Changing the sky

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I finally got around to reorganising my tabletop space. I’d used purple material as a screen because that was the only thing that came to hand that was the right size and opaque enough, but it wasn’t very unobtrusive, and was intended only as a stopgap.

I’d been intending to use a shower curtain (it’d be waterproof!) but couldn’t find the one I’d been given some Christmas – that’s what I get for being too quick to take stuff to the charity shop.

I got this at a local pound shop, cut it more or less to the right length (actually it’s a bit short, but I worked out that I could get three pieces of this size from one curtain, so I’ve got two spares), strung the top through the eyelets already there, then turned the bottom up over a length of string and held it with “all-weather” tape – hope it lives up to its name. (I’ve got a Big Bite eyelet punch, but still can’t get the hang of setting the eyelets). And this time I cut the slits for the wind before I hung it, not haphazardly clipping it afterwards.

That left a little space at the bottom. That didn’t really matter, because the screen was so that I couldn’t see into next door’s garden, and I’d have had to do a Groucho Marx to see that low! But the pound shop gave me another solution.

That’s an emergency blanket, silvered on both sides; two for a quid, how can that be bad? Hopefully the creases will drop out over time! it had only just been taken out of the packet when I took the picture. It’s not as reflective as a mirror, or even a mirror-like surface, but then that’s not what it was intended for. Still, if I ever get to the stage where the plants are small enough to show the backing, I’m bopping it’ll look misted-by-distance. At the very least, some sunlight might get redirected to the plants at the back.

I didn’t want to use a mirror, although it would increase the apparent depth of the display: partly because I didn’t have one that big and wouldn’t have been able to hang it securely if I had, but mostly because I’d read in a gardening book that mirrors shouldn’t be used because birds don’t know they’re mirrors, fly into them and die – I presume they mean mirrors in hedges etc that give the impression of a garden beyond the hedge. I probably could have used a mirror there, since I doubt birds would be flying in that space, but still…

The tray is one of those plastic planting trays that are supposed to stop your worktable from getting messy (never works for me). Got this from Lidl; it was much too big to use for its intended purpose, but I thought it might define and contain the planning area – I had some idea of putting thick layer of gravel all over, then putting the plants on top of that so they’d always get as much water as they needed, and I’d only have to top up the reservoir, not water every plant. But I didn’t have enough gravel and didn’t want the plants to stand in water till I got enough (I’d had enough probs with water pooling on the table as it was) and anyway the tray was too big so I had to tuck it behind the table. If I could only get something under the table to catch the run-off …

Then I put the old shelves up and loaded them …

The plants in the middle row are standing in large plastic trays with about two inches of gravel (scaled-down version of original idea), but when I went out after some heavy rain I found that they were also standing in about two further inches of water, so I had to hurriedly bale them out.

There must be a way to self-water plants without the risk of them drowning …

ps: it’s a bit pathetic, really, isn’t it? Everyone else has got gardens so big you can’t see the other side, and there’s me faffing around with a tabletop. Still, I suppose it comes under the heading of making the most of what you’ve got …

• 5 Jul, 2011
• 6 likes

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