A unique Floating Garden starts its tour of the Scottish canal network tomorrow, travelling from Glasgow to Edinburgh, before resting in residence at the Kelpies until September.This is one of the Unexpected Gardens – part of the Dandelion “grow your own” creative programme that aims to reach hundreds of thousands of people throughout Scotland and further afield this summer.The Floating Garden is made up of three elements.
One is a barge from Scottish Canals converted into a floating allotment, complete with a polytunnel, shed, raised beds and three “Cubes of Perpetual Light” – a 1x1m accelerated growing cube.The second is a performance stage, home to a huge flower puppet.
The third is a floating ecosystem drawing sustenance from the canal and in the process cleaning the water and feeding the plants.The performance stage, the Lochrin workboat, is usually operated by the Lowland Canals Volunteer Group to maintain the canals.Dandelion have borrowed their craft to create a Flower Singer puppet which towers over 4 metres above the canal, and repurposed it as a home for the Dandelion Singers, Iona Fyfe and Evie Waddell, who will both perform harvest songs from different cultures in a variety of languages.During the tour, the floating gardens will be joined by other vessels from the boating community decorated to create a flotilla of floating gardens that will stop at 10 communities.At each, the flower singer will come alive, holding a performance of harvest songs, and hundreds of growyour-own starter kits for windowsill herbs will be handed out to locals.Neil Butler, Dandelion Festivals director, said: “We’re so excited to launch our Floating Garden.
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