Happy St Fiacre’s Day! [and if you don’t know who he is click on the link! ] which makes it a very appropriate day for today’s post which is all about this rather dull looking image on the right.
It might not look much at first glance, just lots of red ink lines and some brown lettering on five pieces of parchment sewn together to make a single large sheet [113cm x 78 cm or 45 x 31 inches]. However, the plan of the buildings and gardens of the abbey at St Gall in Switzerland is almost 1200 years old making it the only major architectural drawing to survive from the end of the Roman Empire in the West until the 13th century.
Used in association with other contemporary documentary sources it offers a real insight into monastic gardens.
To start with the festival lasts for months, and combines permanent planting and installations with dozens of temporary ones. It attracts designers and artists from round the world. It values innovation and sustainability more than most, and recycles materials and plants from year to year. It’s also open access, relatively inexpensive and surprisingly uncrowded. Bits of it can be brilliant, others wild and wacky, and sometimes there are miserable failures or a complete mess but thats part of the fun and excitement of going. You never know what you’re going to find!
The Garden History Blog 
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