Arthur’s Gardening Blog

Have the recent strong winds knocked your fencing for six? Then now is the time to take action. Did you know that now is the best time of year to sort out your garden fencing as your borders have not yet grown up and your garden fence line is clear? As well as providing security and privacy, choosing the right fence can be an investment in your property.

Although you can choose from traditional lap panels, professional lap panels and closeboard panels; perhaps this is the opportunity to be more inventive? Continental style or Elite style fence panels have more creative styling, are of higher quality and longer lasting. They have mortice and tenon corner joints, a smooth planed finish and are pressure treated for longer life. They are also FSC certified – the trademark of the Forest Stewardship Council – thereby ensuring that the timber has come from environmentally approved forests. Whatever the style you choose, it is worth fixing your fence now and not waiting until you have to struggle with the grown-up flower border and hard summer ground.

If your fence or fence posts have suffered damage but are still serviceable, you may be in need of some Metpost Repair Spurs. The Metpost Repair Spur is the solution to the problem of posts which have broken off at ground level but are in a sound concrete base.

The Metpost Repair Spur is ideal for repairing gale damaged fencing and is available in 3″ and 4″ sizes both have the Wedge Grip fixing design. If the concrete around the old post is not sound, it may be necessary to move or re-stagger your fence post using a Metpost Spike.

The Metpost Spike is the work-horse of the Metpost family. They are manufactured from heavy gauge steel and the rigid construction is finished with a durable, protective red oxide coating which can be painted to match your fence panels and posts. The spike holds fence posts above ground level which helps to protect the base of the wooden post against rot so ensure a longer life

The garden buildings’ market has been struggling for the last couple of years, but now looks like it could be set for growth.

Worth around £110m in 2010, the market for garden buildings was down 14% on 2009. However mid-way through this year, 2011, the market was only down 5%.

The three most popular types of garden buildings include; modular garden rooms (43% of the market by value), log cabins (32%) and timber framed buildings (24%).

As the garden buildings’ market has evolved, additions and further choice have been added to the garden building experience. There are now many different roof finishes to choose from, including different colours. Even more popular over the last few years is unusual shaped garden buildings.

A major factor in the increase predicted next year is the number of people who now work from home. Garden buildings are perfect for their needs.

This year will still be tough for the garden building industry, but the future looks positive with a more favourable economic climate hoped for during 2012-2015 as the country starts to return to growth.

The volume of units sold is predicted to rise at a lesser rate than the increase in the value of the market, and is predicted to reach 30-32,000 units in 2015, an increase of 15% on present day volumes.

Downtown Vancouver is not usually the first place you’d look for company headquarters – but this is about to change thanks to the Telus garden building.

The Telus garden building is likely to bring a new excitement to downtown Vancouver. Set for completion in 2014, the new build is likely to attract many organisations from the suburbs into the city.

“Our goal is to make it something that is an icon and that will be a model and example that others look up to” explains Andrea Goertz, a Calgary-based Senior Vice-President at Telus Corp.

The garden building will replace the ancient Telus offices on Richards Street. Construction is likely to begin February next year, following the re-zoning requirements being met.

The one million square foot building is going to cost around $750 million, with 22 storeys of offices and 46 storeys of residential apartments.

The office tower has plans for three interior sky gardens, high up in the building, as well as a public piazza at street level.

The gardens are likely to feature gazebos and garden arbours just as traditional gardens do.
The residential homes will feature green technology, including geothermal heat exchange.

Mr Henriquez explains that the building will feature an “organic wood structure entrance canopy.” And, in Henriquez fashion, there are trees everywhere.

“I think trees, roof gardens and landscaped urban agriculture are very much a part of the normal landscape in cities now” Mr. Henriquez adds.

The architect said that he wanted to break the similarity of many of Vancouver’s major buildings. Creating instead something “idiosyncratic and considered; the product of a city with a history and a story to tell.”

Recycling is important to us all and particularly so since some of us now only have fortnightly bin collections.  HOME COMPOSTING is the most environmentally friendly way of dealing with our garden waste plant material.  Composting can be fun and easy and you don’t need a huge garden to accommodate a click4garden composter.  So how do you get started?

