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

Rock samphire, a plant with a story

Along the old railway line at the entrance to Folkestone’s Harbour Arm, there flourishes a rather special plant. It looks unremarkable enough, small and bushy with a branching structure of fleshy leaves topped by yellow flower heads, but this is a plant with a big history that’s inextricably bound up with humans, food, danger, survival and drama.

 

The name of this heroic plant is rock samphire, Latin name Crithmum maritimum, so called because it’s most usually seen growing on rocks and cliffs.

In the places where it’s growing by ‘our’ railway lines, the plants are at ground level, but the soil is poor and full of stones and, of course, very close to the spray-filled breeze from the sea.

 

 

 

 

For centuries rock samphire has thrived on the cliffs of Dover – and been gathered from the eroding tops of cliffs at great risk to life and limb. This we know partly because Shakespeare, who was familiar with Dover, wrote in King Lear: 

"There is a cliff whose high and bending head looks fearfully in the confined deep… The crows and choughs that wing the midway air scarce so gross as beetles; halfway down hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!". 

Local people, struggling to survive, would climb down on to the cliffs in early summer to pick the leaves, which were pickled in barrels of brine and sent to London, where it fetched an excellent price, being highly prized as a dish to accompany meat. Apparently street criers would call it ‘Crest Marine’. 

Photo: Karen Roe for White Cliffs of Dover

The samphire which has become fashionable recently to eat with fish is not the same plant – that is marsh samphire. Marsh samphire comes from a different family and grows at ground level close to the sea on salt marshes, as the name suggests. The first time I went to Samphire Hoe, close to Folkestone, I felt cheated because I didn’t see any marsh samphire. It was only later that I discovered that the name refers to the rock samphire plants that were successfully seeded on the cliffs when this land feature was created from the spoil of Channel Tunnel excavations. 

Rock samphire is equally nutritious as marsh samphire but has a more pungent, salty taste with hints of parsley and carrot. It is, in fact, a member of the carrot family. Rock samphire can be steamed or used sparingly in stir-fries, salads and sushi, and apparently when it’s pickled it goes well with smoked eggs. 

Rock samphire gin. Photo: Curio

 

Obviously it can also be used in drinks, as recently on the market is samphire gin. At 41% proof, this may be a drink for those with a constitution as hardy as the samphire gatherers of old!

 

A garden in the making and plant multiplication

In the high wall behind the harbour station platform, where expectant travellers to France once disembarked, is a faded wooden door that hasn’t been opened in years. On the other side of the door is something that looks almost like a ready-made garden. It’s all a bit Harry Potter… 

The garden essentially consists of a pile of large rocks with some plants growing on and between them, then outcrops of rock bedded in the shingle and beyond those clumps of sea kale spreading in a rather pleasing drift towards the sea. (Last week I called it sea cabbage, but this time I’m getting it right. Kale.) Oh, and there’s a rather random large bent metal mesh frame lurking by the rocks and a lot of old plastic bags and other rubbish. 

 

We surveyed the scene and discussed what to do to make this unexpected area look good and become useful. Obviously the rubbish needs to be cleared but the rock is weighty and a machine would spoil things. So we decided to clean up and then take stock and maybe balance the look of the rock by adding more plants and some strong structural or sculptural elements. You see, there are magnificent opportunities for you sculptors, engineers and people with an eye for this kind of thing. 

 

We might also create a pathway and/or patterns in the shingle. Then we will have an interesting, attractive area, a talking point for the way nature has behaved between the wall and the beach when given a few rocks and left to its own devices – and a sort of bonus garden area in the raw. 

Having made that plan on Monday, we started the exciting business of gathering seed and digging up plants from the specimens on the railway line. Exciting because, after a lot of talking, exploring and planning, we got our hands in among the plants for the first time. Seeds were gathered from: 

Plantago Lanceolata- Ribwort Plantain
Verbascum Thapsus- Great Mullein
Hypericum Perforatum- St. John's Wort
Lagurus Ovatus- Bunnytail Grass 

Impressive that we have the common names and the Latin names for precise identification – and they are so poetic. We also have our very own ‘nursery’ now, where we’ve lovingly placed the transplants, including rock samphire, in the hope they will thrive over winter to be planted out next year. So it’s a nail biting week to see whether our infants survive the uprooting experience and the weather as Folkestone basks in the hottest days of the summer.

 

A journey of discovery in maritime garden planning

Before we can create, we must conceive. Last Monday’s gathering of the Folkestone Harbour garden group was a breath taking journey of revelation and it’s starting to feel as though our garden areas will be brought to life through a process of detection and discovery that inspire the imagination. 

