Seeing as we appear to be having one of the wettest droughts on record, we thought it would be good to go through a few of the options open for water saving on a domestic scale. After all, it is good for the environment, great for your plants and saves you money too. What is not to like?

Well, if we are honest, some of the designs, as they are not beautiful objects. But, they do the job of storing water well which ultimately is what you need them for, so if you can hide them a bit, the cheaper options will do you just fine.

The simplest and cheapest water butts are made from green or black plastic, hold anything from 250l – 300 litres and are readily available at most garden centres and DIY stores for around £25 – £35 each. Some local authorities also sell water butts to local residents for a discounted price, so it is well worth ringing them to see if there are any available. (this goes for wormeries and compost bins too)

If you have a little more money to spend you can get something which is bigger, or has some better looks, such as this one from Greenfingers. It is still made from plastic, but it has been finished to look like clay, so it can be inserted into a suitable garden without sticking out like a sore thumb.

It stores a comfortable 245 litres, so a good option for a Mediterranean courtyard, and not too bad as a statement piece at £145.

If losing any of your precious growing space fills you with dread, you can still harvest water using this very innovative wall mounted water butt. Plastic again, but as the weight of up to 100 litres will be hanging off your wall you would not want it to be too heavy to begin with. A great solution for those with inquisitive children too, as it can be placed well out of the way.

Great value at £105 from Greenfingers.

But what if you have a thirsty veg patch to douse? If you have the room (and let’s be honest, the cash to stump up in the first place) you could go for this whopper. Holding around 800 litres, this is one of the biggest water tanks available for above ground and can be linked to more of the same to make a huge system.

True, it is not the cheapest option at £320, but you would rarely, if ever, need to turn on the mains water to water your lettuces again.

So, are there any nicer looking ways to store your water above ground?

We are big fans of using old wooden distillery barrels as they have a nice warmth of texture, are reclaimed and blend very well indeed into rural designs, or modern industrial schemes also. We even have one at the studio.

This example comes from Harrod Horticultural and is not too badly priced at £123 for a 227 litre oak barrel.

An alternative is to source a lovely reclaimed metal tank, like this one here – and make a feature of it in your garden.

Contact your local metal recycling site to see if they have anything available and check that the metal is not toxic in any way at all – you do not want to save water then poison yourself and your plants.

Prices will vary hugely according to the type of tank and what it is made of as the merchant will probably sell it by the scrap value of the weight. But, it will be unique.

And if you are going down the recycled route, you could also get a recycled plastic one, such as this one from Smiths of the Forest of Dean, who specialise in all sorts of water tanks.

This water butt is made from a previously used food or similar grade screw top container which has been fitted with a tap outlet. These are great as they are reasonable (around £55) and are generally a much thicker grade of plastic than their DIY store cousins.

And as they hold a tasty 220 litres, they are extremely good value for their size and they will last for ages.

So, a few options for water saving and you’d better get to it – who knows when this drenching drought will finally come to an end? Don’t miss the water saving and money saving boat, so to speak.

(images from Greenfingers, Smiths of the Forest of Dean and Harrod Horticultural)

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We all know that the phrase ‘green design’ has come to be a shorthand for a whole range of sustainable practices – from utilising reclaimed and recycled materials, minimising waste within projects, ensuring items can be reused at the end of their life, ethical practices and renewable power production – to name but a few.

With green interior design, all of the above phrases can, should be included wherever possible to create not only a ‘green’ interior but a beautiful place to inhabit and enjoy. Filling spaces with chemical free surfaces and lovely natural materials is good for the environment and our souls alike. Don’t we all hanker for a reconnection with nature?

But there are some green interior design projects which take the element of the outside, inside and our lack of connection with the natural environment to the absolute extreme, such as this truly stunning project by British artists, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey.

The pair have created a green interior design which can only be described as alive. Green walls are one thing, but Ackroyd and Harvey have completely transformed the walls of Dilston Grove, a Grade-II Listed building in Southwark Park into a growing wonder.

Using clay mixed with grass seeds, the walls have been plastered with the growing mixture which works in a similar way to the good old seed bomb. Give it a bit of time, some water and some light, and nature does the rest.

The result looks beautifully ethereal – especially with the light from the rose window in the church creating a moving spotlight throughout the day.

Whilst a ‘green interior’ we do not know exactly how sustainable the space is, and the amount of water the installation requires, but surely this has to be the ultimate in real green wall coverings?