Choose the location for your click4garden composter bearing in mind that an earth base under the composter allows drainage and access to soil organisms.  Composters come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes but the wooden clicki4garden composters are perhaps the best to use.  The wood provides insulation and allows the compost to breath.   Build your click4garden composter, place it on the bare soil and then get recycling. 

Composters, like us, benefit from a balanced diet.  You can feed it with garden refuse as well as kitchen waste and below you will find a list of some ‘dos and don’ts’. 

Do compost:

·        Uncooked vegetable & fruit scraps

·        Tea bags and coffee grounds

·        Old flowers

·        Gerbil, hamster & rabbit bedding

·        Soft prunings

·        Perennial weeds

·        Vegetable plant remains

Don’t compost:

• Meat & fish
• Dairy products
• Cooked food
• Coal ash
• Cat/dog litter

The composting process requires air and in an ideal world we should add all our compost at once and then turn periodically to let the air through.  However, most of us accumulate waste gradually and therefore add it to the composter in layers.  This build up of layers can cause compaction and the decomposition of the waste becomes less efficient and therefore slower.   Turning your compost is labour intensive but speeds up the process. 

Finally if your heap is predominantly green material add straw, paper or shredded woodchip which will help break it down. 

Have a look at our click4garden composters and become greener today!

Although a rather small town, being only about 2 square miles, Green Tree is making its name in Allegheny County for its parks and recreational facilities.

Recently there has been a further addition to the park; the fourth gazebo is now complete and situated behind the baseball backstop within Green Tree park. Also refurbished were tennis and basketball courts at Wilson Park.

The most recent garden building is the largest of the four gazebos and has been painted in the district’s signature colours of cream and beige.

“The way it’s constructed makes it quite a beautiful thing” said Councilman Art Tintori, who expects the most recent gazebo to be used for innumerable activities. It was used for the first time last month for the town’s Oktoberfest celebration.

“The thought was to use it as a bandstand but you could have any kind of event you wanted,” Mr. Tintori said.

The most recently erected gazebo cost $15,000 and was presented by two local organisations; the Schafer Foundation of Green Tree and the Rotary Club of Green Tree.

Borough manager Dave Montz said, “Officials have formed great partnerships to install recreation areas and upgrade them. This is really the council’s commitment to ensuring the borough’s recreational facilities are updated,” he said.

Mr. Tintori echoed his remarks. “It’s a public-private partnership that supports what we’re doing. It’s great.”

A park in Milton Keynes has been allocated a sum of £4.6m from the lottery fund. This welcome sum is to help restore garden buildings where the World War II code breaking activity took place.

Bletchley Park Trust will be using the money to renovate the code-breaking huts; however in order to finish the project the Trust has a further £1.7m to raise.

The derelict garden buildings are at risk of collapsing very soon if they are not restored shortly. It’s a race against the clock to save these snippets of WWII history.

Museum operations director Kelsey Griffin said:

“[The code-breaking huts] are certainly not going to last through one or two more bad winters, they are really no more robust than a garden shed. At the moment visitors can’t go in them because they risk falling through the floors.”

The code breaking work which was so essential to the war effort was performed right in the park, in these buildings which now need so much attention. Bletchley Park made massive advances in technology, including cryptography.

In order to receive the £4.6m lottery fund allocation, the park will first have to raise the £1.7m needed to complete the project.

Bletchley Park has therefore started a fundraising campaign called ‘Action this day’. This is a phrase coined by Winston Churchill following a letter from the code-breakers stating their desperation for resources. Upon receiving this letter Churchill ordered: “Action this day! Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this had been done.”

Bletchley Park has so far seen numerous donations from technology organisations and Stephen Fry, television personality, has also lent his support.

The summer house at the Colby Woodland Garden near Amroth has been hiding a beautiful secret; locked up for many years the gazebo has now been opened to the public.

On show inside the garden building is the work of muralist Lincoln Taber. Taber trained in Florence before moving to the UK where he then decorated the inside of the gazebo.

Up until now visitors could only peer through the windows; however the gazebo will now be open to the public daily.

