Lexiaguo, Southern China

It's real! A mixture of oxidised iron in the soil and disorganised terrace farming has left the landscape of Lexiaguo a patchwork of red, white, green, pink...

Gaudi's 161st Birthday!

Gaudi was the first architect I became aware of and began an obsession with organic architecture that I never really got over. In 2009 I went to Barcelona, mainly to see as many of his designs as I could, and today would have been his 161st birthday, so I'm going to share a few photos from my trip (hopefully not the usual Gaudi postcard photos).

 Casa Batlló

 Casa Vicens

Park Güell

 Park Güell

 Some people I don't know at Park Güell

 Park Güell

 Park Güell

Plant of the week: Lady's mantle

Lady's mantle (Alchemilla mollis) is a hardy herbaceous (dies down after growing season) perennial (pops up again every year) plant, native to southern Europe but grown in UK gardens, with fan shaped leaves and lime green flowers in summer. 

I planted Lady's mantle in my parents' garden when I was about 11 and the other day I spotted that it had spread wildly and was covered in water droplets and looked sort of cheerful and exotic. My font of all knowledge (Dad) couldn't remember what it was called but it's name was found after a bit of stealthy googling. Apparently most people find such an easy to grow and exclusively green plant a bit boring, but I'm quite fond of it, though 'Lady's mantle' seems a bit of a fluffy name for such a tough plant.

Devil's Bridge

Everything a bit weird gets named the devil's something, doesn't it? This strange set of bridges is in Ceredigion, Wales and the teeny bridge is believed to have been constructed between 1075-1200, the middle bridge in 1753 and the top bridge in 1902.

Aqua Vita Farms

Aqua Vita Farms in Sherrill (Near Syracuse), NY is an indoor seafood and vegetable farm that provides Central New York with fresh food. The farm uses Aquaponics, a combination of fish farming (aquaculture) and growing plants in water (hydroponics) to create a balanced system where the fish provide nutrients for the plants and the plants filter the water, eliminating the need for fertilisers or water changes. Being indoors, the farm doesn't have to rely on seasons - which means all produce, all year round - without the environmental guilt of the miles it's travelled to your plate.

Basically it's a warehouse full of great big tanks of fish and vegetables, that's environmentally friendly and space saving and very clever but also simple. It's also very likely to be a large part of the future of farming.

Plant of the week: Cow parsley vs. Elder

Following a recent incident when I made an arse of myself by insisting Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) was Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria), I thought I'd do some research and create a handy guide for myself and any one else that gets pedantic about wild flowers.

 

Spot the difference.. left: Ground elder, right: Cow parsley

Both plants are found all over the country, have similar flowers and grow up to 1m and share carrot family heritage, but the most important similarity is to not confuse either of them with Elder (Sambucus), and get annoyed that your elderberry/elderflower alcohol tastes funny.

 

Initial research (googling) shows a lot of love for Cow parsley as an 'important link in the food chain', but everyone hates Ground elder; the 'fast-growing, invasive, perennial weed'. The main physical difference in the plants is that Cow parsley has leaves that resemble flat parsley (surprise!), while Ground elder leaves resemble Elder tree leaves (though they're completely unrelated species). People seem to partly hate Ground elder for tricking them in to thinking it's lovely tasty Elder, though Ground elder is edible (though the only tasty part are the young shoots, which is still better than Cow parsley which isn't edible at all). Flowers appear on both plants in May and June but Ground elder carries on blooming until August.

May you never be confused by plants you drive past and hardly notice on country roads again!

Eigg: the answer to Britain's housing crisis? by Patrick Kingsley

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis

Bit too much greenery for Italy, right? This is the fancy little village of Portmeirion, in North Wales, created by Sir Clough William-Ellis. Sir Clough was also fancy and Welsh, and set up his own architecture practise in London after only a few months training when he was 22. He promoted logical strategies for planning and conservation, writing critically about random development after WW1 in England and the Octopus (a book I'd do some pretty obscene things to get my hands on) and he was also instrumental in designating the first National Parks. 

From the research I've done, he appears to have been of balanced beliefs; preserve what is useful and beautiful and build more useful and beautiful stuff. It's refreshing to discover someone who is not against development or conservation, shame he died 35 years ago.