yardz

GROWING YOUR OWN LIVING WALL

Further on in my travels this week I found Ball Colgraves Verti-Garden at the Four Oaks Trade Show in Cheshire.

The Verti-Garden allows you to plant your own 'Living wall' using a very simple system.

'Vertical gardening has never been easier with the VertiGarden modular system.
Each VertiGarden panel takes 16 plants and can be planted with young plants and grown on horizontal until plants are established, or plant with Pack or Pot bedding and hang immediately.
Each 0.2 square metre panel has it's own built-in irrigation which can be connected to a drip field irrigation system, or a slow feed header tank.
Additional panels can be hung one under another and the irrigation simply connected between them.
grow one VertiGarden panel in place of a hanging basket, grow two or more for a unique, imaginative display.'

Verti-Garden should be available in some garden centres and I'm sure will become more popular in the future. It will be great for growing a vertical veg garden in restricted places.

LIVING WALL SHOW AT NEC

Visiting the NEC in Birmingham this week for the Autumn Fair, I came across this new living wall that has been planted besides the new Arena building.

It is really stunning, a mixture of evergreens in a myriad of colours and shades. Most interesting is the 'Feather Grass', Stipa tenuissima, that flows down the wall as a mass of flowing flower heads.

FASHION ADVICE FOR YOUR YARD

www.plantforlife.info is part of the Horticultural Trades Association. This is the trade group for garden centres,nurseries and horticultural sundries suppliers.

On www.plantforlife.info you will find a wide range of interesting information about plants and gardening in general. They have produced a great booklet for 2009/10 'Colour me Colour my Garden'. Plantforlife have teamed up with TV fashion expert and celebrity stylist Mark Heyes plus gardening's hottest designer Chris Collins to advise on how to choose the right colours for your garden.

Its a new and novel way of looking at garden colour scheming and is worth worth a look.

http://www.plantforlife.info/colour/

KALE MORE THAN JUST CATTLE FEED

Wondering what to do with those potato bags now you've harvested the crop? Try planting them with kale. It's tasty and robust and full of vitamins A and C.
It's harvested in late autumn and winter and as the leaves mature frost improves the flavour. Because you just pick the leaves as required, harvesting can keep going for at least six months.
Best varieties include Dwarf Green Curled, Redbar, Red Sails and the amazing black Tuscan 'Carolo Nero'.

Look out for plants in your local garden centre now and get planting.

WATERING COCKERAL WITH ATTITUDE

I'm not normally mad about twee garden ornamental watering cans but this cockeral from www.sugarbowlgifts.com has something extra. Real attitude.
The cockerel is finished in a bronze coating. Pours well and acts as a superb ornament. (Height approx 47cm. Holds approx 2.5 litres.) The can is handmade in India so comes with minor blemishes and bumps that makes it unique. £29.99.

There are other birds within the range including robins, geese, ducks and a rather nice 'Fat Hen'!

BANK HOLIDAY CAMPSIS

Just arrived home from a few days at a wedding in Suffolks Constable Country. I was amazed just how dry the country was compared with Devon - I gather they had had next to no rain in August.
The photo shows an amazing climber, Campsis radicans, the Trumpet Vine. It was growing on the front of a wonderful old coach house enjoying the full sun.
Campsis is a vigorous, woody stemmed climber that enjoys scrambling over fences, walls, pergolas, etc. It has deciduous leaves and bears a profusion of velvety orange/red trumpets from late summer to autumn. It needs shelter so would be ok for a yard in the southern parts of Britain.
There are two interesting varieties C.r. Flava which has rich yellow flowers and C. x tagliabuana 'Madame Galen' which is very vigorous and has deep apricot flowers.