Todays Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon also known as Hanging Gardens of Semiramis and the walls of Babylon (near present-day Al Hillah in Iraq) are considered one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. They were built by Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and beautiful plants of her homeland. The gardens are reputed to have been destroyed in an earthquake after the 1st century BC. However this desire to have such a place and this longing for beautiful spaces has not changed through the passing of time.

As Landscape design businesses, Magazines, Nurseries or Garden Centres we have developed a strategy to highlight and respond to this real need. Is there currently an increased trend towards people using their living spaces as places of refuge and comfort? Are people longing for the once familiar safe feeling provided by natures cocoon? No matter how streetwise, world hardened and sophisticated we have become for most is that longing still in our genetic makeup. If the answers to these questions are yes then the time may be right more than ever before to give people what they want and explain more clearly we are providing a unique service more than just the obivous physical goods. The collaboration between nurseries, architects, designers and landscape contractors come together to provide that place whether it be on the scale of Babylon or your own tiny urban / rural garden cocoon.

Have governments understood this human need fully? This need is greater during times of trauma be they economically induced or simialr to the needs of Amytis of Media all those centuries ago.

We have been reading stories from all over the world where our wise leaders have been cutting back on spending on parks and public gardens. With tighter budgets large and small businesses may also underestimate or ignore the need for these spaces for staff to unwind before, during or after their working day.
Isn't there some economic formula which says supply should be dictated by demand and or need? There is enough research to show that investment in nature and creating natural spaces are always wise investments financially. Investment in the manufacture of buildings, cars, planes and other products such as financial packages have historically taken priority and I guess that is how the world is. Or was! It didnt work fully to our favour and maybe now is a good time to tweak towards natural solutions to old problems.
Can we ever look forward to a time when policy dictates the planted environment must be financed and planned to show buildings and steets can be accomodated within the plan rather than making nature fit our buldings and streets.
The environmental age has arrived, people want nature more part of the sustainability solution when they go home, or indeed go to work. Nature does not just provide us with a means to energy we use to power our appliances it also gives us the energy provided by well being. The good news for mankind is that there is an ample supply of skilled businesses that can supply such a services that will be able to harness renewable resources to provide both forms of energy.
Our business is to simply and effectively provide a diversity plants that will fit in your immediate environment and we take it seriously.
http://www.myplant.ie/

Is Gardening again becoming a necessary life skill?

Is Gardening again becoming a necessary life skill?

Is Gardening again becoming a necessary life skill?

The co-incidence.

In this blog post I am re-posting a piece I first posted on http://www.myplant.ie/ back in May 2009. A few weeks after I first posted this the article was hacked and my website brought down by a virus planted on the site by hackers. My site hosting and maintenance guys said the attacks were targeted at this article possibly due to the mention of the White House. They fixed my website as luckily we got the attack early. Sometimes its very hard to get away from the feeling some things are predestined. As you will see on my last blog piece this week our primroses landed in the very place I was highlighting in the article below. http://fitzgeraldnurseries.blogspot.com/2011/03/gifting-of-kennedy-irish-primrose.html

Due to this amazing coincidence and the fact that the White House Garden project or the trend towards people growing their own vegetables wasn't just a passing fad I decided to re post this piece. I would also like your opinion on the questions posed at the end.

Is Gardening becoming a necessary life skill?

Original post.

This is probably not so hard to believe from some of us who have been around the block before. One of the silver linings for us as Horticulturists in somewhat depressing times like these is that people have more time to spend reassessing their interests, what is important and un-important. So far it looks like the signs so far are telling us that nature, growing your own and generally appreciating the garden, parks and the free or not so expensive things in life are coming out as important.

In the USA there has been a very encouraging and dedicated lobby since last November to have a vegetable garden planted in the grounds of the White House and from the picture here you can see this has been successful and has begun. Congratulations are due to the idea instigator to the people who worked on and supported this project and for achieving such success. Have a look at the official White House Farmer website WWW.WHITEHOUSEFARMER.COM .

With the eyes of the world on the new American first family this image on the White House farmer website has to be one of the most interesting garden images this month and many of us in the Horticulture world could not have imagined such an image emanating from such a prestigious and austere location until now.

A number of months ago I came across a saying from a contemporary American writer called Orson Scott Card which goes 'Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden'.

We have to hope that mass unemployment is not what it will take to get many of us to plant a garden. It's an unfortunate and interesting fact that sometimes it takes shocks of great magnitude to make some of us realize what's important and what's not. We can only hope now that when the world economy does eventually recover some lessons will have been learned and children will remember the folly of some of their elders in neglecting a few basic life skills and considerations that are the essence of our existence. Whether it be for food or for pleasure plant life is beneficial to mankind even the humblest apparently undesirable weed gives benefit to the planet and our immediate environment. For those of us who depend on gardening for a living let's hope that the many skills in the industry the great plants, fruit and vegetables that are produced by our sector will be valued and appreciated much more, by a greater amount of people and a new kind of consumer and gardener.

Lets hope our time in the sun has come.

Now almost two years on what do you think? Have we seen a change of mindset towards people in our profession or trade? Will the young people all over the world who have been exposed to the many projects like the White House Garden be better off for this new trend? Is it too early to say it has changed anything in the longer 25 year perspective when these children will be adults with children of their own?