If you have ever taken a punt tour down the River Cam, there is a strong chance your guide will have mentioned the banana plants (Musa spp.) growing in the Fellows’ Garden whilst floating past Clare College, under Clare Bridge. The tropical planting that once adorned the flower beds to the eastern end of the Fellows’ Garden, known as the ‘River beds’, were an intensive horticultural endeavour that involved lifting and protecting tender plants in winter, watering them in summer and replanting them along with a variety of annual plants each spring, requiring heavy resourcing by the Gardens Department.
The River Cam is a shop window for the College gardens, when seen by punt, allowing tourist to see the gardens without having to gain access to their grounds. The river is also a shop window for wildlife, forming part of the rich tapestry of habitat types supporting a wide variety of species.
Owing to the factors of sustainability and biodiversity alluded to above, a conscious decision for the implementation of sustainable horticulture was made when reinstating the River beds. This allowed us to reduce the quantity of site-won materials exiting the College grounds.
Guided by John Little and principles experimented upon in his Hilldrop garden, the planting beds were not backfilled with soil, but instead recycled aggregates from the construction works, with the inclusion of crushed bricks. The top 8 courses of red bricks from the Master’s Garden storage room were to be removed from site but instead were crushed and added to the planting bed to give it undulating topography. This is topped with sand and gravel and planted with a range of plant species that prefer drier environments and require less water. The plants are planted directly into this aggregate mixture. This has led to a dense plant selection with a higher perennial content that will stay in situ year-round.
It is anticipated that insect species that seek a sandy aggregate surface adjacent to water will visit this habitat and this may include insect species that may never have been recorded in this location, as the habitat created is quite unique to the Cambridge vernacular.
These planting bed build on Prof. Neville Wilmer’s original design, continuing the story of the garden, and highlighting the College’s sustainability and modern thinking. The images of the Fellows’ Garden River beds planting in this article are from the approximately 2 weeks after installation by the Clare College Gardens Department.
