Heirloom fruits and vegetables at Heritage Harvest Festival, Monticello, US, September 6-7, 2013

Coming week there is a chance to attend 7th annual Heritage Harvest Festival at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Charlottesville, US.  Thomas Jefferson championed vegetable cuisine, plant experimentation and sustainable agriculture.

Visitors will be able to taste a wide variety of heirloom fruits and vegetables, and learn about organic gardening, seed-saving, land preservation and discover locally-made foods.

This year’s featured speakers are Cary Fowler, former executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and expert on the worldwide effort to save seeds, and Steve Bender, Senior Writer at Southern Living Magazine and gardening author for nearly 30 years. 

It seems to be very interesting, more info available here. 

Vegetable vertical garden – do YOU think it's practical?

Definitely it's lovely and catches attention, but I keep asking myself: is it practical? It would be great if you could comment on this - I really would like to hear YOUR thoughts on this.
 
If you have no idea how to grow food on your limited space, then vegetable vertical garden  might be a good solution for you. Even of the space is limited, by making garden vertical, you can have own piece of 'land' to eat well. There are plenty of DIY ideas for container and vertical gardens if you ‘googleit’, but today I wanted to share some photos of pretty vertical garden which combines edible gardening with modern design.

They were taken at Floriade (expo), and I would expect that there would be rather only decorative plants growing. Do you like nice surprises? I do. On this wall there were mainly growing strawberries and herbs as I remember! Strawberry wall… hmmm… a perfect dream of strawberry lover.  

I like also the way the plants seem to be ‘organised’ – do YOU?

Recommended further reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Recommended further reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Recommended further reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Recommended further reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Recommended further reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

So, you had a look and what do you think? Is it practical? Feasible? Worth to consider?

Recommended further reading The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Pretty, stylish DIY wood stick fence

Is it better than panels? Depends on what you like. Maybe you think that natural wood stick fence is more suitable for rustic gardens, but I think it looks great in different kind of gardens. The photos I am sharing were taken at Floriade, World Horticultural Expo last year in Netherlands. Simple wood stick fencing used in different places looked stylish, simple and natural. Combines well with rusted steel elements.  

It maybe sounds odd, but I remember in 2008 I’ve spotted similar kind of fence in one of Warsaw’s districts (Rembertow) – posted here. Not everyone needs to like it. This stick fence is a history. I was there last month and it’s gone, replaced with mesh metal wire fencing.

8 photos of most impressive green roof building at Floriade 2012

Last week I’ve visited Floriade, an international flower exhibition hosted in Netherlands every 10 years. Each time the expo is in different location - this year it’s in Venlo (close to German and Belgian border), southern part of Netherlands, 50 km away from Eindhoven.

Today’s photos show my completely subjective choice of best and most green designed pavilion at Floriade – Belgian Pavillion. Have a look and judge by yourself.

Looking at 500 photos I took last weekend at Floriade and thinking what to show you first, I’ve decided to share with you this uniquely designed pavilion with amazing green roof.

From April 5 through October 7, the city of Venlo turned 163 acres of land into a garden and flower festival.

You can discover stunning mosaics created out of flowers, attend educational activities - perfect place to bring children with you.  There is also 5 themed worlds and more than 100 gardens and pavilions with unique flowers and plants from around the world - lot’s of inspiration.

As the Floriade website says "Everywhere you go there is something new and surprising to discover. Together we will make Floriade 2012 a world of fascination. Spectacular and relaxing. Educational and fun. Active and contemplative.”

The expo is expected to attract 2 million visitors.

There was only one disappointing thing. Not like in other exhibition and festivals – there is not much to buy except some souvenirs, few plants, bulbs or garden accessories. I was expecting much more in that regard as Netherlands is the capital of plant trade in Europe.
Beside that it was one full day best spend.

Some more photos will follow in next posts.

I wish you a happy weekend!!!

Xoxo!

Ewa

Chelsea Flower Show 2012 - Best in Show Winner

Wonderful designer Cleve West won the Best in Show prize again this year at Chelsea Flower Show. Have a look at video - you can explore all important elements of the garden.
I adore the delicate balance between symmetrical design and fluffy, feathery and ostensibly unruly herbaceous planting, not to mention water features. Have a look!

Photos courtesy of Karen Roe, Swamibu

Horticultural Trade Show Warsaw, Poland 2011

This weekend if you are in Warsaw, you may see one of the most important horticultural trade shows in Poland. I have walked around today and I have not spotted any signs of crisis. Trade show got bigger and more serious than few years ago.

This year tere was more foreign companies present as well. Mainly from Holland, Germany, Italy, France and Spain. If you are interested in entering Polish market contact me - I can help, cos professionally I am providing this kind of service.Today one of the French companies - a plant producer - asked me for offer, because they are interested in finding a big distributor in Poland.

Two special guests John Stanley from Australia and Diarmuid Gavin (this year returned to Chelsea Garden Show with his "flying garden") have their lectures for professionals.  

This is one of my favourite stands. Charming combination of pink bicycle, blue basket and all-available-color Buddleja (common name Butterfly Bush).

New kind of Hydrangea arborescens The Pink Annabelle - gorgeous!

Perennial Hibiscus - do you know maybe the latin name?

New variety of cleatis was named today at the show. This fluffy, white beauty got the name "Maria Sklodowska-Curie" named after great Polish–French physicist–chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was honored with two (!!) Nobel Prizes —in physics and chemistry and Marie was the first female professor at the University of Paris.
She was the first woman to be entombed on her own merits (in 1995) in the Paris Panthéon.

Clematis Maria Sklodowska-Curie.

Insect hotels for 2,000 insects living next to you

Do you know that an average garden could hold over 2,000 different species of insect?

This makes clear now, that home gardens are not only ours.Majority of the insects living next to us are beneficial - many of them help us control the pests.  

So, she was thinking, that providing the right habitats called insect hotels we can greatly increase the number of beneficial insects in our garden.

She was enchanted by insect hotel she spotted at Chelsea last week in the B&Q show garden, awarded with gold medal.  As far as the information says, this was the tallest construction at Chelsea ever.

Keep an eye on this. This wonderful 40 insect hotels were made by Challock Youth Club and Time Youth Club in Ashford Kent/UK.