The allotments looked so dark and colourless, shrowded in plastic and with little growing in them, that I was desperate to put colour in them somehow. I decided on hanging baskets. I acquired one from my dad that was bleached aqua by the sun and was beginning to lose its coating, and along with it a totally rusty bracket. I rather liked the timeworn look though. I'm a fan of the Japanese idea of wabi sabi. This is the idea that there is beauty in an object which has undergone the process of decay. It is the beauty of being in time and bound to the earth. Natural decay creates many different patterns and textures, and there is a wordless poetry in the way it changes form. I also like rusty broken old things because they often cost no money at all. I put the wabi sabi hanging basket and bracket on my wabi sabi shack, and they certainly looked like they were made for each other.
I treated the other allotment's tiny shed to a brand new tiny hanging basket to match its more pristine character.
I decided on sustainably sourced sphagnum moss as a liner, as it would provide year round colour and texture and was a living thing. The tiny basket is a mix of moss and wool actually, as I didn't have quite enough moss, and the wool was surplus to my Dad's requirements. It gives an interesting layered effect.
I filled each basket with a rainbow of colours - snowdrops, irises, cyclamen and violas. They've cheered me and the allotment through the winter months, although the cyclamen suffered quite badly from the frost. They still keep bravely putting forth buds though.
No comments:
Post a Comment