The press of Heather & Ivan Morison Publication: Headline: Selected editorial: Mark Patterson talks organics, slugs and giant marrows with Ivan and Heather Morison, artists turned allotmenteers. Allotment people have a reputation for eccentricity - but perhaps no allotmenteers in recent times have been quite so strange as Ivan and Heather Morison, two artists better known as 'Mr and Mrs Ivan Morison'. They took over an overgrown Victorian allotment in Birmingham and used it as an extenuation to their eclectic approach to art, which often centres on an interest in natural history. The pair rose to national prominence in last year's 'Art of the Garden' exhibition at Tate Britain which subsequently toured to Belfast and Manchester. Before this they had exhibited regionally, including a show in Norwich which they began by running a fruit and veg stall for a week. Work and natural changes in their Edgbaston allotment (entitled Garden 114), were filmed, photographed and reported via occasional enigmatic bulletins such as 'Ivan Morison is extremely distressed to report the disappearance of the 1st prize winning Elvis Presley scarecrow from his garden. A reward of a carrier bag full of 'Red Knight' runner beans is offered to anyone who can provide information to the recovery of the King of Scarecrows.' MP: Why did you decide to take on an allotment? Mr & Mrs IM: We took on the allotment in 2000. The initial reason was that we needed somewhere appropriate to house a model of (film director) Derek Jarman's cottage that Ivan had made. Although it is only a model it is big enough for a couple of people to sit in and it was best placed in a garden. We looked around several allotment sites in and around Birmingham city centre but when we went to the Guinea Gardens in Edgbaston we were enchanted. The allotments were at the end of a long winding track, at the back of the Botanical Gardens. You really felt miles away from the city. Each of the gardens was separated by ancient hedges and many had some of the original paths although, sadly the council had demolished all the brick summer houses in the 1970s. There was one site that was available - well available to the right people; the right people had not appeared in the past four years so it had been left to grow and grow. Garden 114 is the last plot, next to the railway line and almost triangle-shaped with high hedges on two sides and a wall on the other. We couldn't get very far in because the brambles and weeds had taken over and we had to make a tunnel through. We could just make out a shed and some fruit trees but that was it. The lady who was taking us round, the chair of the committee, asked us lots of questions. I think that she liked that we were artists, because we weren't gardeners at this point. To be honest, she never said why we got it. I like to think that it was just meant to be, because the garden became a starting point for much of our work as artists. MP: How much work did you have to do? Mr & Mrs IM: We had to do loads of work to get ready to grow anything and it was February so we were against the seasons too. The garden had been owned by three sisters for many years and they had planted bulbs, so tulips, crocuses and daffodils did appear quite soon. As we pulled up the brambles, the sisters' beds appeared too, all marked out with Victorian slate edging. Paths became apparent and then a big gooseberry patch. We decided to make the best of what was there for the first year and plant vegetables and annuals. The garden was teeming with wildlife too, especially when we began digging and one robin in particular would sit on the spade handle and watch us. We managed to get rid of all the brambles in a series of massive bonfires and then we had to do a lot of digging. Our idea was to make the plot a garden with vegetables, fruits, flowers and a lawn, much as it had been at the turn of the century. We then had the garden for four years, and year on year we planted new, cut things down, built things and put lots of artworks in it. MP: Were you organic gardeners? Mr & Mrs IM: We didn't begin the garden by considering whether we were being organic as our priorities were clearing and preparing. As new gardeners we didn't know much about growing, let alone organic gardening. But as we got more confident we did consider the 'organicness' of our garden and didn't really make any changes as we had always used natural methods for fertilising and pest control. We had loads of manure delivered from a local farm. We were particularly interested in being self-sufficient as we could and hardly bought any new plants; we grew nearly everything from seed in our lovely glass greenhouse that we moved piece by piece from a house in Sutton Coldfield. As with any new skill, the more we learnt and then the more we became aware of the detail of gardening. MP: How did you deal with pests? Mr & Mrs IM: Well, we tried lots of methods, some more successful that others. However, our successes and failures were equally interesting and we made artwork about both. We very much enjoyed the 'science fiction' nature that the insects and diseases give a garden and found their ability to overtake the garden fascinating. We enjoyed battling some and conceding to others. We had a terrible case of mildew in the greenhouse, so we issued a card which read: 'Ivan is concerned by the powdery mildew that has appeared on his Green Bush marrows.' Also, because the garden had been left for so long, the bugs and pests were thriving. Our biggest problem was with slugs. Some of them were the size of sausages! We tried beer and eggshells but these babies were far too advanced for these gentle methods so I'm afraid we did resort to those nasty blue slug pellets. But they didn't work that well and they look horrible, so in the end we just collected the slugs when it rained instead. It took ages but was pretty successful.
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