Herb Spiral @The Peoples Community Garden, Ipswich, Suffolk

2008/9

The write up took place after I started the diploma in January 2010

Observations

Whilst the garden was being planned a space became free between the toilet,
the welcome area and on the main bit of path which was in ZONE 1 the hub
area. I wanted to have an area for herbs as I am a Medical herbalist and it was
suggested I play with this area. During my permaculture design certificate in
2003 Brazil, we built a herb spiral with rocks from a nearby quarry. I also
looked on you tube and did internet searched to find information and previous
examples but didn't find anything the size that I wanted to do.

People are always interested in the different uses of plants, especially

medicinal, culinary and for tea. The herb spiral also would also fit the role of a
showcase for a variety of plant and an educational space.

I had transplanted my herb collection into an area I dug as a nursery and the
success and interest in herbs led my client (my colleagues) to ask if I could
create a herb garden. I was ultimately the designer and one of the clients.

Boundaries

The area that was available was 9 by 9 meters. With a a compost toilet on one
side, the poly tunnel behind a path in front and the sensory garden on the
other side. It was therefore fairly sheltered. It was important to allow access
all around the toilet and for the soak away. Shading the sensory garden was
also a concern. A round spiral and a circular path leaves four corners to plant
up. Herbal fedges could line the area.

Time, Money and Energy where big factors. But at least it seemed an inspiring
idea to folk.

Resources

How much would it cost?

Always a concern, the garden was paying for the building of the site as it was
being transformed after years of dereliction. A plan was needed to cost the
project. A funding application was made to the BT helping hands fund after it
was suggested that they might be able to help a specific project as their Staff
HQ is nearby. 538 was requested for and received.

Which materials were to be found locally?

Local materials or things on site make it cheaper. The design had to take this
into account. Willow hurdles, earth bags, weed suppressant, shingle, logs,
plants, clay, straw, bricks, concrete etc.
Who would help build it?
We have volunteers.

Evaluation

The site needed doing and it was part of my job so I had the time and
motivation. It was definitely worth doing a design. In fact the funding
application firmed up my initial ideas needed and a plan of action was drawn
up.

Ethics of Fairshare: sharing the idea of a herb spiral and the workshops to
make it and the clay oven.
Ethics of People Care: I wanted the herb spiral to be a focal point in the main
area of the garden and also a pleasant place for people to relax in small
numbers.
Ethics of Earthcare: local materials and use of plants for boundaries edging.

The many ideas to do with plants will form a major part of this design.
The ideas that were dreamt up and incorporated in the design include willow/
hazel hurdling or woven fence, clay oven using herbs on the pizzas, herbal
hedges or fence/ hedge called a fedge (did I make that up?), herbal trees,
perennials and self sowing annuals. So every part would have a relation to
herbal medicine and where possible everything would represent a
permacultural decision making.

The theme of the design would be what plant where.

This could incorporate sector analysis in a simple form of SHADE v SUNNY

DRY v WET. In reality there is not much choice in the location of the herb spiral
but being aware of south facing and the slight angle created by the slope of
the spiral should lead to hotter areas and that combined with drier at the top
can give microclimates.
There will also be discussion about the proportionality of the plants with larger
leaved plants at the bottom and then something stunning at the top perhaps.
The area was sheltered so no need to consider wind.

Design Using PASTE

The design process took place on lots of pieces of scrap paper. I knew I wanted
a circular area for the herb spiral. this meant four corner beds. From this start
other ideas flowed like paths, seating, fences, areas for different herbs etc.

Plants:
The idea was to teach people about different herbs so everything needed to be
a herb or a plant of medicinal, tea or culinary use.
I had various plants in my mind but I also trawled all the herb books I had to
make lists of suitable herbs which included can it be grown outside here? is it a
perennial? Do I use it in my herbal practice? Can it be bought as a plant or
seed? Can I get a cutting from someone?

I loved the 5 reasons for choosing a plant idea that I have heard repeatedly in
Permaculture. Often the medicinal uses are forgotten in these lists and I have
tried to think of those suitable for hedging, shelter, windbreak etc.
e.g. Rosemary: 1) great for being a hedge and boundary, cheap, culinary use
esp bbq stakes in clay oven, great for bees, fragrant, medicinally for essential
oils so antibacterial and uplifting for mood.

Animals: None planned for though wildlife friendly species to be used.

