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Flippin' deck
"Flippin' deck
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...231770,00.html Jane Perrone delights in the demise of a certain garden fad, and has some advice on putting right its inherent wrongs Friday June 4, 2004 A blackbird on the wing, taking in an aerial view of an average UK street, has probably noticed a colour shift in the past five years. Our once green and pleasant land has been invaded by a hideous scourge that poses a threat to all that is good about gardening: wooden decking. A story in today's Telegraph details how a retired couple from Northumberland objected when their neighbour turned his garden into a "wooden fortress" with the addition of a "giant deck". The story pushed all the right buttons for the average Telegraph reader - feuding neighbours, a former Royal Navy petty officer, an antique dealer, local planning officers and listed property. I found my own buttons pushed, however, by the idea that anyone could believe that covering over a perfectly good bit of garden with a large wooden structure where one is likely to spend, oh, hours a year enjoying the sunshine is anything other than an expensive folly. Decking is at the heart of what I call the "Ground Force approach" to gardening, the idea - promulgated by the likes of the garden makeover show's Charlie Dimmock - that the way to the perfect garden is a trip to the nearest out-of-town DIY megastore for an expensive pile of wood and a violent shade of woodstain. The result? A sterile environment that is useless for garden wildlife, becomes a slippery hazard after a few months of neglect in our watery climate and is often out of scale with its surroundings. The trouble is I am an allotment gardener at heart, a breed resigned to the ranks of the terminally uncool by EastEnders' downtrodden man of the soil, Arthur Fowler. Gardens shouldn't be viewed simply as an "an extra room" that can undergo a miraculous lifestyle makeover akin to slapping on a few coats of misty buff on the walls or buying a new sofa. Good gardens evolve. They aren't constructed overnight. When I see a garden, my thoughts turn to how many plants I could pack in to provide both colour and food for my kitchen and for garden visitors like bees and butterflies. I know it will take months to see my ideas through from preparing the soil, to sowing seed, planting out, weeding and watering. There's nothing productive or beautiful about a stretch of bleak wood - it's good for neither herb nor hedgehog. The good news is that decking - like all fads - is quickly joining laminate flooring, inflatable chairs and luminous socks in the ranks of fashion has-beens. If you've already fallen under the costly spell of Ground Force, think about redeeming yourself and your garden by renting an allotment (average cost: £10-20 a year), digging a wildlife pond (average cost: about a tenner) or planting a wildflower meadow (average cost: a few packets of seeds). The decking backlash has begun." AMEN! |
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