Rumpole cast out of Eden?

On holiday, a much needed escape from everything and with a diagnosis of IET workaholism from the all seeing all knowing wife.

We decided the best escape was a trip to the most talked about gardening location in the uk to see what it could tell us.

The eden project. It’s just like IET!

It’s in a hole in the earth, in a deprived post-industrial area, it’s about changing our world, and according to the blurb, is ordinary people trying to make a difference.

But there is a difference, of course.

And before I go on, I should put my cards on the table,

card 1, I really do not like visiting “attractions” I usually avoid them like a boil on the bum.

card 2, At a big sustainability meeting in Westminster last year, Tim Smit, the Eden projects founder, stood up and pronounced the previous contributions,including ours, to be “hippy s—t” (except he didn’t use —‘s!)

Seems to me that anyone willing to dispense that kind of refined criticism is probably going to welcome some feedback themselves, so here goes!

My overwhelming impression is that the eden project sets out to impress, to awe and to engage, particularly modern childish minds, and does that very successfully.

The aspects i most enjoyed were the use of design and sculpture in the created landscape. i loved the rows of lettuces describing the contours of a slope, the giant bee sucking nectar and the “created” yet real allotment patch.

What i left wondering was , what message is the young mind leaving with?

there is plenty of didactic stuff about fair trade and the developing world, clear and strong messages about how wonderful and diverse plants are.

But as we leave and are filtered thru the long shopping area i wonder what we’re supposed to do next? Buy a packet of seeds? But where to plant them? Do we go looking for a giant disused clay pit? Many of us don’t even have a garden.

There is nowhere to go with all this new found wowyness about plants, nowhere clear to take it, no goal.

And that’s where the hippy s—t comes in quite handy, because there’s no money in digging up a bit of unused land and planting something, no profit motive, just the satisfaction that we did not go along with the flow toward screwing the world up, at least not totally.

So come on Tim, lets have a model school playground in there, complete with growing spaces, and a street scene with guerilla planting, a competition for visitors to change the place they return to, you know how to do this stuff!

Next we visited the lost gardens of Heligan, an earlier project from the same stable.Citrus tree orchardNice food marketingLavender heaven!dogwood and willow fence in the allotments,we likedin my day scarecrows used to wear suits!bananas to you toofuzzy and just a little hippy??veg can be sexy too! Final proof that its not just me thats obsessed with scarlette Kale!