Flights of fancy: an imaginative Chelsea interior

Ceramicist Kate Braine has added to the artistic heritage of her home using texture, fresco and wood panelling to great effect

Some houses call you… You feel drawn to their layers of history,” says Kate Braine. Her 18th-century townhouse in Chelsea is an atmospheric case in point. Narrow passageways lead to panelled rooms where marble fireplaces are illuminated by lamplight. Gappy floorboards are split with the fissures of three centuries; vertiginous stairs plunge towards the dark basement kitchen. Sometimes, says Braine, she can hear the spectral “twangings” of the ghost that flits benignly through the grid of stucco-fronted houses bordered by the inky wash of the Thames.

Braine, a ceramicist whose fantastical forms spring from the “accidents and surprises” of experimentation, feels particularly at home here because the area has a history of innovation in design and art. From her roof terrace she can see where William de Morgan, the 19th-century potter renowned for wares adorned with fantastical beasts in lustrous glazes, had his workshop on the corner. A few doors down Josiah Wedgwood set up his decorating studio, luring other artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James McNeill Whistler, who turned this quiet backwater into a busy bohemia of studios and factories.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RrFwRc
via IFTTT

Flights of fancy: an imaginative Chelsea interior

Ceramicist Kate Braine has added to the artistic heritage of her home using texture, fresco and wood panelling to great effect

Some houses call you… You feel drawn to their layers of history,” says Kate Braine. Her 18th-century townhouse in Chelsea is an atmospheric case in point. Narrow passageways lead to panelled rooms where marble fireplaces are illuminated by lamplight. Gappy floorboards are split with the fissures of three centuries; vertiginous stairs plunge towards the dark basement kitchen. Sometimes, says Braine, she can hear the spectral “twangings” of the ghost that flits benignly through the grid of stucco-fronted houses bordered by the inky wash of the Thames.

Braine, a ceramicist whose fantastical forms spring from the “accidents and surprises” of experimentation, feels particularly at home here because the area has a history of innovation in design and art. From her roof terrace she can see where William de Morgan, the 19th-century potter renowned for wares adorned with fantastical beasts in lustrous glazes, had his workshop on the corner. A few doors down Josiah Wedgwood set up his decorating studio, luring other artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James McNeill Whistler, who turned this quiet backwater into a busy bohemia of studios and factories.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RrFwRc
via IFTTT

Gardening tips: plant Mexican giant hyssop

Then record cuckoo spit sightings and cut back euphorbias

Plant this If you’re looking to delight bees, Mexican giant hyssop (Agastache mexicana) is a sound choice for sunny, well-drained borders and containers. It makes a tasty tea and the flowers last into autumn. ‘Blackadder’ has steel blue flowers, or there’s deep pink ‘Red Fortune’.

Spot this Seen any cuckoo spit lately? The RHS is asking gardeners to record sightings of spittlebugs and their characteristic frothy coating in an effort to map their distribution, as they are one of the main carriers of the plant disease Xylella. Find out more at xylemfeedinginsects.co.uk.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2ZNyCc3
via IFTTT

When aphids attack | Alys Fowler

Don’t reach for bug killer. Be patient and nature will deliver the perfect pest management solution

I have aphids. Lots of them. This is the way; you never have just a few. Spring was full of soft, sappy growth, which is manna to these sap suckers, that are also known as blackfly and greenfly. Also, aphid mothers are quite something. The females are parthenogenetic during the summer, which means they can give birth to live young without being impregnated: pop, pop, pop, with each one starting to suck sap immediately.

If you see about 10 aphids on a plant one day, the next there may be double that. Before you know it, there will be an infestation. If the plant is weakened or overcrowded, the aphids can give up ambulatory life and create winged versions to fly to better conditions. Winged and wingless aphids are often present on the same plant.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FoEY9W
via IFTTT

Gardening tips: plant Mexican giant hyssop

Then record cuckoo spit sightings and cut back euphorbias

Plant this If you’re looking to delight bees, Mexican giant hyssop (Agastache mexicana) is a sound choice for sunny, well-drained borders and containers. It makes a tasty tea and the flowers last into autumn. ‘Blackadder’ has steel blue flowers, or there’s deep pink ‘Red Fortune’.

Spot this Seen any cuckoo spit lately? The RHS is asking gardeners to record sightings of spittlebugs and their characteristic frothy coating in an effort to map their distribution, as they are one of the main carriers of the plant disease Xylella. Find out more at xylemfeedinginsects.co.uk.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2ZNyCc3
via IFTTT

When aphids attack | Alys Fowler

Don’t reach for bug killer. Be patient and nature will deliver the perfect pest management solution

I have aphids. Lots of them. This is the way; you never have just a few. Spring was full of soft, sappy growth, which is manna to these sap suckers, that are also known as blackfly and greenfly. Also, aphid mothers are quite something. The females are parthenogenetic during the summer, which means they can give birth to live young without being impregnated: pop, pop, pop, with each one starting to suck sap immediately.

If you see about 10 aphids on a plant one day, the next there may be double that. Before you know it, there will be an infestation. If the plant is weakened or overcrowded, the aphids can give up ambulatory life and create winged versions to fly to better conditions. Winged and wingless aphids are often present on the same plant.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FoEY9W
via IFTTT

Let’s move to Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire: tired but handsome

Despite being beset by economic and social problems, evidence of the towns’ 19th-century heyday remains

What’s going for it? If you want to see why so many people voted (and would still vote) for Brexit, these are the perfect places to start. These conjoined twins have been in a death spiral for decades. The story is depressingly familiar: the sudden removal of a place’s main reason for being, various feeble attempts at sticking-plaster “regeneration” and decades of underinvestment. Today, Grimsby and Cleethorpes need big thinking. There are a few, much-feted, green shoots: the wind-farm industry, for instance (Grimsby has more of its energy demands met by renewables than anywhere else in the country); or the turning of Grimsby’s evocative, 19th-century dockside Kasbah district into a conservation area. Whether these green shoots will grow, though, is a moot point. The area faces formidable challenges. On the plus side, the towns can be truly beautiful, with handsome 19th-century homes, delightful parks and silky sand on the beach. Its community is battered, but of a strength most places would envy. Nobody could wish these places anything but better fortune, love and, most importantly, a whole lot of cash.

The case against Where to begin. The full gamut of economic and social problems. Grimsby, in particular, was heavily damaged by redevelopment in the 70s.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Kulbd9
via IFTTT