Igloos

Below Andrewes House, a string of eight linked islands – or ‘igloos’ as the Barbican gardeners call them – extend into the lake. You can sit in them and watch the ducks paddling past almost at eye level.

From the one nearest the bridge you can watch the water pouring over the weir into the west part of the lake.

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Taken when the lake was frozen – It is a colour photograph! But it is several years old. Now you would see the floating reed bed between the igloos and Speed Garden.

The igloos in the lake have various climbing plants. Jasmine grows right over the top of one of them. Another is shaded by a large Kiwi Fruit. The plant with the attractive yellow flowers is Ligularia. They are planted with sedges and a variety of ‘marginal plants’ (by which I am sure the gardener I was consulting meant ‘plants for margins near a lake’, not ‘plants about to become extinct, but I forgot to clarify).