Hampton Court Flower Show opens to the public this morning, like the big South-West London garden fête it really is. Hampton Court is often seen as the people's gardening event so it's no surprise to find the RHS picking the show as a prime moment to nobble the great British public about climate change, growing your own, and other practices you could cobble together under the umbrella term "sustainability".
It's also no surprise to find that the RHS, like the rest of us, has a fairly inconsistent attitude towards all this stuff. One minute they're telling us we should grow our own veg, the next we're gazing at the Porsche garden.
And what is it with Porsche trying to come over like they make eco-cars? Let me excerpt some of the catalogue description of this particular plot:
"This garden highlights the continuing disappearance of urban front gardens, so many of which are being paved over to provide off-road parking.... This raises the likelihood of subsidence and heightens the risk of localised flooding due to excessive water run-off."
Er, you what? You're suggesting that excavating my garden to make a space big enough for a 350 BHP sports car and a lift, is going to leave enough rain-absorbing soil in situ to prevent flooding? That removing tons of soil from the area in front of my house going to help battle subsidence? I just don't know where to start, I'm spluttering with objections.
To me the presence of Porsche at Hampton Court demonstrates all the trouble we get ourselves into when we want to save the world without making it hurt too much. I don't think Porsche should be showing a garden there at all, if the point of the show is to emphasise the sustainable. In fact even setting that aside, I don't get what Porsche are doing there. I don't even get it from the point of view of their own marketing - surely a Porsche is a Chelsea Flower Show car, not a Hampton Court one?
Of
course, all show gardening has a high element of wastage and energy use
spunked into the ether for the sake of it. The reality of a flower show
is that the stringent judging requirements for immaculate presentation
create huge tension between wanting to be "green" and having to chuck
perfectly good plants away because they are a tiny bit broken.
Under these circumstances, only one garden on site really has the right to call itself green and that's Guerilla Gardener Richard Reynolds' (above right) at B34. Reynolds and friends turned up with a tree and a skip, and salvaged everything else in their garden Wombles-style, from other exhibitors who were chucking it out.
So
here we are, with the Porsche garden, and the dopy signage and garden
titles (see left), but did we really come away thinking sustainability
can be sexy?
And my god, what is this preoccupation with making everything sexy anyway? In the new "Growing Tastes" area of the show gardeners, chefs and growers even did their best to persuade us that "there's something quite sexy and romantic about growing your own vegetables." (A chef said that.)
Hmm, I'm not exactly sure about sexy, but it was extremely impressive. Immaculate raised beds and tiny cucumbers just starting and all that exciting smell of vegetables growing. And ready to grow. Especially the giant garlic from Isle of Wight garlic. Listen, even Guy Barter was impressed.
I myself got funny looks as I was down on my hands and knees sniffing the baskets. I'm not convinced this was because it was actually sexy, though. But how else are you going to find out which one you like the best?
I love porsches! What's your problem?
Posted by: Petrolhead | Tuesday, 08 July 2008 at 06:51 PM
That's the problem with amateur greenies, they don't understand the subject and react to boo words like Porsche. The garden, which I have seen, does have a very different influence on its surroundings than if it was all paved over. Most of the rain that falls on it will go through to become groundwater close to the house, not directed away into drains.
You do have to accept there will be a car in front of the house, Porsche or not, and that it would otherwise be standing on a hard surface. The fact the hard surface is now underground is neither here nor there.
Oh and I think Porsches are rubbish cars, but that is not the point
Posted by: Citygreen | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 10:02 AM
Are you suggesting Emma is an amateur greenie? What a bizarre suggestion - she's a professional greenie and I'd suggest is actually rather knowledgeable on the subject. She's absolutely right that Porsche are trying to greenwash themselves when the truth is that it's obviously purely a marketing ploy.
And you do NOT have to accept that there will be a car in front of the house. There isn't one in front of mine and there never will be.
Posted by: jakers | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 10:14 AM
'You do have to accept there will be a car in front of the house, Porsche or not, and that it would otherwise be standing on a hard surface'
No you don't have to accept that. When I lived in London I didn't have a car, nor did my partner, or any of his family.
