Winter solstice and invasive species

Today is winter solstice, the turning of the light, and this blog is springing briefly to life for a winter connection and reflection.

As Christmas approaches, these short days of the year have their own brief beauty and gifts, especially here in Folkestone. Here, through community and celebration, performances spring miraculously through opening doors and the sea and sky thrill with their shifting light show.

Our group of shingle garden volunteers will meet tomorrow for coffee and conversation, content for now to let nature hold her breath. But, as the ancients did before us, I expect we’ll be looking to the return of the light and life-giving warmth. We know that spring will soon enough bring growth and the need for glorious activity.

Have you noticed that we’ve changed our group name to Invasive Species? It was pointed out to us that some of the plants we have nurtured for conservation from the old railway line are considered to be invasive. I think that brought out our warrior spirit, our sense of connection with the wild places of nature and the indomitable human heart. And our sense of irony. So the phrase has been adopted.

When we meet, I’m sure we’ll also indulge in remembering our collective endeavours of the year that will soon be ending. How we collaborated to make a shingle garden at the Harbour Arm, how we learned about maritime plants and expressed our creativity
. 
Among our creative number is poet Chris Poundwhite, who runs ecopoetry courses and workshops. See www.gotothepine.com
Chris has written a beautiful, evocative work inspired by the group and the garden. Entitled Shingle Garden, the poem is a work in progress with aspirations to become longer and to be released in book form. Here, with his kind permission, is a taster:

waves sing somewhere
across the wall
and overhead
the signal mast
stands dark upon
the late sky, throngs
with flocks of starlings

behind the brewery,
behind the bakery,
the smell of yeast
the smell of salt
here we make
a garden
From Shingle Garden by Chris Poundwhite

Imagination, community spirit and the power of the sea

On Friday 30^th September, we launched our shingle garden to a curious public. The event was a viewing and talk, one of many events in the full and varied calendar of the Folkestone SALT festival of the sea and environment, which was held over several days and proved to be a great success. 

 

In bright sunshine, we enjoyed meeting our garden advisor, BBC presenter Frances Tophill. Frances grew up in Deal and now lives on the Devon coast. She loves maritime gardens and plants, so we benefitted from her advice and knowledge about some of our own maritime railway line specimens. "The garden looks really good – and I can see the potential”, Frances told us. “It’s taken imagination and community spirit to get this far, so do keep it going.” 

A good crowd foregathered and Diane Dever of the Harbour Arm and Folkestone Fringe led our tour to see first what I have dubbed the Harry Potter garden, beyond the old station wall.

Then we moved to the old station platform, marvelled at the variety of plants on the railway line and discussed how they might have found their way there. 

After sheltering from a sharp shower, we finally revealed our completed East Yard shingle garden and were delighted by the response. Many visitors seemed to have shingle or maritime gardens of their own, so were interested to pick up information and ideas. In general the space was declared fabulous and amazing, with much appreciation of the creative use of materials combined with the preservation of plants – and all gathered from the site. 

 

Bigger discussions about shingle and the Folkestone Harbour and beach ensued, led by coastal engineer Paul Brenton, who is involved in the harbour development.

Did you know that shingle is composed of silica, derived from chalk, and acts like a giant sponge to provide valuable sea defences?

 

“We’re blessed with huge banks of shingle in the south east”, explained Paul, “and there’s a movement from west to east, so the shingle on Folkestone beach comes round from Dungeness." 

 

It was Derek Jarman’s garden on Dungeness that fostered the idea for our shingle garden, so you could say that inspiration and ideas have followed the course of those beautiful, rounded multi-hued pebbles as they are tossed and thrust by the mighty power of the sea. 

Enough of this waxing poetic. Don’t miss the next blog entry for a properly brilliant actual poem about the shingle garden from eco-poet Chris Poundwhite. You’ll love it!

 

We made a shingle garden right here!

 

 

Finally, last Friday, East Yard was transformed from a junk yard to a usable space with food stalls and a shingle garden. In this first phase of our Harbour garden project, we had been true to our principles of using only site-specific materials.

The old railway lines could not be moved, so against a backdrop of them and the massive old station fence, we put on display the plantlets from our nursery that had been gathered from the railway line, spread shingle around existing plants - and used for decoration planted containers and objects foraged from the site. 

