Prevailing Wind

Up in the Air

Congratulations to Diarmuid Gavin this year for getting the gold at the Chelsea Flower Show with his Irish Sky Garden sponsored by Failte Ireland and Cork City Council . It couldn’t be more deserved.
The design is bold and totally impractical with no flowers, and I love it. I’ve always had a soft spot for ornamental grasses and formal trees and the two blend together seamlessly. The design was inspired by a lot of factors including the begonia carpet bedding outside the Grand Palace in Brussels, a pattern of water circles in Venice Beach in California, the rock formations on the Giants Causeway and the floating islands of Pandora in the Hollywood movie Avatar.
The most striking feature though is the floating pod that can lift people into the air by crane, which he calls the “Launch Pad” taking eager gardeners 25 metres up in the air to get away from it all and survey the area around them Diarmuid commented that from the pod at the Chelsea show he could “nearly see my house from here.”
Following on from London’s Chelsea Flower show, the Irish Sky Garden will be transported to Cork, and set within Cork’s Mid-Summer Festival from 11-26th June 2011. The pod along with certain elements of the garden will then be relocated and re-built alongside the River Lee as part of a 2m Euro development project to create a new park for the city, which the public will be able to visit free of charge from early July. Well worth a visit I think.

The prevailing wind

The lorry housing the crane mechanism for Diarmuid’s design was neatly tucked out of the way in and hidden by large trees; hopefully they drowned out the engine noise too. Trees for use as screening in the garden are a topical point this week too, especially as their ability to reduce wind damage. Anyone who doesn’t have some form of shelter belt around their gardens will be scouting around for their compost and wheelie bins and pots that were sitting near the doorway.
Wind can be one of the gardener's worst enemies. It can impede plant growth severely, stunting trees and shrubs, and it stops young seedlings in their tracks. Salt spray in the wind can exacerbate its effects, leaving plants looking burnt, with scorched leaves and blackened branches.
Shelter belts are the obvious solution, and planting wind-tolerant trees and shrubs is a sensible starting point. The major drawback, of course, is that you risk shutting out the view.
The direction from which the wind most often blows will influence your garden’s character, and what you can grow. As a general rule, northerlies and easterlies are cold, while westerlies are warmer but stronger.
Diarmuid’s garden design incorporated mounds of shrubs on a slope, this idea combined with some larger trees on the garden boundary would be an extremely effective method of slowing the wind down in the garden and reducing any damage. Swirling tall grasses also help and look fabulous as they sway around. When the wind isn’t blowing the dips in the mounds can be a place to relax and enjoy the views. I've seen smaller, curved mounds work just as well planted with fragrant, creeping thymes and chamomiles that thrive in the good drainage that such a bank provides.

Wind Problems

• Long term, winds can cause trees to grow sideways, especially in coastal areas like ours.
• Sudden gales snap branches and stems, especially if we have had gentle weather for a long time like this year.
• An unexpected cold wind may ‘scorch’ tender new growth, leaving it crispy brown
• Even gentle winds can scorch plants that naturally live in sheltered woodland, for example, Japanese maples.

Prevention

• Use canes to support plants
• Surround the garden with a ‘shelterbelt’ Open fences, screens and hedges are always preferable to solid barriers, with several lines of defence the best policy, provided you have room.
• In exposed locations, evergreen hedges such as escallonia, laurel and griselinia provide more shelter in winter, while deciduous species such as beech and hornbeam are good in that they hold onto their dead leaves until the spring.
• Instant rubber fabric strips stretched between poles are an excellent stop-gap until hedges grow sufficiently tall. These shelterbelts all work because they are porous; they slow wind down but allow it through. Solid walls and fences force the wind over them causing more damage to plants compared to porous windbreaks.
• Coniferous trees like sitka spruce and Scotch pine are effective but only in a large garden. They will suck all of the moisture from your small garden and be a menace to the neighbours otherwise. Native trees like Whitebeam, hawthorn and birch are deciduous alternatives. These trees have the added advantage of more open canopies that will not totally obscure the view.
• We have no shortage in the local garden centres of wind resistant shrubs; ones with dark leathery leaves such as mahonia and hypericum are effective. Shrubs and perennials with hairy leaves like santolina and lavender do well at resisting the sea breezes as they trap moisture in the hairs. For small ground cover plants, hardy geraniums and periwinkles are excellent.
• Living willow screens can also help to filter the wind, while creating an ornamental feature at the same time. A woven "tunnel" or bower, for instance, could have an opening from which to enjoy the view in shelter, while the area behind it would benefit from protection from the wind.

Go with the Flow

Sometimes, however, it pays to go with the prevailing conditions, rather than against them. Some plants, such as bamboos and ornamental grasses, not only put up with the wind but look at their most beautiful and exciting while bobbing about.
Creating an effective wind break in the garden takes time. I was talking to someone this week who has taken fifteen years getting a shelter belt together. It’s well worth it though, not just for the plants, but also the time it’ll save you looking in the fields for your compost bin.

More Reading

Diarmuid Gavin Autobiography

Outer Spaces