Cars don't have to stand on hard (impermeable) surfaces either. Here it's scalpings/gravel, it could be a bound gravel,it could be grasscrete or any other alternative that allows rainfall to permeate and filter to the ground water. Careful addition of a camber, drains and/or soakaways help too. Better still, recycle the water in undeground storage for irrigation? Why do people who hurl facile insults like 'amateur greenies' rely on such specious generalisations to make their argument? POT KETTLE BLACK spring to mind.
Oh and as for Porsches, I tend to generalise too and imagine a male owner with an oversized ego and undersized genitals. Tsk , naughty me!
Posted by: Zoë | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 11:47 AM
Well I agree about quite a lot that Zoe says about different surfaces, she clearly understands the issues.
Simil on men and Porsches, I never get it, but then my name is Sarah.
And how do you become a professional greenie? I did not work with Nick Stern but I think I do have some grasp of the issues, but it still leaves me an amateur. Maybe I should have complained of poorly informed and sloppy thinking.
Posted by: Citygreen | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 03:37 PM
hello Sarah, Jakers, Zoe,
this is really interesting to me, and I'm happy to be called an amateur. I may also be poorly informed.
Here's my read of it, and then sarah can set me straight: I'm aware that the garden has a "different influence" on its surroundings than if it was paved over. But having talked to people I know whose neighbours have had basements excavated, I feel happy about pouring a bit of scorn on the idea that subsidence will be less likely as a result of this major movement of earth.
I also feel that whatever the movement of water when rain falls, the fact is that bare soil would be better. Now this is amateur greenyism, of the most anecdotal kind. I don't have any figures.
But the problem is huge amounts of water (like this afternoon) all falling at the same time, isn't it? Pour that amount of water on any surface, and you will see that soil takes it the quickest.
I think the best thing to have in your front garden is a garden. A real garden, with soil and plants. I have a car, and it is parked in front of the house, on the road, which was already tarmacced (what is the past participle there?) when I moved here. And that is totally subjective. But I don't think 'sloppy" thinking, unless by sloppy, you mean, a little bit sentimental. :_)
Happy to be corrected on any of this.
Posted by: emma townshend | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 08:01 PM
PS- when I say, "Happy to be corrected", I definitely don't mean "Not at all happy, actually". I'm really interested to know whether my knee-jerk reaction to the car being there was actually just jerk. I definitely don't find the brand Porsche at all offensive, and I wouldn't have been at all offended to see the car at Chelsea. I would quite happily own a Porsche. Except not a Cheyenne.
Posted by: emma townshend | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 08:08 PM
If it hadn't been for Ferdinand Porsche, we wouldn't have had the Volkswagen Beetle... Personally, I can't believe that little square of sempervivums would survive very long once the owner of the Porsche started vroom-vrooming in and out of the drive. They'd be roadkill before you could say 0-60mph.
Posted by: Victoria | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 10:26 PM
Well, it has been great to see all this debate on the Porsche Garden, and it is exactly the reason we designed it in the first place! To address a few points from the initial blog it is worth highlighting that around 95% of water falling onto this garden will be harvested within the space, thus reducing levels of run-off. Gravel is the perfect loose surface to increase permeability, as demonstrated by the deluges at the show. The garden soaked it all up very well, whilst the hardened turf and soil around the site puddled like crazy!Even water on top of the garage roof has been funneled into the box beds reducing their water requirements. The installation of the garage is completed within 24hrs, and can indeed provide soil stabilization in the area due to the nature of the Cardok underpinning the soil structure (subject to local geological conditions). The main concern is actually avoiding local tree roots and service cables.
We created the garden to highlight the RHS’s Front Garden campaign, and wanted to show how a little of how form and function can hopefully be married to show aesthetically focused gardens incorporating more environmentally features. This is the reason for the turf walls to increase the area of softscape whilst reducing dust & noise levels, and the use of log stack walls and bee pollinating logs to increase nesting places for local wildlife. Of course a garden purely devoted to softscape and soil is the ideal, but the real world situation does not always permit this, so the design is to show how you can park 2 cars (1 in ground/1 on the roof) on the same footprint whilst still having an attractive front garden. It is all well and good saying “I don’t own a car in London” or “I will never pave my front garden”, but if you look at the statistics that we researched, then this is the standpoint of a simplistic dreamer and not someone who is actually even attempting to solve the problems we already have in the capital and other UK towns.