Structures: The herb spiral design does give some seating areas. The willow
hurdle hedging was to mark the edges and built in bowers give seating
secluded areas. Wooded slices of truck as the benches. The clay oven needed
plenty of bricks and clay was ordered. I was advised Id need 6 bags of clay
per clay oven so I bought enough for 3 ovens to get it sent on a pallett to get
the best deal on postage. The bricks were sourced from skips and friends. The
pathway was also a way if using up materials and MOT type 1 on site. But we
needed more and a covering of shingle was requested for aesthetic reasons.
The earth bags were not really planned as we had to lay them out to see how
it would work. Using a 2.5m line a circle was scratched on the grass as well as
a 3.5m circle. This marked the path and soil was piled up in the middle. 200
earth bags were ordered (an educated guess) and we found it took 50 earth
bags on the first layer. Then extra layers were added and about 175 were used
in all. Nettles and couch grass began to be weeded out but in the end we put it
all in the earth bags a decision later to be regretted.

Tools: The community garden had all the tools needed for moving soil. I did
borrow some brick laying trowels.

Events: Building the Herb Spiral. Using it for herb related workshops.

The Sector idea was very rough (see sketches) and it was a factor in deciding
where to place plants in the design stage.

Implementation

To build the herb spiral a weekend of workshops was advertised. It was very
physical and after two days we had dug the earth from the path area and piled
it up, bagged up as many earth bags as we could fill and laid them out. It took
one more day with volunteers to finish the bags. General work days at the
garden helped complete the construction, plant care, planting out and hurdle
weaving.
The clay oven also took a lot of help to build. It was the most popular event in
the Garden in 2009 and we built it onto of the reclaimed brick plinth.

The events organised helped let people join in with the building and the clay
oven days really caught peoples imagination. There was also extra days in
normal working time with regular volunteers. The events did take planning,
poster making, advertising and people care to pull off. The best bit was
planting the plants and weaving the willow bowers. It allowed for loads of
creativity and it allow me to learn loads. For that reason the initial plans were
not stuck too as it depended how the willow weaving went. I found that the
hazel uprights, which the willow was woven around, were at 50cm too far apart
and additional stakes were needed. The soil improver from the council
composting site was used to fill up the areas between the earth bags allowing
a helter-skelter like planting area. The use of the vertical allows plantings that
would normally swamp each other to have space and created a marvellous
showcase of herbs.

Maintenance

This proves to be fun at first with weeding around the herbs, watering them in
and caring generally to less fun when the earth bags brittle and the couch and
nettle regrew. I did say that Couch and Nettle are useful herbs in their own
right but there was a limit to even my love of weeds.

Maintenance was just seen as going to take place along with all the other
areas of the garden. I retrospect the attention to a maintenance schedule
would be a useful addition to any such project as biennials move, annuals self
seed and perennial need care. This leads onto the evaluation..

Evaluation

The design was about ideas and not a final finished design suitable for clients.

Instead of what was wanted the design became part of the educational aspect
and workshops worked on placing the plants when we knew what plants we
had in front of us.

There were many areas that needed maintenance. The weeding was an issue
but as the perennials have got bigger this has been less so except for the
ground Ivy which does romp. The earth bags were polypropolene and the
decision was to avoid Hessian as they would rot. Well the plastic degraded in
light and the weeds poked through. This made the spiral look unsightly to my
colleagues. Firstly the spare bags were used for repairs and then we used
some spare Mipex black weed suppressant to upholster the herb spiral. The
new material was doubled to make it last longer and it gave a wonderful new
look and a black instead of the white which looked great. The californian
poppy, borage and calendular has self sown everywhere too and decisions
about plant suitability were made and spaces allowed other plants in. The
hedges of rosemary and lavender grew well and are beginning to look like the
hedge will form. The bay suffered in the very cold winter and through they
have grown back they died right back to the base and thus look no nearer to
forming a hedge. The aforementioned shingle also made the paths look pretty.

Tweak

The herb spiral was a favourite for visitors. Some from Japan and other
countries loved the botanic quantity of interesting a plants that they
recognised from home. Labels always seem to get covered by growth, break or
fade. Its constantly in need of Tweaking.

Issues:
I left my job so others have to care for it.
Interpretation is very hard. It is a dynamic feature and small labels soon
get over grown.
the passiflora is growing over one bower as intended but it takes time
and patience.
The woven fence may need replacing after a few years.
The clay oven wasnt used that much due to issues of health and safety
and lack of supervision available. It died after a harsh winter and never
got rebuilt partly due to my lack of energy to do it. A huge lump of
concrete and brick is left. (since been rebuild in 2013 with a weather
shelter and is still in use in 2017).