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Alex has created a garden about 50 metres long and about 8-10 meters wide along the West side of a factory unit. It has created a great microclimate on 2 terraces and after 5 years it’s already quiet prolific with an effective forest garden / permaculture mix of fruit trees, bushes, eleagnus to fix nitrogen and also to provide fruits, asparagus and some prominent cordons of japanese wineberry [...] 
Sissinghurst is probably my all time favourite garden to visit. I it was a dull afternoon but the bulbs were just outstanding. – particularly in the areas of woodland garden they have [...] Isobel has been sewing wild flower seeds to make a meadow area round the new fruit trees that aren’t getting the potato treatment this year. I’m looking to transplant a bit of comfrey for mulching into the other part of the woodland garden and am going to broadcast a bit of landcress which is a great self seeder and a good standby for winter salad. [...] Hockney displays such a feel for the plants. You can feel the spirit of the landscape, the presence of the individual trees and the sequence of spring coming day by day and week by week is a drama played out in my garden here [...] 
Sometimes it’s good to step back and enjoy the seasons and spring is probably the most exciting of all. National Trust gardens are a great way to see some really stunning mature gardens and planting ideas and Nymans in West Sussex is no exception. [...] Down here not a million miles away from the Ashdown Forest we have packs of wild deer roaming the countryside looking for things to munch. As part of the development of the Forest garden we have been protecting the fruit trees and Camellias with plastic mesh cages. However at the Intelligent Garden we like to work with nature where possible so I was delighted to come across this piece via Twitter. I’ve reproduced some of it because it’s so useful. [...] Well we’re certainly doing some of that here. Haven’t mowed the lawn yet but we’ve been dividing up perennials and sticking them into the new hedge. And the potatoes are chitting at the moment ready for their role in the pincer movement against weeds – sheet mulch, compost , potatoes – around the new fruit trees. [...] One of the principles of permaculture is stacking – three dimensional planting. So this means that are going to use fruit trees as the basis of our design., In between the trees, we plan to plant fruit bushes in between the fruit trees – ultimately they want to be sited at the drip line of the fruit tree canopy and below that we will plant a range of perennial vegetable and mulch crops – chard, comfrey, sweet potatoes etc. [...] So I’ve decided to go in a snake about 4 -5 meters wide which will start from the fence at the bottom of the lower pool, come up to the Mulberry and sweep round through the plum to go back to the boundary just up from the slope to the exising birch and then go up the boundary and round, inside the fallen willow to the shed. I’ll put a half standard Blenheim Orange tree there so that there will be three large trees in that area with lower bush trees between there and the other birch to allow evening Sun in to reach the house. [...] |
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