Mitch and Greg built a new wall of empty beer kegs. Folkestone trawler men lent us a net and rope. Louella wrote the plant names – common and Latin - on the fence and made some beautiful plaques featuring casts of the various specimens. Wendy positioned a wheelbarrow planted with sea kale.

The shingle garden talk as part of SALT Festival was a great success - a full report in the next blog entry. Meanwhile, enjoy these images:

East Yard before work started


Left side of the new garden with old timbers, metal screws from the railway lines and planters made from metal pipe casings with added wooden ends



Right side of garden with new bed, nursery plants and names

 

 

It’ll be alright on the night

Last week, East Yard at the Harbour Arm still looked, frankly, a lot  like a junk yard - and I wrote that transformation needed to start in earnest. Now, after a hive of activity, East Yard is really beginning to look like an interesting shingle garden. So maybe it will be alright on the night.

I’m reminded of Henslowe, the hapless theatre owner in the film, Shakespeare in Love. When asked what should be done in the face of apparently disastrous events, he replies, ‘Nothing, strangely enough, it all turns out well.’ But how? ‘I don’t know. It’s a mystery.’

 

There was no mystery to the dedicated application and sheer hard work of the entire volunteer garden group on Monday evening, inspired as ever by Diane’s unerringly positive vision. And yet, there was no denying that a sort of mysterious alchemy took hold as we pulled on our trusty gardening gloves to heave trolleys, carry buckets and weild spades.

 

As one, we spread shingle around existing plants, filled a new bed, brought specimens from the nursery to go on display in the most appealing and informative way and positioned our found objects as structure. 

 

Some power of nature seemed to guide Wendy’s team to ease the plants into their new homes. Some magical inspiration seemed to guide our team to position weathered woden uprights as sculptural incidents and rusted railway bolts as ground patterns. We even found an ancient nautical lamp to use as a colourful maritime ornament. 

Apparent impossibilities were overcome as the air seemed to crackle with inspiration and creative collaboration.

 

 

 As dusk fell, we all remarked on how satisfying and enjoyable the evening had been, not least the sense of camaraderie. The Harbour Garden project is teamwork at its best. We’ve all learned a lot and we all feel a great sense of achievement. And I’ve just spotted a headline saying ‘The science is in: Gardening is Good for You’. 

Tweaking continues this week as we build towards curtain up on Friday. Watch this space for photos that reveal the garden ready for Friday’s event. The talk for the SALT festival is at noon in East Yard on 30^th September, close to the Harbour Arm entrance from the car park. Diane will be there and garden expert Frances Tophill, along with many of our volunteer team. Tickets from Quarterhouse.  

 

   

A cake, a saw, some planks and pile of shingle

Last Monday’s garden group meeting coincided with my birthday, which just had to be celebrated with cake and bubbly. The lovely folks at Steep Street café had made a fabulous carrot cake – but I forgot to bring a knife. 

 

 

Never mind, we are gardeners, we can solve practical problems - and Anja had brought a brand new saw. Yes, a saw, intended for cutting wood but, we discovered, adapts perfectly to cake. You can spot it on the table. So job done, cake and celebration duly forthcoming. 

 

 

 

 

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, all this mirth and merriment was just a brief prelude to the hard work of the evening. Some of us set to clearing debris large and small from the area of rock and plants that already seems like a natural maritime ‘garden’.

 

 

 

I have dubbed it the Harry Potter garden because it appears like magic behind a door from the old rail platform. Once cleared, the whole thing looked a lot better and will be improved in due course by the addition of more rock outcrops and other features. 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, all attention is focused on getting the East Yard area ready for the SALT festival and the talk about the shingle garden.

 

We want to include pieces of timber with the beautiful texture and patina of age, so as darkness was falling there was a parade of volunteers carrying planks and posts into East Yard, Chris and Louella bringing up the rear with a cart laden with metal finds that have decorative potential. 

Mitchell, who works with the Harbour Arm, also made the fabulous discovery of an old lifebouy on a pole. Such a cool accessory for a garden associated with the sea and Folkestone’s maritime links. 

We’re calling it a shingle garden – and yesterday a large pile of beach shingle arrived, so Mitchell and his team got busy. Distributing some around the existing plants that grow wild there, marking out beds and paths and looking at where we might position sculptural upright timbers all meant that our vision for East Yard seemed to take a great leap forward. But there’s still loads to do, so long may the dry, sunny weather last!

