 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 shatter with the slightest knock. It needs treating with care but with a little careful planning the effects in your garden can be stunning. |
| 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. |
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| 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. |
| More on glass gardening >> |
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