(image via inhabitat)

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Recycling and reusing can come in many forms, from the obvious to the subtle and every shade in between. On our travels finding lovely things for our clients, we often find stuff that might not be what we were looking for but gets filed in the ‘this is pretty great’ folder of inspirational stuff.

Many of you will also know that we have a bit of a passion for letterpress styled prints – so much so that we have our own monthly eco print subscription service for fellow adorers – www.ecopickprints.co.uk , where we release one special A-Z print each month on a seasonal subject.

Putting these two features together – eco and letterpress – in another way is the truly fantastic Kornflake – an Urban Cottage Industry business where old cereal packets are rescued, cut and after a letterpress treatment, are turned into wonderful greetings cards and business cards.

We think they are lovely and really creative – imagine giving people a business card and seeing their expression when they realise it used to be an actual cornflake packet?

Brilliant.

It is the detail, honesty and that ‘ooh, nice’ effect that all business cards should have.

So – check out Kornflake for your next batch of business cards or greetings cards – recycling and a traditional craft with great design thrown in too. What’s not to like?

(image via Kornflake)

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Over the past week or so we have been looking pretty closely at grow your own systems for the urban grower, or for those with very little space indeed but who want to take control of their own food production, however small.

One of recent posts on gutter gardening has been incredibly popular – showcasing a very simple wall mounted growing system made from gutter sections which is a great DIY project and can provide tasty salad crops all summer long. No more expensive, pesticide laden bags of limp salad required – snip what you want and eat it fresh.

But for those with literally NO outdoor space, are there any options at all?

The answer is yes – and perhaps even more than you would have thought.

Window cills have long been used to house a couple of herbs in pots in many of our kitchens, but a they are not very space effective – something which is key when planning an efficient growing area. So if you cannot get any more horizontal space, why not use your available vertical space instead – on the inside face of your window.

And this is exactly what Britta Riley thought.

We heard about the inspirational Britta Riley through her excellent TED talk, where she explained her own motivations behind creating an efficient indoor growing system for apartment growing which has grown into the fantastic Windowfarms system and community.

And a true community it is – as an open source project, Windowfarms have a true DIY approach – do-it-yourself and develop-it-yourself, then post your findings back to the community so others can benefit from your research.

So, what is a Windowfarm? Simply, it is a miniature farm positioned in a window space, with plants hanging within pots which are drip fed a liquid feed. It is a very simple, low tech, DIY hydroponic growing system which is efficient and cheap to run. And it appears to work very well indeed, with even the first sample systems easily creating a salad a week.

If you are in the USA you can buy a kit of parts straight from the Windowfarms site but really the project was developed as a true community, open source and research sharing project, so the true spirit is to build your own from the bits and pieces you have sitting around – tweaking it to fit your own space, light orientation and growing requirements.

Take a look at the great Windowfarms website – download the plans, look at the research, join the community and grow a bit of your own. Flat dwellers – there is no longer an excuse.

(images via Windowfarms)

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At the moment we are in the process of designing a couple of urban gardens where space is at a huge premium yet both clients want to grow their own food, albeit on a small scale.

Here in Brighton, allotments are like gold dust, with many locations in the city having huge waiting lists, so we always look keenly at solutions which can maximise cropping potential and be integrated into spaces with style.

One of our recent posts looked at the US based Garden Towers Project, which looked at how plants can be grown and compost be created in a very tight space, but for those with hardly any floor space, wall growing may be the only option.

Enter the gutter garden, which does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a way of gardening in gutters. It can be made from recycled guttering in different lengths and is a very efficient use of space.

Gutter gardening is not anything particularly new – many people have been starting seedlings in guttering before planting them out in long lines, but the last few years have seen a variety of DIY systems where guttering has been placed in different heights along lengths of walls to create super efficient and very attractive growing areas.

Of course, you will not get a massive crop of potatoes or prize winning pumpkins from gutter gardening but for salads, herbs, strawberries, radishes and edible flowers such as nasturtiums you cannot go wrong.

The premise is very simple – take lengths of guttering, drill a few drainage holes along the base of each piece and attach to a wall using gutter brackets and strong fixings – remember – your gutter garden will be quite heavy once laden with crops and compost so ensure everything is strong and secure.

Use a nice peat free compost to fill the gutters (make sure you have put end sections on the gutter first…) then sow away. These wall based systems tend to be less prone to slug and snail damage, so hopefully within a few weeks your wall gutter garden should be romping away, ready to provide tasty salads all summer long.

