Author Archives: Tom Turner

The economic, asethetic and landscape case for the UK adopting a sustainable GM-free organic agricultural policy

Sustainable landscape farming: happy cows in Laxton Medieval Village

Many scientists argue that ‘we’ should accept genetically modified (GM) foods – for a whole range of scientific and economic reasons. Though sceptical of the scientific logic I do not know enough about genetic modification to take issue with them. But on the economic issue I am convinced they are wrong in the specific case of the UK. So I was delighted to read that Professor Robert Watson, (chief scientist at the World Bank and also chief scientist of UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) said: “Are transgenics the simple answer to hunger and poverty? I would argue, no.” A fortiori GM foods are not the answer for the UK. The benighted officials at the DEFFRA do not seem to appreciate the significance of the fact that England, Scotland and Wales are an island, or that our landscape is very productive and very beautiful. These geographical facts provide an amazing economic opportunity: Britain can become a niche supplier of the highest quality foods in the temperate world. If they are foolish enough, let everyone else go for low-cost, low-quality foods. It will not be possible to stop GM foods spreading across land borders. Island nations, like Britain and Australia, have the opportunity to become producers of exceptionally high quality foods. The UK should only produce organic foods. GM crops should be utterly banished. Everyone should know that buying British foods is a guarantee of quality. The benighted officials at DEFFRA should take note of the fact that in almost every market the producers who deliver the highest quality can charge the highest prices and, usually, generate the highest profits.
I love the English landscape and would be delighted to see photographs of wonderful crops and animals used, in beautiful surroundings, as marketing devices for The World’s Best Food.
PS Personally, I support the precautionary principle and have no wish to eat GM-produced Frankenstein Foods. But this is not my present argument.
Note: beyond the happy cattle in the above photograph one can see the remains of the last village in England which still uses the medieval system of land tenure. It is Laxton. I love it and the photograph was taken this week. Wouldn’t you rather your beef came from here than from a factory farm, awash with antibiotics? I was vegetarian between the ages of (about) 6 and 16. My father, who was a doctor, ridiculed me. But he went to visit a slaughterhouse about 40 years later and was revolted to see them cutting the abcesses out of factory-farmed cows and then sending the ‘good bits’ to the supermarkets. He then became a vegetarian.

Is there too much of Kew Gardens at Wakehurst Place?

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Wakehurst Place on the cover of English Garden Design (left) and in June 2010

‘Father, forgive them, for they know exactly what they do’. (adapted from Luke 23:34). I have always liked Wakehurst Place and have put it on the dustjacket of a book – but I criticised Wakehurst Place last year and after another recent visit am being driven to conclude that it is being over-Kewed.
A plaque near the house is dedicated to ‘Sir Henry Price Bt. who in 1963 presented these lovely gardens for the education and enjoyment of all who visit them’. Two questions must be asked ‘Education in what?’ and ‘Enjoyment of what?’ The apparent aim is to convert a beautiful place into a spotty collection of specimens.
When Wakehurst Place first appeared on Gardenvisit.com, about 10 years ago, we received an anquished email along the lines ”Call us pigs or Pakis if you must but please PLEASE do not call us Gardenesque’. But why shouldn’t Wakehurst Place be a place for ‘education’ and ‘enjoyment’ related to the Gardenesque Style? Properly understood and executed, it is one of the most-English and most-appreciated styles of garden design. My recommendations for Wakehurst Place are:
– an Arts and Crafts area around the house
– a Gardenesque section at the head of the valley
– a full-scale Landscape transition to a Sublime lake at the foot of the valley
But as Geoffrey Jellicoe argued, Creative Conservation is often the best policy for historic gardens and landscapes. Should this be wanted, the garden managers could also consider
– seasonal and thematic ribbons interlacing the estate
But an even more important step would be to appoint a Design Manager for Wakehurst Place. If the manager’s skills are only horticultural then the future of gardens is to become more botanical, less Beautiful, less Picturesque, less Gardenesque and less Sublime. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

Note1: the above photographs of the bridge at the head of the valley are looking in opposite directions

Note2: by ‘over-Kewed’ I mean ‘too much of an emphasis on botany’ – Kew Gardens are in fact getting better looking year-by-year.

Shared space street landscape in Nanjing Road Shanghai 南京路

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Shared pedestrian-vehicle-plants-fountains-bike-space in Nanjing Street Shanghai

Shared pedestrian-vehicle-plants-fountains-bike-space in Nanjing Road Shanghai

The segregation of pedestrians from vehicles, by sidewalk pavements, has a relatively short history in China – and so the Chinese may find sharing space easier than the Europeans. The west has sold the souls of its cities to engineers – who are less public spirited and more concerned with the welfare of their own professions than one might wish. That is how the streets of Europe became highways with pedestrians squashed onto sidewalks. Nanjing Road in Shanghai, to the casual visitor, is a fine example of shared space dominated by pedestrians. Points to note:

the electric float for passenger transport – with a door for every seat loading and unloading is simple
electric and human-powered bicycles are allowed to mingle with the pedestrians where other streets cross the shared space
fountains overlooked by LCD screens make a lively piazza garden-type
ceramic pots decorate the street scene

