The Plant Craft Cottage is the oldest building at the Royal Botanic Gardens and is home to the Friends of Royal Botanic Gardens. Their picturesque cottage garden was the setting for the garden cloche workshop on Saturday October 26. Participants planted willow into the ground to form a dome shape and then twined a band of weaving at the base to hold the uprights in place. In the afternoon they did more weaving towards the top of the cloche to finish. Its been a long time since I have taught a more challenging workshop! The ground was hard to plant the willow and many found it challenging to work on their hands and knees all day. It also takes more strength to work willow, compared with soft fibres. The participants did well to persevere and finish their cloche’s. Well done everyone!
I was hoping to get up to the Children’s Garden to see PolyGlot Theatre performance to celebrate 20 years of the Children’s Garden, but demands of the workshop kept me busy all day! Drat! See this link to their bee performance – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZswA0nulsbE
Jodie Goldring 
Thanks Jodie,
always good to hear what you are up to. I love the cloche, it has given me a few ideas…………….
I like the idea of the dustbin as a form guide, looking at your students they do all seem to fit the ‘mature’ age range and I wondered if making a round base with say, MDF board drilled with holes would help make a form base to work with at table height instead of on the floor. Just an idea, being almost 70 myself I know kneeling or sitting on the ground is no longer an option for me either!
Another thought,
I am a member of the Maldon Garden club and we do from time to time invite guests to give talks and demonstrations at our monthly meetings, particularly in winter and or when it is very hot and we cannot visit each other’s gardens. Would you be interested in doing this sometime? Let me know………..
Cheers Tina
Hi Tina, thanks for your attention and support for what I do! The table based jig is a great idea that I will have to follow up if and when I run a cloche workshop again. Lets chat more about the Maldon Garden club…When do you meet? Maybe send me a PM or email…