dishes from the likes of Mendes himself and the Loft Project, The Yum Buns, Hawksmoor, Moro and Big Apple Hot Dogs.
Dalston Roof Park
The Long Table strives to bring people together through a love of food and emphasise the importance of local chefs, purveyors and producers. Portuguese chef Mendes has worked across the world and his side project “The Loft” has become as successful as his professional work. Originally set up as a temporary supper club and personal test kitchen, the Loft has now become a platform for the next generation of talented chefs to take up residency and showcase their food. Chefs are invited from top kitchens around the world to host dinners for guests around one communal table. The Loft provides the framework for the Long Table – a big foodie gathering! We can’t wait to pop by and hopefully we’ll see you there!
The Long Table night market will be at Abbot Street, Dalston E8 every Friday night 6pm-12am from 25 November until Christmas.
MARKET DATES: 25/11/11, 2/12/11, 9/12/11, 16/12/11
If you want to see for yourself what they’re up to follow them at @TheLongTableAS or go to their website http://www.thelongtable.net/
Serpentine Gallery Garden Marathon
Friday, October 14th, 2011
Peter Zumthor’s design for the Serpentine Gallery pavilion. Photograph: © Peter Zumthor
This weekend (15th and 16th October) a marathon of gardening talks will be taking place at the Serpentine gallery in London.The subject matter covers all things garden related: from the history of garden design, poetry, exploration of their spacial, urban and architectural importance, conservation, bio-diversity, museums, Kew’s Seed Bank to talks on walled and kitchen gardens. They have an organised an fantastic line-up of speakers featuring documentary-maker Adam Curtis, artist Wolfgang Tillmans, gardener Dan Pearson, legendary French feminist writer and philosopher Hélène Cixous, artist Jake Chapman, filmmaker Sophie Fiennes, design critic Alice Rawsthorn and plenty more.
Stefano Boeri’s Porta Nuova project, Bosco Verticale (“Vertical Forest”), Photograph: Jade Dressler
The Balcony Gardener is particularly excited to listen to the garden designer Stefan Boeri, the remarkable architect behind the 27 storey high Vertical Forest in Milan, an incredible feat of architecture and concept and another highlight for us will be Elizabeth Diller from New York’s High Line Park who will be speaking on agritecture.
Serpentine Garden, Photograph: P Klimt
The Serpentine organises its annual talk marathon each year, and this year the gardening inspiration springs from Piet Oudolf’s secret garden at the centre of the Peter Zumthor designed pavillion. Each summer the Serpentine commissions an architect to design a pavilion in the park next to the gallery; what’s particularly interesting this year is the focus on the garden. The pavilion was created for the garden rather than the other way round, the shape of the building represents “Hortus Conclucus” meaning “enclosed space.” In his work Piet Oudolf creates places of green urban refuge, he explains: “I imagined something to dream in, something loose and wild. I look for silhouettes and textures, plants that look interesting before they are in flower. I want visitors to see that architecture is simple and planting is complex. Looking into plants brings you into another kind of thinking, connected with inner space. That’s what a hortus conclusus is for. It’s simple, in a complex way.”
The Pavilion, outside the Secret Garden. Photograph: P Klimt
The Serpentine Gallery Garden Marathon runs for the entire weekend with talks on both Saturday and Sunday.
City Orchard Projects
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Photograph: The London Orchard Project
Across London there are crops of growing communities, mini-orchards and farms sprouting up in lots of different neighbourhoods. More and more Londoners want to be able to get involved in growing their own produce, and whilst they may not have the actual space they can turn to different sustainability and growing projects across the city. One such organisation is “The London Orchard Project” set up by green experts Carina Dunkerley and Rowena Ganguli in 2009. There are lost orchards across the city, the area around Heathrow airport used to have vast orchards all around and there were small-scale orchards in centre of the Victorian city. Apple varieties lost to the past include London Pippin, Merton Joy and Hounslow Wonder.
Photograph: The London Orchard Project
The group plants community orchards in London’s unused spaces and inner-city parks; across the city there is a shortfall in allotments – the average waiting list is 5 years and in popular areas it peaks at 20 years. The London Orchard Project helps Londoners waiting for their allotments and giving them growing projects close to their homes. They help to promote community production and gives locals the opportunity to eat fruit grown close to home. So far they have planted 23 community orchards of approximately 10 trees each, the trees have included: apples, pears, plums and even apricots and peaches. Once fruit trees have settled in they require very little help and maintenance – perfect for the city-grower!
Photograph: The London Orchard Project
The Hackney Harvest has been a off-shoot of the London Orchard Project, and carefully maps the fruit tree that are tucked away in squares, parks and gardens around Hackney. The group wants to make the most of the fruit the trees produce, ensuring that it doesn’t simply fall to the ground and go to waste. Volunteers spend their Sundays foraging through woods for fallen fruit, and then laden with produce they can enjoy the fruits of their labour. The group encourages recipe sharing and bake-offs!
Photograph: The Hackney Harvest
Both of these groups show just how easy it is to enjoy a taste of the good life in the heart of the city.