Shaping plants.

Growing up in Lincolnshire, one of my favourite places near my parents house was Yew Tree Drive. An avenue of huge old yews clipped into shapes like a set of giant chess pieces along what must have once been the drive to a stately home, but now surrounded by woodland.

Topiary can be used to create magical spaces:

Marqueyssac, France

Other ways of training trees include cloud pruning or Niwaki:

Top to bottom: 

Japanese cloud pruned pine tree 

Niwaki in Parc Floral de la Source, Orleans, France

Unknown

Plants can be grafted and trained into weird and wonderful shapes, shown here in the tree sculpting methods pioneered in the '40s by Axel Erlandson at his 'Tree Circus' roadside attraction in California:

Similar techniques have been used here to sculpt a living chair:

www.pooktre.com

Tiny Gardens

How small can a garden be and still be called a garden?

Is this a garden?:

Pete Dungeys pothole gardens

How about these?:

top to bottom:

 Coleen Jordan

Erica Wiener

Unknown

Elna and Ei

Adorn Jewellery

An experimental indoor ecosystem in Dalston.

a project to inspire city dwellers to grow their own, using hydroponics and fish farming to create a green and productive indoor space:

http://farmlondon.weebly.com/farmshop.html

Two interesting garden festivals

Two interesting garden festivals:
http://www.refordgardens.com/english/festival/
and
http://www.domaine-chaumont.fr/en_festival_festival?cat=2&expandable=0
both concerned with concepts and creativity in gardening.

Garden graphics: artists and designers using green mediums.

There are a number of artists and designers out there using living green stuff to create their work. From moss graffiti to chlorophyll used to make photographic prints, this is a little round up of plantlife manipulated into art, design and typography. From waterweed used to create numbers, moss typography, photographic images printed on leaves and grass, it's plants used to make pictures and it isn't carpet bedding.

(algae terrarium from the terrain website: http://www.shopterrain.com/)

http://binhdanh.com/

Organic chlorophyll print on jungle foliage by Vietnamese photographer Binh Danh. Images are of dead soldiers, relates to the vietnam war.

Testament by Dan Harvey and Heather Akroyd  http://www.ackroydandharvey.com/

Photographic print on grass.

Moss graffiti by Anna Garforth 

http://www.annagarforth.co.uk/work.html

Welcome to the 'You Dig?'

A scrapbook of ideas and document of my own projects. Including big and small ideas on topics including:
Sustainable gardening. Organic gardening. Gardening as a tool for change. Community gardening. Guerilla gardening. Grow your own. Wildlife gardening. Gardens as art. Gardens in unusual spaces. Unexpected gardens. Vertical gardens. String gardens. Bottle gardens. Recycled gardens. Floating gardens. Hanging gardens. Roof gardens. Indoor gardens. Tiny gardens. Wild gardens. Perennial vegetable gardens. Forest gardens. The garden and urban redesign. Moss gardens. Green roofs. Redefining gardens. Propagation. International approaches to the garden. Seed bombs. Plantable paper. Permaculture. Gardens and technology. What is a garden, and other exciting adventures in gardening!