Watering is also pretty efficient, as the drainage holes from the top gutter drip into the gutter below, so a minimal amount of water is wasted by draining onto the floor – just ensure that the bottom gutters are getting enough water from those above.

We are in the process of designing a wall system for use at the new studio based on the basic gutter gardening system as we think it is great. Why not find a bit of wasted wall this weekend and create your own?

(images via Sierra,  Adventures in Creative Reuse and Urban Gardening and GreenUpgrader)

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We are often asked by clients to explain the ins and outs of going about the construction of a green roof, so when we were invited to write a guest blog for Notcutts we thought we would put a few key points on the subject down on virtual paper.

So, fancy building your own green roof, or finding out the basics of what it entails? well, you can read our guest blog for Notcutts here!

(image of our own butterfly pavilion – complete with thyme green roof)

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We are obsessed with helping clients develop ways to take control of growing their own food, even in the tiniest of ways and in the smallest of spaces and in the past we have designed vertical farms, roof allotments and salad window boxes to assist people in doing so. Unfortunately, composting is always something which is harder to fit into the really small spaces.

But this freestanding Garden Tower compact farm by US based Colin Cudmore may just have the answer.

Designed to house an internal composting system and a planting section on the outer rim, the Garden Tower can fit 50 plants into a 4 square foot area – a huge amount of harvesting potential for small spaces.

Immediate plants which spring to mind are salads – leaves, tumbling tomatoes and herbs, cucumbers (if you have room to trail or climb) and of course, strawberries. Using such a tiny amount of space almost everyone could have their very own urban allotment.

The Garden Towers are currently only available in the USA, and are just about to start seeking funding via Kickstarter, but let’s hope it crosses the pond to grace the balconies of the UK!

(image via inhabitat)

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There is something very magical about camping – getting up close with nature, camp fires, and looking at the stars that are often missing from our light polluted city skies.

But stargazing is often blighted by biting midges, dampness and nippy chills which strike to the core, so what could be better for a night searching for Pegasus than a completely transparent tent?

These Bubbletree tents by French designer Pierre Stephane were conceived as minimal footprint and impact structures which could bring an exciting twist to a camping experience, but even though they pack down small and leave no trace, we cannot forsee that many would want to lug them on a camping hike. (plus, we presume that they are pressurised/inflated with a constant air supply?)

But now you can opt to use them if you stay at the Attrap’Rêves Hotel just outside of Marseilles instead of the regular, indoor rooms at the special outdoor rate starting at 109 Euros per night.

Faced with a choice of being inside or having an interrupted view of the beautiful Bouches-du-Rhone Forest we know what we would choose.

(image from Inhabitat)

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If any of you were lucky enough to dodge the Easter holiday showers and get into the garden you probably would have noticed the first, tender shoots of Stinging Nettles springing up in the beds and borders.

For some, this would have been rather heartbreaking – the start of weed season. For us, this signals the start of the main foraging and edible growing year – with nettles being the star of the show in early April. But instead of getting down at the sight of a stinging nettle, celebrate your weeding session by cooking them instead. Just because they are not in your vegetable bed does not mean they cannot be harvested in the same, cut-and-come-again fashion all Spring.

Bright green and full of good nutritious stuff, nettles can be used in a myriad of recipes – wilted like spinach, cooked into a nettle risotto, blitzed into a nettle pesto or even concentrated into a fabulous nettle cordial which tastes very like a light sparkling wine when diluted with fizzy water.

So please – do not chuck them away. Get your real revenge and eat this lovely plant instead – just remember your gloves when picking and preparing!

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We are huge fans of Lego in the studio – we pretty much all played with it as children, creating all manner of things from boats to earrings and as far as sustainable toys go, even though it is made of plastic, it can be assembled and disassembled in so many ways it can be used for years and years.

But we have to admit, even as budding youth designers we never thought about creating a home for a hermit crab.

Harry the Hermit crab lives at Legoland Windsor, and when he shed his shell through growing his search began for a new home. After shunning the shells offered by staff, they decided to create a Lego shell instead.

Despite the garish colours, Harry seemed to love the look of the Lego shell and he seems pretty happy with his new home.

And the good thing is, his shell can be turned into something else when he has outgrown it.

Upcycling and reinventing at it’s best.

check out the video of harry the lego housed hermit crab here

(image via inhabitat, via the Guardian)

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