Garden Barge Square - garden on the Thames

This is a house boat community on the Thames, not half a mile from Tower Bridge. The Dutch barges have been planted for the exposed conditions using deep containers. There is a unified planting scheme including light trees (Robinia pseudacacia, Birch and apple varieties) grasses, shrubs and annuals.

This is a really exciting garden. You enter the wharf through a tiny portal in a wall, and then there is this whole other world below you, down a gangplank shifting in the river swell. What's a garden doing here, fruit and roses, so close to the City?! This is the area where spices, tea and other goods from the east were docked. There's a sense of dark history and transgression, even on a gloriously sunny mid-summer day.

Please follow the link and click on the slideshow icon top left in the toolbar. You can regulate the pace of the slideshow yourself and turn on or off the comments.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Vivekagarden/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLhz4_9-YGO9QE&feat=directlink

Unfortunately this garden is open to the public only once a year, so bookmark this link and put it in your diary for next summer http://www.opensquares.org/

Silver birch stems

Inspired by the grove at the end of the Serpentine path at Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge, I recently used birch in a couple of student designs. Silver birch gives good year round value: shining stems in winter with a tracery of black twigs, fresh green leaves in spring that darken to provide dappled shade in summer, and buttery yellow leaves in autumn. Here you see them photographed on May 3rd, with new-ish leaves and an underplanting of small tulips. I've seen winter photos with just a dark mulch, all the better to contrast with the white. It is a stunning effect when you turn the corner to enter the grove and there's a strong sense of place.

Betula utilis var. jacquemontii, the Himalayan birch. Eventual height 18m. Moderately fertile soil in full sun or dappled shade.

I'm not sure if those at Anglesey are a cultivar, but 'Doorenbos' reaches a more manageable 7.6m in 20 years, with an eventual height of 12m. It suitable for the smaller garden, but even a small and slender tree such as this birch should be planted a good distance from a house (root damage, falling). 'Doorenbos' has the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit, evidence of having been trialled and found to have both horticultural and aesthetic value. AGM plants tend to be readily available in garden centres or from suppliers. These stems had been cleaned - you just need water and a soft brush to remove dust and algae.

http://www.angleseyabbey.org/gardens/winterwalk/index.html

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/