Which is, I suppose, a fancy way of saying that we explored the harbour railway yard and found a lot of promising materials and we examined the beach and railway line and found some exciting plants. Frankly this was quite a relief, since we have set ourselves the aim of using what already exists on site – and now we know that there should be enough choice of materials and flora to make that a practical – even exciting – proposition. 

Stone, timber and metal are traditional maritime materials used to make piers, harbours, defence walls, so they are very suitable for our gardens, combining well with shingle. 

 

We found a veritable mountain of large pieces of rock that can punctuate designs and act as sculptural objects in their own right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were excited to see massive chunks of timber that once supported Folkestone’s pier; they are thought to be green oak from Canada and around 200 years old. We also saw the potential for frilly columns that have been removed from the building that was most recently Onyx night club. 

 

On the beach we were inspired by the impressive clumps of sea cabbage that thrive there. Could we transplant them? Should we transplant them? We might have to in order to save them when the seafront development starts. 

Louella and Wendy Ward are painstakingly examining the plants that currently flourish between the old railway tracks. They are posting photographs on the SALT: Shingle Garden Project Facebook page inviting ‘name that plant’. Even if you haven’t a clue, it’s fascinating to see the comments of those who know. 

On Monday we started to get to know the delicate yellow toad flax, Valerian with its cherry red flowers, willow herb whose seeds travel the railways, yellow horned poppies, which surely deserve to thrive for their name alone, the humble yet imposing thistle. And more random individuals like a seedling elderflower tree.

 

With every discovery come new challenges: 

Now that we are identifying a wide range of plants, we need to know them as annuals, perennials or shrubs, to decide whether transplanting, gathering seed or taking cuttings may be the best way to use or reproduce them in the garden. With the input of our Facebook readers, enthusiastic volunteers and our expert adviser, Frances Tophill, this process is underway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we know there are materials with fabulous sculptural potential, we need sculptors to come up with ideas for fashioning them into wonderful art, paths and seats that will grace the garden areas. And people willing to handle an angle grinder, welding tool or paint brush to bring the ideas to life. Interested? Please contact Louella at louella@folkestonefringe.com

 

 

Folkestone Harbour's garden project is launched

Where Folkestone’s harbour railway rusts, long quiet of trains, nature has been blooming with a delicate determination. Now the faded industrial landscape and its thriving wild flowers have inspired a new community initiative - to create two areas of shingle garden close to the entrance to the Harbour Arm. 

The initiative was born out of Folkestone Quarterhouse and Folkestone Fringe’s regular brain storming sessions for their jointly created festivals. The Harbour Gardening Project is part of the SALT festival of the Sea and Environment taking place around Quarterhouse and the Harbour from 29^th September to 2 October https://www.quarterhouse.co.uk/festivals/salt-festival-of-the-sea-and-environment/

 

The project has been developed by Diane Dever, director of Folkestone Fringe, working with garden expert Frances Tophill, who knows the Kent coast and its species well. They decided to recruit volunteers to bring the idea to life and on Monday 8^th August the Folkestone Harbour Gardening Project was officially launched. 

In early evening sunshine an enthusiastic group of volunteers gathered and introduced themselves.Some are artists or like the idea of working communally outdoors. Others are interested in ecology and it soon became clear that a few are expert gardeners and horticulturists, especially landscape architect Bridget Robinson. 

From group discussions, two guiding principles quickly emerged. The first was an enthusiasm for utilising materials already on site – stuff that some might think of as ‘junk’, along with sleepers and

materials from the railway – to create sculptures and garden structures such as paths and seats. The second was to include plant species that are either already growing or would naturally thrive in this coastal landscape. 

Louella Ward of Folkestone Fringe is leading a small team to meet the challenge of identifying and recording the species of plants currently growing wild. Among them is samphire, from which nearby Samphire Hoe takes its name. The edible, nutritious leaves of the railway’s plants are already harvested by local restaurants as an accompaniment to fish dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

Another major challenge is that of trying to save the wild plants as their current location on the railway line becomes threatened by works being carried out. The old station environment is being restored to create a pleasant new walkway into the Harbour Arm – and also a space for the first brand new shingle garden. 

A second area of garden will be created in the courtyard known as the Enterprise Zone and one of the first tasks here is to clear a large area of fading hardware, from chairs to sleepers, and identify their potential as the makings of sculptures. 

The Folkestone Harbour Gardening Project meets every Monday from 6pm to 8pm at the entrance to the Harbour Arm and volunteers are welcome. For information on taking part or register your interest, please contact Louella Ward on louella@folkestonefringe.com. I'll be posting updates each week, so do check in.

Faith Warn