Toilets - the new pots

Who says gardeners can't be funny! Our travels around the US last year took us to Locke - a little town in central California, designed for and lived in almost exclusively by Chinese Americans in the 1920s. They had some communal allotments there, at the front of which was this garden. Made from toilets discarded by local residents, it was built and tended by an elderly Chinese American lady called Connie - who sadly had died not long before we passed through. She used to give tours of the allotments, and always showed off her favourite toilet pot - a cock and balls arrangement of cacti - one long, two small either side. Brilliant.

Garden Design

We've already got rid of most of our lawn - replacing it with raised beds for veg - and I've been eying up the rest of it as part of my long term garden master plan. So it's interesting to read this Independent blog about how to make the most of small spaces. Tear up your lawns people! They are a lot of work to maintain, and take up valuable space you could use for more interesting plants.

US inspiration

So last year I spent a few months in San Francisco away from my garden. With the incredibly cold weather back in the UK I worried about our poor plants, but being in the USA was incredible. We took a road trip down to Palm Springs, and I was totally unprepared for how beautiful the plants in the desert were. Even in the winter. It felt like the more you looked at that landscape the more you saw.

Dry desert flower 5000 feet up in Joshua Tree National Park

bright red barrel cactus - species unknown

Joshua Trees as far as you can see

lichen on rock

some amazing plant combinations