The Mill Ruins

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live preview and provided with a pair of tickets for the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

In a strange quirk of fate I’m back today talking about mills. Yesterday it was sculptural woven tapestries inspired by a textile mill in West Yorkshire, and today it’s a garden inspired by the remnants of Lancashire’s historic mills. I’d like to say I planned it this way, but I didn’t - though I wish I had!

This garden on the APL Avenue was the first garden we saw at this year’s show, and it was a very good place to start. The garden, designed by 3DG explores a quiet moment where industry gives way to nature.

As I previously said it’s inspired by the remnants of Lancashire’s historic mills, reclaimed brick, Corten steel and weathered oak echo the fragments left behind as the landscapes regenerate.

The Corten steel arch is definitely the eye catching entrance a show garden could hope for, but this garden is so much more than that. The path winds around layered planting and a shallow reflective pool, plus spotting those yellow red hot pokers in my first garden of the show is always going to be a win for me.

The rain chain introduced sound, and was a subtle nod to the water than once powered the mills.

The majority of planting in this garden is native to the UK, and selected for its biodiversity and to soften the architectural forms. And while we might not all have these architectural elements in our gardens, unless we’ve added them of course, we can take inspiration from the planting.

The Mill Ruins is a garden about renewal, where structure fades, and nature quietly takes back control - and I love that for it, and I love this garden. I knew when I saw this garden that it was going to be a good show, and it certainly was.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for once again inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was another great show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Jane Walkley's sculptural woven tapestries

Jane’s gallery at the Harrogate Knit & Stitch show was titled ‘Material Traces of Our Industrial North’ and it was totally fascinating; both the items, the history and the textures of the pieces, which is something that always seems to draw me in.

The pieces on show in Harrogate ‘reflects the regeneration of textile mills in the North of England - sites that hold layers of memory, loss and transformation.’ The blurb goes on to say that Jane ‘questions whether site-specific interactions can help bridge the gap between memory, attachment and place in the absence of the workplace activities that once took place in these repurposed buildings.’

Work is centred in Sunny Bank Mills in West Yorkshire which ceased textile production in 2008 and the industrial pumps, looms, hardware and tools were left in place. Jane takes clay impressions from the mill artefacts creating moulds to cast an eco-resin to replicate the intricate details, which she then weaves to produce these sculptural pieces and highlight the emotional and physical connections that bind communities to their past.

There’s so much more on this subject and the best place to explore this further is on Jane’s own website. The pieces I’m sharing here, had me fascinated - their link to the past, their tactile-ness (though I promise I didn’t touch), and the process of how they’re made and came about.

JANE WALKLEY

JANE WALKLEY

Each piece has I’m sure it’s own story, and I was torn between those with colour and those which were monochrome. I loved the free flowing pieces, but this framed piece showed how easily these artworks could be included in a more conventional framing.

JANE WALKLEY

JANE WALKLEY

I loved the bobbins and the cogs, and they had an almost jewellery-like feel to them. This blue piece caught my eye across the gallery, and these were the pieces I most wanted to touch (but resisted).

JANE WALKLEY

JANE WALKLEY

But it was the one above that had I to choose one, I’d choose. It’s simply just gorgeous, isn’t it?

My garden in August

It’s been a tough month for the garden with more heatwaves arriving in what seemed to be more often than the buses. I jest we get buses once an hour most of the day here, but it seems that the heatwaves have been never ending doesn’t it?

There has been a steady stream of ripening tomatoes through the month which has been tasty, some have been an odd shape but that hasn’t detracted from their taste. I suspect the yields are lower than perhaps they might have been other years, but we’ve had plenty to keep us going, and I’ve appreciated the slow drip approach rather than having a glut.

We have tiny olives on the new olive tree in the bit pot, and we’ve even got our new garden furniture out and sat in it - it’s comfy, but thankfully we’d put it away before the big rain later in the month.

There’s some plant woes this month despite the regular watering. The alstromeria in flower below had a wobble but recovered enough after some time in a trug of water. I lost the agastache that I bought earlier in the summer, which was a shame but was one of those things.

The daisies were doing well until they weren’t, despite watering and the rhubarb has only a single stem on it now. I’m less fussed by these though as I’m hoping these will be back in earnest next year, and I know that the daisies will benefit from getting out of that pot - actually most of our plants will.

I didn’t have much joy with my salad growing either. The second batch germinated but then we were away for a few days and they looked a bit crispy on our return, and if you look at the photo above you’ll see that something had taken a liking to one half of the seed tray. Well, at least I helped out a hungry creature or two while I was trying! I’m hopeful that next year I’ll manage to get growing more consistently again, fingers crossed.

The cosmos - in pots too - have done consistently well over the summer and are still in flower today. I’ll be collecting some of their seeds as they seem happy here, and I’d be happy to have more of them - let’s hope that doesn’t come back to bite me!

My other success of the summer is this lagerstroemia, which against the odds - it looked like a dead stick much earlier in the year - has developed into this. It’s probably as surprised as I am I’m sure.

In warm summers we move this indoor plant outside as it loves the heat. And it’s really loved this summer, in the warmer weather it develops the red edging to its leaves which is just joyful, and when I looked more closely it’s also throwing up some more stems. When the weather cools I’ll give it a quick once over - and a dust - and bring it back inside to it’s more regular spot on the windowsill for the winter.

A lot of this post is about the heat, but as the month went on the heatwaves lessened and rain in the middle of the month must have felt like a milestone - as I took this picture. Now looking back it doesn’t seem that much, but it was probably the most significant rainfall we’d had in quite a while.

This second rain picture was just ten days later, and that was quite a bit more! So much more that our outside sofa had puddles on it, but it was much needed and I don’t think I’ve heard so few people moan about the rain! Though it added a new job to my list, and that was to make sure these two saucers were emptied when the rain had stopped, I could manage that though!

My garden still has plenty of gardening left for me to do, and I’m grateful that the days are now cooler so I can get out and tackle this, though clearly that’s better on dry days - and days where we have free time. The joys of gardening, hey?