The Organic Garden. Allan Shepherd

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of my garden with a small spyglass, like a sailor looking out to sea for a sight of the enemy. It’s a fantasy, but, if you haven’t got a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

      I started having my shed fantasy way back at Robert Plant’s place when my friend Kevin Beale built one of Britain’s first straw bale buildings: a garden shelter constructed with bales, reclaimed timber, secondhand pallets and lime render (an eco finishing material). It’s the first time I’d ever watched a craftsman at work. Building was a logical step-by-step process. But it was also an art form. The shed was finished off with sculptured lizards climbing down the corners towards the soil. It gave me a privileged close-up view of the art of making something out of nothing. Shed Zeppelin was a fairly bulky number – never use straw bales in a tight squeeze – and it lacked the finesse other materials would have allowed, but it was made on next-to-no budget and worked. It’s still there on Robert’s farm, even though the rest of the garden has sadly passed up the stairway to heaven to that great allotment in the sky.

       Ethical choice: materials to avoid

      Avoid using materials like PVC, vinyl and other non-recycled plastics. They each take a lot of energy to produce and they create harmful chemicals. Cindy Harris and Pat Borer, authors of CAT’s The Whole House Book, state that the avoidance of PVC is now ‘virtually a hallmark of green, environmentally sensitive building’. They also note that MDF (medium-density fibreboard) has been dubbed the ‘asbestos of the 90s’.

      So what’s the alternative? The ecological shed

      The first alternative to the dead shed is not to have a shed at all. If you just want somewhere to store a few tools, perhaps a lovingly constructed homemade waterproof box will do. The second is to buy a bespoke shed made to your specification, and the third is to make your own.

      To give you some ideas I’ve enlisted the help of architects and eco-designers Jenny and Mehdi (www.jennyandmehdi.org). Jenny and Mehdi spend a month most summers creating the garden for Greenpeace at the Glastonbury Festival. This is always a showcase for low-impact, beautiful spaces made using reclaimed and organic materials. I’ve had the pleasure of helping them construct one of their garden structures – a cordwood wall using natural clay and cut logs of English hardwood. On a burning hot Glastonbury day I had the coolest feet in the field, treading straw into wet clay to form the principal bonding material for the wall.

      The process of working with natural materials is much more pleasurable, fun and creative than working with bricks and concrete blocks. Jenny and Mehdi are fantastically imaginative people, able to combine a love of organic spaces with the practical know-how to do the building work themselves. In their treehouse described on the following pages, we have tried to put together a package of design ideas for different-sized gardens and different budgets, but what the three of us feel is that you can take any of the elements that we describe and adapt them to your own situation.

      At the heart of Jenny and Mehdi’s philosophy is the idea that the word ‘organic’ should refer just as much to the structures of a garden as to the plants. My only regret with this section is that it cannot go deep enough. Structures and plants need to mesh in a garden to create total atmosphere. It would have been lovely to give you a step-by-step guide to how to make this happen, but there just wasn’t the space. I hope though that there is enough here to inspire you to look deeper. And see what’s possible with a little thought and understanding.

      Shed cred – welcome to the treehouse

      Shed Zeppelin replaced an old caravan. The caravan was ugly and badly insulated. There was no fire and in the winter we shivered around a gas cooker, grilling tomatoes or cheese on toast. Kevin’s straw bale structure was a luxury apartment compared to this. It was big enough to function as store room, mess house, meeting place and, occasionally (more in the summer than winter), crash pad for tired gardeners with early morning duties to perform. It was a good multi-function space for the whole year.

      Jenny and Mehdi’s garden structure in Kay Zitron’s garden in Aberdovey is quite a different affair. Not at all chunky, it shows off the elegance of wood in an open summer stage topped with a curved roof garden and complemented by an enchanting (noises off) room for grandchildren. Kay wanted a structure that would connect an existing patio to a courtyard garden below, that would give her panoramic views of the Irish sea, that would allow her husband to do his office work outside during the warmer months, and provide a place for her grandchildren to play. She also wanted something that would give her the feeling of being in a treehouse.

      Although I don’t imagine many people will have the space or time to take on a project like this, it shows off all the main features of ecological design extremely well. It provides an example of a small shed project (the children’s room), which is feasible in any small garden, and a larger open structure that would provide shelter with a minimum of materials.

      Let’s take a quick tour. Entering the garden courtyard you are immediately struck by the drop from the house to the garden. Before the structure was built the only way to get to the garden was down a set of old concrete steps. These did not sit well with the rest of the garden.

      The solution was to incorporate a new set of steps into the overall design, to take people from the house, through the stage area and down to the garden. The whole structure is made out of green oak, which means it has been used freshly cut. Green oak lasts for decades without artificial preservatives and is extremely strong. Other woods, such as hazel, become brittle within a few years and cannot be used for this sort of structure. Most manufactured and homemade sheds are made out of seasoned wood, timber that has been left to dry for at least a couple of years. Green oak has a high moisture content and dries in situ. This means it shrinks on the job so you have to allow for this process. The green oak used here was cut to order from Powys Castle and sawn locally but there are numerous suppliers around the country. The structure is held together with green oak pegs too.

      The stairs are shaped inwards at the top to create a sense of being drawn towards the rest of the structure. Standing at the bottom, it almost feels like you are climbing into a painting by Escher.

      The stage is a triumph of space saving and space enhancement. It is supported on four posts of green oak placed on four concrete pads. Because the load is borne by these four stilts there was no need to lay trenches for concrete foundations. This saved on labour, energy and materials. The stilts also freed up the space underneath the structure (for shade-loving plants, and a cool place to sit on very hot days). The structure itself is a vertical space for plants, with climbers trailing up to the roof. In a sunny, south-facing garden this is a perfect place to grow sun-loving fruits and maximise your home harvest.

      Climbing to the top of the stairs you can turn left or right. Take the right turn and you come to the stage, but let’s take a little detour first. Stroll along the boardwalk under the clematis bower a moment and you’ll come to a small handmade wooden door. Open it and you enter the children’s playroom – a magical little space with a unique view of the garden through a square window. It’s made using a green oak frame and topped and sided with oak shingles cut by English company Carpenter Oak. To ensure

       Ethical choice: the benefits of green oak

      Green oak is used in ecological building not only because of its strength but also because it is a home-grown resource. Oak woodlands are a natural feature of the British countryside and provide valuable habitats for wildlife. A single oak tree can host hundreds of different species of wildlife and the loss or decline of many species in Britain can be directly linked to the loss of oak woodland. Oak woodland can be managed sustainably so that any trees СКАЧАТЬ