Making a splash: a rental flat that’s awash with colour

For designer Anna Jacobs, colour is an essential mood enhancer – and buoyant aquatics proved the perfect backdrop for her family

I am very conscious of how much colour affects my mood,” says artist and designer Anna Jacobs, sitting on her pink velvet sofa in a zebra-print T-shirt and shocking pink trousers. “I need it around me, it really improves my wellbeing.” Glancing around her three-bedroom rental flat in Crystal Palace, south London, which she shares with her son Zach, 13, daughter Coco, 10, and Zuchon dog, Duffy, it’s abundantly clear Jacobs is no fan of neutrals, preferring to surround herself with a zinging spectrum of vivacious hues – with an emphasis on aquatic shades for their “healing, calming properties”.

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Making a splash: a rental flat that’s awash with colour

For designer Anna Jacobs, colour is an essential mood enhancer – and buoyant aquatics proved the perfect backdrop for her family

I am very conscious of how much colour affects my mood,” says artist and designer Anna Jacobs, sitting on her pink velvet sofa in a zebra-print T-shirt and shocking pink trousers. “I need it around me, it really improves my wellbeing.” Glancing around her three-bedroom rental flat in Crystal Palace, south London, which she shares with her son Zach, 13, daughter Coco, 10, and Zuchon dog, Duffy, it’s abundantly clear Jacobs is no fan of neutrals, preferring to surround herself with a zinging spectrum of vivacious hues – with an emphasis on aquatic shades for their “healing, calming properties”.

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Why we fell out of love with home improvement shows | Sam Wolfson

The likes of Changing Rooms were a bulwark against consumer culture. With YouTube tutorials, we’ve lost that DIY radicalism

If I could go back in time and give the participants of 1990s home improvement shows one piece of advice, it would be this: never tell Carol Smillie about your hobbies. Give that woman the slightest inkling that you have a penchant for silent films and she’d turn your room into a monochromatic tribute to Charlie Chaplin. Mention you went on holiday once, and you’d find your house kitted out with deckchairs and beach balls.

The 1990s were a wonderful and bizarre period for factual television. Shows such as Changing Rooms, Ground Force and DIY SOS had, at their peak, millions of viewers. While many of the makeovers now seem horrifying and tasteless, the home improvement format showed how you could change your living space on a small budget – without needing to buy lots of new stuff.

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Why Derek Jarman’s garden must be saved | Alys Fowler

The film-maker’s Prospect Cottage and inspirational garden on the Kent shingle should be preserved for future generations

Prospect Cottage and its garden sit on the shingle of Dungeness, on the Kent coast, not nestled but parked among the wild and washed-up things: sea crambe, horned poppies, driftwood, flint stone, sea worn metal and flotsam. It was with these materials that Derek Jarman, the film-maker, artist and activist, started his garden in the 80s. By the time I became aware of it as a teenager in the 90s, it had gained legendary status. It was a radical and queer act of garden-making at a time when clipped shrubs and clean lawns still ruled. Today, it is still a wild garden without boundaries: its borders just slip into the wild flora of the headland with the nuclear power station looming in the background.

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Gardening tips: catch rare camellias in full bloom

Then plant strawberry saxifrage and treat house plants infested with fungus gnats

Visit this The Grade I-listed conservatory at Chiswick House in London is home to 33 varieties of camellia: at their flowery peak until 22 March. The gardens are open from 10am to 3pm daily, chiswickhouseandgardens.org.uk.

Plant this Strawberry saxifrage (Saxifraga stolonifera) is equally content on a windowsill indoors as in shady, sheltered corners outside. Its rosette of hairy, fleshy leaves are joined by spikes of delicate white flowers in early summer; the plant sends out wire-thin runners that grow baby plants. Look out for the stunning green, white and pink cultivar ‘Tricolor’.

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Why Derek Jarman’s garden must be saved | Alys Fowler

The film-maker’s Prospect Cottage and inspirational garden on the Kent shingle should be preserved for future generations

Prospect Cottage and its garden sit on the shingle of Dungeness, on the Kent coast, not nestled but parked among the wild and washed-up things: sea crambe, horned poppies, driftwood, flint stone, sea worn metal and flotsam. It was with these materials that Derek Jarman, the film-maker, artist and activist, started his garden in the 80s. By the time I became aware of it as a teenager in the 90s, it had gained legendary status. It was a radical and queer act of garden-making at a time when clipped shrubs and clean lawns still ruled. Today, it is still a wild garden without boundaries: its borders just slip into the wild flora of the headland with the nuclear power station looming in the background.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38bdRL5
via IFTTT

Gardening tips: catch rare camellias in full bloom

Then plant strawberry saxifrage and treat house plants infested with fungus gnats

Visit this The Grade I-listed conservatory at Chiswick House in London is home to 33 varieties of camellia: at their flowery peak until 22 March. The gardens are open from 10am to 3pm daily, chiswickhouseandgardens.org.uk.

Plant this Strawberry saxifrage (Saxifraga stolonifera) is equally content on a windowsill indoors as in shady, sheltered corners outside. Its rosette of hairy, fleshy leaves are joined by spikes of delicate white flowers in early summer; the plant sends out wire-thin runners that grow baby plants. Look out for the stunning green, white and pink cultivar ‘Tricolor’.

Continue reading...

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