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How can something so fragile be so strong? How often have you accidentally bounced a tumbler on the floor and been amazed by its resilience, and then knocked the same glass against the tap causing it to splinter into a mass of shards? Technically it's a "non-crystalline mixture of metal oxides and silicates". Realistically, it can support incredible weights or chatter with the slightest knock. It needs treating with care but with a little careful planning the effects in your garden can be stunning. |
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| Glass is an amazing material that lends itself to a variety of uses in and around the garden. Some of them are merely decorative flights of fancy whilst others are finely tuned, thermasatically controlled buildings to nurture seedlings and plants. It can be clear, opaque or coloured in all the shades of the rainbow. It can be cast into interesting textures, flat, curved, ripples, frosted, waved or moulded. Glass can encase other materials, man-made or natural giving it yet another dimension. Crushed as a mulch glass chippings can be spread in colourful swathes, creating water like effects that glint with refelective light. It is easily cut and joined allowing it to be used to construct complex buildings such as the Palm House at Kew Gardens. What is more, in most of its forms, glass it is comparatively cheap and easy to use in the garden. |
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| While today's designers are concentrating on the contemporary approach, using glass block walls and etched panels to define specific areas, the use of glass dates back many years. The earliest recorded glass vessels are Egyptian and date back to 1500BC. The Normans suffered in draughty castles with slits in the wall to let light in and smoke out, but it was the Romans who realised that this hard transparent material would be perfect to "glaze" these windows. However, for many centuries glass remained such an expensive commodity that only the very rich could afford to glaze whole windows as we know them today. But as technology advanced and thanks to the industrial revolution during the Victorian era, glass manufacture became easier, cheaper and more widespread. Modern manufacturing has literally changed the way we live and garden today. | ||
| Although it's heavy and fragile, glass allows through 90 per cent of the sun's radiation and retains heat well. Which brings us to its use as a structural element - in conservatories, greenhouses, cold frames and cloches. Without glass they just wouldn't exist. We wouldn't be able to grow half of what we do, and gardening would be very different. The conservatory and greenhouse provide a protected environment for growing early and exotic plants. Outside, cloches and cold frames are an effective way of warming the soil and giving seedlings a little extra protection from cold temperatures and drying winds. | ||
| Mirrors have been an escapist feature of gardens for centuries. Fixed to a blank wall and surrounded by trellis, a fake doorway or window frame, they can effectively double the size of a garden in an instant. What better way of extending a balcony or a courtyard without having to lift a sledgehammer? In more intricate gardens, mirrors can be set at an angle to reflect back views that would otherwise be obscured. Traffic planners do it with concealed road entrances, so why shouldn't we do the same in our gardens? For a dramatic water feature a large piece of mirror makes a wall of water that is bound to cause a stir in your garden and with the added sounds of water movement makes your garden a tranquil place to relax and entertain in with friends and family. Gardeners, by their very nature, are natural born recyclers. So it's not surprising thatercycled glass has started to feature in many urban gardens. The latest fashion is for coloured crushed glass mulches which are becoming freely available from garden centres. Because the glass has been tumbled to remove most of the sharp edges, it has a frosted appearance that occasionally catches the light and sparkles. The white looks like expensive quartz chippings, while colours can be used to complement plantings and add winter interest. It may alos be an effective slug and snail deterrent. Some mulches are best laid over a fabric membrane, so they don't get mixed up with the soil beneath. More colour and less weeds - what more could you want? | ||
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