Inside the gazebo, the walls are decorated with clematis, painted beneath are wine glasses and a bottle of champagne. This is thought to reflect what Taber imagined the gazebo should be used for – dinner parties.

Higher up inside the gazebo, the American artist also painted fake windows where a heron can be seen flying past. The ceiling, showing the signs of the zodiac, represents the eight people involved in the project.

The gazebo also sports a fake door with a view of a path down the garden, the real doors open into the actual garden.

Taber was born in California but travelled all over Europe. On a trip to Spain he met Salvador Dali and trained in Florence with Nerina Simi, thereafter he worked with Annigoni. Taber finally settled in England in 1967.

Steve Whitehead, head gardener said: “It is the perfect place to sit and relax and now there’s the added attraction of being able to gaze at the interior of the gazebo.”

Stealing gazebos, market stalls and Christmas lights, the thieves did not spare any thought for the market traders left without means to sell their stock.

Crowle Market had ten steel market stands stolen, as well as 12 gazebos and Crowle Lights Committee’s Christmas lights. The thieves barged their way through locked metal gates into the lock-up near Market Place.

The locked unit doors were smashed and it is thought the thieves made a run for it between 6 September 2011 and 10 September 2011. The discovery was made when a committee member went to open up the unit on Saturday morning in preparation for setting up the stalls.

Crowle and Ealand Councillor Town Councillor Ron Stewart hopes the thieves will be caught.

He said: “It’s the curse of Crowle Market – although some markets have been held in Crowle Market Place over the past year following its redevelopment, each has suffered some drawback, principally weather. It is sincerely hoped that a more modern detection method of identifying the culprits will be found on CCTV footage, rather than Sherlock Holmes type deductions.”

The theft almost stopped the market from taking place, but the market traders and businesses rallied round putting together make-shift stalls and allowing the market to go on and have a successful day.

Resolute on not letting the thieves get the better of them, the organisers have promised to do everything in their power to replace the stolen items before the next market (6^th October 2011).

Another fabulous garden structure to consider is a Pergola.  Pergolas are incredibly versatile; they can be used to divide gardens into sections, they can add height to a patio, they can be built around a fountain or other garden feature to create a frame.

Pergolas can serve as tasteful extensions to your house or used as car ports.
The latter two are known as lean-to pergolas whereby the retaining wall is used to support the structure on one side. 

The possibilities are endless and they truly can be a shady canopy.   Pergolas can be purchased in kit form whereby all the components are designed to match together and assembly instructions are supplied. If none of the kit pergolas appeals to you or fits within your personal vision then you can buy pergola components to build your own.  Click4Garden, the online garden company, can offer advice on how to build your pergola project. 

Click4Garden has an exciting brand new range of pergolas and pergola components available in five vibrant colours: Sage Green, Venetian Red, Silver Birch, Rush Green and Iris Blue. The green shades are designed to blend seamlessly into any garden offering a relaxing and calming atmosphere.

Whether your style is traditional or modern, green tones work perfectly with other materials in the garden such as stonework, paving or wooden decks.  Calm and cool, Iris blue adds real style to your garden for a more contemporary feel, whilst Venetian red offers earthy brown undertones and is the traditional choice for garden wood; this shade complements the green foliage in your garden beautifully.

The summer is here and after a long winter of waiting we want to spend as much time as we can in our gardens.  What better way to do this than to incorporate a garden structure into your garden design. Create a sheltered retreat from which to read, paint, work or relax and entertain friends.  Tuck your garden structure away at the end of the garden or have it as a feature gracing the main garden area. Your gazebo, your own secret corner, shady canopy and secluded space.

Click4Garden Gazebos are freestanding timber framed gazebos with a roof allowing for protection against the elements in our uncertain climate.  The timber framed gazebos, such as the Budleigh, Seaton or Regis, all supplied by Click4Garden,  can be ‘dressed’ allowing you to put in balustrades, mirrors to reflect your garden or full size panels for more privacy.  Gazebos are a stylish and sophisticated looking addition to any garden; light them up at night and you have created a beautiful room from which to entertain your guests.