London's new Sky Garden

The capital's newest and highest public space, The Sky Garden, at the top of the Walkie Talkie (aka 20 Fenchurch St), is now open and thriving. The first visitors back in February were rather underwhelmed with the planting, but the better weather and longer daylight hours means the plants are starting to feel at home under the glass dome.

When I was there last week, new shoots were emerging on the tree ferns and an iris was in full bloom.

The atmosphere is tropical, with plants mostly from Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand and the Mediterranean – look for the Aeonium (below) African Lily (Agapanthus), Red Hot Poker  (Kniphofia) and Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae).

 Interspersed are fragrant herbs including French Lavender and Rosemary.

The gardens run down terraces on either side of the venue, with restaurants in the centre and observation decks at the front and back. There’s also an open-air terrace facing south, looking towards the Thames, Tower Bridge and the Shard.

 The Sky Garden is on the 35th floor, so the 360’ views are spectacular – and they’re free, though you must book in advance. You can return time after time just to enjoy the changing panorama, or to meet friends for a coffee or a bite. (The restaurants offer everything from a coffee and croissant to a meal with a range of prices: Venison Pie, £18 and Tuna Nicoise £13 at the Darwin Brasserie; Dressed Crab £22 and Whole Dover Sole £42 at the Seafood Bar and Grill.)

The atmosphere is relaxed. There are plenty of places to sit and enjoy the surroundings and because of the booking system it’s not too crowded. My only gripe was that there was no information about what you can see – either the view or the plants. Perhaps that will come later, as it would be interesting to know the background to the building and the planting. In the meantime, perhaps have a map handy to orientate yourself.

https://skygardentickets.com/skygardenpublic_ui/events/

Take one pot of basil....

I saw this tip for a continuing supply of free basil in a newspaper and was amazed to find  a) it worked for me and b) how fast it was, compared with growing.plants from seed.

Take one supermarket pot of basil, cut off a stem or two at the base and put in a glass of water. Within days there’ll be a mass of tiny roots. Pop the cuttings in compost and they will become new plants, ready to take over when the original one is finished. When these start to get too tall, pinch out the tops and they'll produce sideshoots and become bushy. Keep on taking cuttings whenever the plants look like flagging and you’ll have free basil constantly at hand on your windowsill, ready to toss into salads and sauces.
Here you can see the original plant (back) with the rooted cuttings and a new plant. Magic!

Bloomsbury's Exotic Blooms

For a glimpse of South Africa, head to the British Museum in Bloomsbury, where Kew has created a colourful front garden with plants from the Cape region. They range from these agapanthus, with their lilac-coloured pollen, to the Quiver tree, so called because the San people have traditionally used its branches to create quivers for their arrows. According to the explanatory boards dotted among the greenery, South Africa has 22,000 different plant species - two-thirds found nowhere else on earth.


Surprisingly, these are not Wild West cactus, but euphorbias. The San mixed their milky sap with extract from the Diamphidia beetle to poison their arrow tips. But if correctly applied, the sap can be used medicinally, and was a traditional treatment for cancer.

The garden will remain until October 10, and visits are free of charge.



http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/

Fun of the Fair

A great day out at Cottesbrooke Plant Finders Fair, in the award-winning grounds of Cottesbrooke Hall, just north of Northampton. Specialist nurseries from as far afield as Bristol are there all weekend with a wide variety of plants - many of them unusual and eyecatching - so there's lots to tempt you. My only gripe was the queues. The caterers seemed unprepared for the demand for drinks, and a limited number of ticket-sellers at the gates meant a long tailback of cars waiting to get into the grounds. We ground to a halt about two and a half miles from Cottesbrooke, and spent the next half-hour inching our way forward. Let's hope that the situation improves for visitors during the next two days.

Cottesbrooke Plant Finders Fair, Cottesbrooke Hall, Northampton, NN6 8PF

Open 10am - 5.30 pm each day. Admission £7.50

Spring at last

After such a long, hard winter, it's wonderful to see tiny shoots on branches which seemed to be dead, and the first bumblebee hovering over emerging blossom. In this blog, I hope to look at green and garden-related events and initiatives - both in the UK and abroad - with occasional snippets from fellow plant enthusiasts.

So first, here's news of an exhibition which proves the gardening boom didn't start with Ground Force. The Geffrye Museum in East London is staging "A Garden Within Doors", looking at the appeal and history of houseplants over the past 400 years. The museum's period rooms are decorated with flower arrangements in keeping with that time, while the main show area, downstairs, concentrates on the huge growth of interest in domestic gardening during the 19th century. There you'll find the gardening manuals a green-fingered Victorian housewife might have consulted, displays about trend-setting inventors, writers and publishers and details of the plantsmen, nurseries, and florists to whom she would have gone for seeds, plants and equipment. And of course there are flowers - scores of them - ranging from a typical conservatory display (above) to an eighteenth century ‘auricula theatre’ and a 'pelargonium pyramid' based on a drawing in The Amateur’s Flower Garden (1878). Inspirational.

'A Garden Within Doors' is free at the Geffrye Museum, 136 Kingsland Road, E2 8EA Ph 020 7739 9893, from now until Sunday 25 July. It will be open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and on Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays from 12 noon until 5pm.