 

 

Next Monday’s meeting (26^th September) is at 5pm to get in the maximum work time before dusk. Anyone who has time to help during the following days, especially Thursday, will be gratefully welcomed. It’s all very exciting now. Contact Louella with any questions, either through the SALT shingle garden Facebook page or at louella@folkestonefringe.com

Beachcombing for brassicas

The regular beachcomber approaches their task with a sharp pair of eyes and a metal detector, prepared to probe gently. We descended on Folkestone’s shingle beach with hopeful hearts and strong arms, buckets of water and spades, prepared to start digging… and digging… and digging. 

 

Our evening had started with a planning meeting when Diane plied our group with tea and biscuits, then fully focused our minds on the deadline of 30^th September for the scheduled talk about our shingle garden, as part of the SALT festival events. 

The idea is to create some instant impact for a patch of garden in the soon to be revealed East Yard, close to the Harbour Arm entrance. So we took to the beach to seek treasure in the form of sea kale plants – a few handsome specimens that we could try transplanting. 

And our party did make a poignant image, trudging across the shingle as silhouettes against the early evening sky in the manner of seven dwarves going off to work, hi ho. 

 

Our mission was highly experimental because the knowledgeable Wendy  warned us that sea kale roots run extremely deep. When we started digging, we discovered that she was not wrong. However far down into the shingle and surprisingly pungent, earthy soil we probed, we could not find the tail end of the sea kale roots. Still, we dug up what we could and have planted them into an old wheelbarrow with fingers crossed. 

 

 

Is sea kale edible? Yes! The roots used to be eaten like asparagus in the spring and it became established as a garden vegetable in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. It was also served at some of those opulent dinners held by the Prince Regent at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Oh and by the way, it’s Latin name is Crambe maritima of the Brassicaceae family. 

While some of us were on the beach, Julia and Anje turned their artistic skills to planting up a few containers, using specimens that we had previously transplanted from the railway line. They have thrived in our nursery and look just beautiful  in the adapted water butts that Chris described in last week’s blog.

Finally, a reminder that the talk, Shingle Garden, is in East Yard at 12 noon on Friday 30^th September. Book through the Quarterhouse website or on 01303 760750.

 

 

 

Some Visitors

With our regular blogger, Faith, away on holiday, I'm guest blogging in her stead this week.

So far, our garden meetings have been blessed with good weather. The sun has shone and the air has been almost still. This week, the weather didn't look so promising. None of us had any waterproofs and the sky threatened. Fortunately, the rain held off and we worked to the slow slosh of waves against the harbour arm as heavy mist settled over Wear Bay Road in the distance, the Martello Tower standing out just above it.

Mist hanging over town

It was an atmospheric evening that brought with it visitors. Liz and Jan of the Folkestone Harbour Ward Residents' Association, who have recently been working on their own wonderful garden project up on the Durlocks Bank, had heard about our “gravel garden group” and wanted to find out more.

Diane was more than happy to tour them around the site, explaining what the long term plans are and showing them the progress at our nursery.

Diane showing Liz and Jan our nursery

They were very interested to see what was going on, and shared our belief that community action can make a huge impact on the places in which we live. Their own recent project is testament to this, so do pay a visit to the garden at the Durlocks Bank if you get a chance. It's tucked up behind the western end of the Stade and now features a beautiful wall mural in addition to the garden space.

Returning to the nursery, we have been pleasantly surprised by how well our plants are doing. Early fears that they may not survive being moved from the ground and potted up seem to have been put to rest. Buoyed by this success, we continued with the hard but happy work of digging more plants out of the railway ballast, saved from destruction by the imminent construction work due to take place.

Lifting plants out of the railway ballast

We also discovered some wonderful new objects on site for use in the garden planting scheme. A couple of old water butts which Anja spotted were particularly striking and have now been turned into attractive planters after a bit of bashing and drilling.

bashing

drilling

water butt bottoms

The nights are really starting to draw in, so by the time we were packing away the light was fading and I couldn't get any good photos showing our progress. If you want to see how things are coming along, you'll just have to pay us a visit, or keep an eye on the blog for future updates!

Chris Poundwhite