I can’t imagine that the ‘imaginative’ engineers who control London’s ‘shared’ streets (eg around Covent Garden) would permit these innovations. They would for example want fountains and screens to be in plaza, pots to be screwed down and electric vehicles to be enclosed busses.
Before the Japanese invasion (as “Nanking Road”) it was a place the European’s to ‘ride’ in their vehicles. It ran from the Bund (which is still the Bund) to Shanghai Race Course, which is now the People’s Park. I congratulate Shangai’s urban designers on the transformations. The Chinese word 路, usually translated as ‘road’ is comprised of the characters for ‘foot’ and ‘place’ – making it an appropiate cagetorization for this type of space. The English word ‘road’ derives from the very ‘to ride’ and is therefore less appropriate. The English word ‘street’ would be a better choice. It derives from the Latin strata, from the verb sternere “to lay down, spread out, pave”. I therefore suggesting changing the name to ‘Nanjing Street.’

How does a garden design win a Gold Medal and be judged Best in Show at Chelsea?

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Judging garden designs for gold medals and Best in Show at the 2010 Chelsea Flower Show

Alan Titchmarsh set the scene on BBC2 (8pm on 25.5.2010) ‘Today at the world’s foremost gardening event… the eyes of football fans may be focussed on South Africa and the World cup… but… a garden medal here at Chelsea is as prized as any footballing trophy’. He then asked the Chair of the Judges, Michael Balston: ‘What makes this garden stand out as best in show for you?’. Balston replied ‘Well it satisfied all the criteria we need in order to make it a good garden in terms of impact in terms of design and planting and for us the colour works so well – I mean the contrast between the corten and the verbascum is something which just wow-ed us.’ Andrew Wilson, writing in the Telegraph from the standpoint of Chair of the Assessors explains that ‘The marking criteria include allowances for originality and the level of ambition inherent in what the designer is trying to achieve. They include percentages for overall design quality or character, the sense of theatre which is important in show garden design (these are not real gardens) which is often to be viewed from outside the garden boundary. Marks are also given for construction and the appropriate use of materials in accordance to the brief and for planting design, associations and quality. All of these considerations are related back to the brief and the fundamental design intention as identified by the show garden designer, not simply decided at the whim of individuals or panels of judges. In this way the system delivers a mainly objective view rather than a wholly subjective response.,,. The panel is made up of designers, contractors and horticulturists.’
My respones to the above are (1) Michael Balston is a designer but his criteria are inadequate: good gardens should have the Vitruvian virtues: Commodity, Firmness and Delight (2) John Sales was neither a designer nor a design critic (3) Andrew Wilson is a designer and a critic but wrong in his view that design judgment can be ‘mainly objective’ (4) the designer’s ‘brief’ is a red herring which should not feature in the assessment process (5) considerations relating to use of plants and materials are akin to judging a World Cup team by its turnout and strip (6) all the members of the judging panel should be design critics (7) I would not want the Pulitzer Prize to be assessed by printers or the Turner Prize to be judged by paintbrush manufacturers (8) there should be no contractors or horticulturalists on the judging panel for the Chelsea Show Gardens – unless they are also good design critics
See review of 2010 Chelsea Flower Show

Steeling the Chelsea Flower Show in 2010

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Steeling garden design at Chelsea sharpens design quality

Steeling sharpens design quality at the Chelsea Flower Show

In doing our annual review of the show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show, it struck me that the use of steel is becoming a feature of the show. I saw mild steel, corten steel, galvanized steel and painted steel. Varied steel colours contrast and harmonize with flowers and foliage – and crisp line sharpan designs. So are designers steeling the show?- or are they getting good prices from a recession-bound steel industry? Time will tell.

See:
Iron garden planters and pots
Steel garden planters and pots
Stainless steel garden planters and pots

London's cycle superhighways are not meant to be beautiful or pleasurable or expensive

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London's 'super' cycle highways are designed for ugliness. The 'artist's impression' shows threatening busses and cyclists who are already ghosts.

Transport for London TfL has an implementation programme for Cycle Superhighways and claims that they will be ‘safe, fast, direct routes into central London from outer London. The first two routes open in Summer 2010 with ten more being introduced by 2015.’
‘Highway’ comes from the Old English heiweg “main road from one town to another” and planning them as direct routes from origins to destinations is unusually sensible for UK cycleroute planning. But I object to their being described as ‘super’. They will be narrow, ugly,pale blue, bargain basement tracks. See for example the implementation schedule for the ‘Super Highway’ from Barking to Tower Gateway. The work can be done quickly because it is merely a paint job – and the chosen shade of blue is suspiciously close to that used by the Tory party during its recent election campaign.
A really super cycle highway would be ‘ ‘safe, fast, direct, quiet, clean, beautiful – and expensive’. So they should employ landscape architects, not engineers with paint brushes, to do the work. I worry that badly conceived cycle paths will get little use – so that the planners will then argue that it was a waste of money. They should (1) go ahead with the present plans as a quick stopgap measure (2) design AT LEAST ONE truly excellent cycle route to show what could be achieved.

Garden Design and Landscape Architecture

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