String Gardens
Cool gardens now hang, or grow up walls, it appears. I am a big fan of ‘green wall’ gardens, such as you can see in the Anthropologie store in Regent Street, which still looks lovely some 18 months after being built. But these String Gardens are the first hanging plants that I have wanted to buy.
These beautifully presented plants are made by Fedor van der Valk, the Amsterdam based floral designer behind String Gardens. Contained in a ball of moss, earth and grass, the plant is kept in place by a dainty crochet of strong thread, which spins a supportive web both around the root ball of the plant and extends to the ceiling to avoid the use of vases or surfaces. Ingenious really and very beautiful to look at, it’s like a nicer version of those macramé string plant holders we used to get back in the 70s. Watering is reasonably simple, you soak the ball in a bucket of water, let it drip for a bit, then hang it up again, You can trim the grass around the plants with scissors (much more convenient than a lawn mower) and swap plants about by simply hanging them off different things.
I like the idea of suspending an assortment of herbs near the stove, for easy harvesting when cooking, or placing lots of ferns in the bathroom, suspended around the bath, very tropical! And they’d love the damp. Of course the suspension idea works just as well outside and Fedor grows tomatoes, azalea shrubs and even small trees hanging. He is based in Amsterdam but tells us that he does ship abroad,indeed this happens quite a lot at the moment as he is having a bit of a moment, but he warns it can be expensive. The plants cost between €20 and €250 and shipping starts at about €20. For more details contact the String Gardens Website, or if you live close to Amsterdam, the plants are sold in Pompon
String Gardens
String Gardens
Image from String Gardens