As for Porsche’s involvement, they entered the frame on a pure design basis regarding the Cardok parking system, and the purity of the overall concept. They are certainly not trying to “greenwash” the public into believing they sell eco-cars. We approached almost every car manufacturer and it was Porsche who stepped in to support some aspirational young designers in their quest to produce a calming and beautiful space, whilst highlighting an important environmental issue. As for their presence here rather than Chelsea, well you can ask the RHS about that, but Hampton Court is always used to support new and innovative design ideas. The fact we have been in almost every national publication, including a double page centre spread in the Evening Standard yesterday, and several minutes of primetime TV coverage may explain it from a marketing point of view. Personally I haven’t seen a squeak out of any other garden at the show?
It is a little bit of “wow” for the paying public alongside the more traditional gardens to be found at the show, and if you could have seen the hoards of school kids open-mouthed on the Press Day then maybe your “knee jerk” reaction to the garden may have been somewhat appeased. Watching kids get excited about gardens, was amazing to see, and if it takes a hydraulic parking system to do that, then we will just have to continue producing thought provoking gardens of this ilk. A particular highlight was:
“Ah wow, this must be where James Bond lives (garage continues to open)…I think I am going to faint!”
Happy days!
P.S. We love the Guerilla Garden, and if you see their blog, you might note how the big bad Porsche Garden donated a selection of our plants to this important installation…and if you are looking for the antidote to the show exhibitors obsession with perfection then look no further than our conceptual installation: “Ceci n’est pas un jardin”
Posted by: John @ FlemonsWarlandDesign | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 10:52 PM
PS: I've finally realised what the Porsche garden reminds me of. Tracy Island! All that stuff about being able to park two cars on the hydraulic thingy is just a cover story. What really happens is that it flips up and Thunderbird One comes out.
Posted by: Victoria | Wednesday, 09 July 2008 at 11:33 PM
I'd like to thank John for spending a long time posting - that's useful stuff.
I did notice a group of older men admiring it, but while I was there on press day the children were running riot in the Dorset veg garden about three stops down, and enjoying choosing which shed they'd like to live in. Obviously the love of these particular children was not quite so easily bought!
One thing I disagree about: I do find funny the idea of the solution "not having a car" being dismissed as "simplistic dreaming". Come on now!
I made a new year's resolution to halve my car use. I've already hit my targets and over. I reckon that if I joined the car club scheme in the next road to mine, i could now get rid of my car, which I only use for long journeys to far distant gardens and weddings (and weedings?). I am also the very few of my friends who has a car. There are plenty of people in cities who don't have cars by choice, but who still use cars on occasion. Especially with petrol becoming increasingly expensive, I think there will be more and more people who choose alternative ways of owning and using cars - or not to have them in their lives at all.
Posted by: emma townshend | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 06:43 AM
Hi Emma! I would just like to say that I too have never had a car whilst living in Central London, and agree it is more than possible to survive without one. In fact I reckon you can run almost anywhere within Zone 1 and often do. (Honest!)
However, I also appreciate that most people are joined at the hip to their vehicles, and we have to lessen this impact from as many angles as possible. A carless city, is I am afraid still simplistic dreaming for me.
As for the kids in the excellent Dorset Cereals garden. I do still have to wonder whether they would have been dreaming about owning a shed or a Porsche on Monday evening.I hope it is a shed but I fear otherwise...
Posted by: John @ FlemonsWarlandDesign | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 10:26 AM
Emma
You certainly got a debate going. Not much to add after John's post. I do wonder whether your initial reaction was heart over head. If it had been a Toyaota Prius on the stand would your reaction have been the same?
I will now sign off. Happy gardening
Posted by: Citygreen | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 11:57 AM
Full marks to John - an excellent reply under mildly hostile conditions!
While the exercise is obviously useful in terms of discussion, the point I would go back to is that it's actually "simplistic dreaming" to think that we are going to be able to sustain our obsession with car travel and ownership. Instead of trying to work out a compromise with our front gardens, we should make them sacrosanct and not allow any parking usage at all on them or introduce some kind of tax a la the congestion charge. People own too many cars and should be made to feel guilty about that rather than assuaging their eco worries by this kind of setup.
Posted by: jakers | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 01:03 PM
Ha ha! I love the idea I wouldn't have minded if it was a Toyota Prius! Nope, I would have thought it was just as lame. My ideal is to move to Oxford and live in a city which treats bikes with more respect, actually. Until then, I am fundamentally a believer in the German car.
I just don't think my German car should be in my garden.
Posted by: emma t | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 08:48 PM
Final thoughts from me on this...important to point out the Toyota Prius is actually one of the worst cars for the environment when you factor in production and disposal costs, energy required to produce the vehicle and overall greenhouse emissions.
When you move to Oxford to "live the dream", just give us a buzz if you need any design help with your space, and we promise there will not be a hydraulic lift in sight. I believe you were a fan of our conceptual work, "The Fallen" so a row of headstones bearing the names of show gardens you have slain may be more appropriate?
As for your comment that you are "...fundamentally a believer in the German car", I think that would be a splendid quote on some Porsche literature from the Independent gardening correspondent.
Best wishes, and thanks for promoting this debate concerning front gardens. Every little helps...
Posted by: John @ FlemonsWarlandDesign | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 10:30 PM
I was indeed a great fan of the Fallen, and also I did like the conceptual garden this year that FlemonsWarland did.
I don't think (frustratingly) that you can google these guys together - you have to do Sim Flemons http://www.pieceofgreen.co.uk/pog.htm
and I don't know about John. I might email him and ask.
Posted by: emma townshend | Friday, 11 July 2008 at 10:14 AM
I've driven the same Porsche as the one on the stand and it was a phenomenal experience - enough to force a reconsideration of the people that own them from 'mainly cocks' to 'guys who love driving'.
I'd like to reinforce a point which Emma touched on, namely the irony of Porsche's involvement with this project. As someone who works with PR agencies on a regular basis I feel certain that Porsche deliberately chose this event to reposition their brand as more eco-conscious.
This might be in response to the bad press they got in February when they opposed the high-polluters congestion charge (don't worry! BoJo has cancelled it)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/porsche-to-challenge-congestion-charge-hike-784149.html
But my point is, the Porsche 911 is not an eco-conscious car [nor are the other models]. Its fuel consumption is 13.9mpg (Urban), or 7.2mpg (Non Urban). Whatever you think of the lift, it's absurd to be ecologically preached at by Porsche.
For the conspiracy theorists above, a Toyota Prius does 65.7mpg, and was described by the Department of Transport as the third least c02-emitting vehicle on sale in the UK. And that's when it's using petrol rather than electric.
Finally. There is nothing amateurish about this blog, which continues to be engaging, intelligent, considered and fun. So thanks Emma.
Posted by: John Malkovich | Friday, 11 July 2008 at 07:49 PM
Great to hear driving the new 911 was an amazing experience for John. It truly is an icon.
I will just reaffirm what I said earlier, regarding Porsche coming on board from a design perspective. Any linkage to sustainability is purely incidental, and it is not them, but us (the designers) who are preaching at you. We designed the garden to raise awareness for the RHS's Front Garden Campaign, and Porsche signed up on the basis of the beautifully engineered Cardok system and garden. The fact that we won a Gold medal in the same week that Boris scrapped the £25 charge, and Porsche donated their legal costs to a charity was just a great coincidence producing great PR.
I am no scientist or indeed motoring journalist, but as for the Toyota Prius it is indeed a low CO2 emitting vehicle, but as suggested in my previous posting when you take into account the production & disposal costs, and lifetime running costs of the Prius it is actually one of the worst cars ecologically, and Toyota have done an amazing marketing "greenwash" to cover this up. You can Google any number of research sources that will back this up.
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188
As for me I think I will just stick to good old public transport...
Posted by: John @ FlemonsWarlandDesign | Saturday, 12 July 2008 at 12:27 PM
... And I'll keep cycling.
Posted by: John Malkovich | Monday, 14 July 2008 at 10:11 AM
"...when you take into account the production & disposal costs, and lifetime running costs of the Prius it is actually one of the worst cars ecologically, and Toyota have done an amazing marketing "greenwash" to cover this up. You can Google any number of research sources that will back this up..."
Umm... by now it's not just the Prius. ANY 'green' claim usually means the product is poor value and worse for the environment than standard 'supermarket' goods. 'Fair Trade' actually damages third world countries by providing economic pressure to keep a peasant economy, and the whole CO2 farrago is based on bad science.
Did anyone think it would be any different...?
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