Or you could look ... for catharsis, at the tragi-comic figure of Ivan Morison, proprietor of Garden 114, Edgbaston, Birmingham, who is forever locked in Sisyphean struggle with assorted insects, or planting out bulbs that never quite thrive. News of his labours is published in printed postcards: 'Ivan Morison is disappointed with his crop of Red Flare cabbages. Suffering from slug attack, they never stood a chance.'
Laura Cumming, The Tate flower show, The Observer, 6 June 2004

From 2001 to 2003 [Heather & Ivan Morison's] work was centred on Garden 114, an allotment in Edgbaston, Birmingham, which Ivan Morison initially took in order to house his scale model of Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage.
'We first took the garden on a snowy day in February 2001. It is the plot at the very furthest corner of Westbourne Road Leisure Gardens, and had been left unattended and closed for eight years. We had to tunnel in through the trees and bushes that had grown almost completely to the centre of the garden. We spent the first months clearing the undergrowth. What was revealed (and the reason why the Leisure Gardens chairman had been reticent about renting the garden) was a remarkably intact original Victorian Garden, with its original layout including paths and edging tiles. The original fruit trees were there, the topiary bushes (now grown huge), gooseberry patch, and roses (grown right up to the top branches of the apple trees).
In the garden 'the act of learning, gardening and the garden itself all constitute the (art)work'. In addition there is a documentary aspect to the Morisons' practice. They have produced film and sound works, drawings and photographs, documenting the changes in the garden and the various projects that have taken place there, and the garden has also been open to the public.
An important part of documentation and dissemination of the garden and the artistic activities connected to it is a series of printed texts, produced as simple cards, mailed out to selected recipients (typically using the mailing lists of galleries or organisations with whom the Morisons are collaborating). These cards detail the successes and failures of the various plants and vegetables growing in the garden, and offer observations on the flora and fauna of the garden. Some of the texts consist of lists (of flowers, birds seen in the garden, colours noted in the garden), others record gardening activities ('Today Ivan Morison planted six hundred and sixty four bulbs in his garden') and some report on incidents (such as the disappearance of a 'prize winning Elvis Presley scarecrow' from the garden). In the texts 'Ivan Morison' becomes a kind of comical character; bemused by the frequent disappointments the garden brings him, as well as unexpected successes. Cumulatively the texts create a narrative which blurs the line between objective observation and subjective storytelling; a disjointed but compelling account of success and failure familiar to any gardener.
'We have always approached the act of gardening 114 as performative, and the character of Ivan Morison the gardener began when we took on the garden. The gardening knowledge of Ivan Morison at the beginning was almost zero, all he had was enthusiasm and a naive wonder of what was happening there, and as time has gone on that knowledge has increased, slightly.'
Ben Tufnell, Art of the Garden, exh. cat., Tate Britain, 2004, p.155.

[The] tradition of conceptual art practice both anticipates and diverges from the methods of Ivan and Heather Morison. The Morisons also seek a direct engagement with nature, but they would argue that the most effective means for doing so, in the reality of the urban and suburban landscape, is through gardening. They use gardening as an art form, and their garden in Birmingham as a studio or stage on which to 'perform' creative acts. While cultivating the garden, Morison has also cultivated a fictive alter ego - 'Ivan Morison, the amateur gardener'-and he informs people of his horticultural exploits by post. His elegant missives echo the telegrams and postcards sent out by the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara reassuring us of his existence - 'I am still alive', 'I woke up' - imbued in equal measure with humour and pathos. They are also comparable to the evocative texts of Hamish Fulton, whose walking journeys are distilled into succinct, poetic phrases allowing a wider audience an imaginative engagement with his experience. Although Morison reports real events, the authenticity of his activities is not so important for him. By disseminating the daily trails of the gardener by mail-outs and on a website he develops a space in the imagination, offering a 'virtual leisure garden that everyone can share'.
Morison's enterprise highlights how easy it is to become accustomed to experiencing nature at one remove, and that contemporary understanding of the natural world is largely filtered through mass media such as magazines and newspapers, television and the internet. Where the Morison's primary motive, a recent theme in contemporary art and the garden is man's increasing detachment and distance from nature.
Mary Horlock, Art of the Garden, exh. cat., Tate Britain, 2004, p.188.

Printed Cards from Garden 114
2001-2004
Posted to list of recipients
Cards 135 x 135 mm, envelopes 140 x 140 mm

Selected examples:

Colours in Ivan Morison's garden, 2001-2002
2002
Edition of 200 printed cards posted to list of recipients

Ivan Morison is concerned...
2002
Edition of 1000 printed cards posted to list of recipients

Flowers in Ivan Morison's garden, spring 2002
2002
Edition of 1000 printed cards posted to gallery's mailing lists
Commissioned by Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK

Slugs are tunnelling Ivan Morison's Picasso tubers..
2004
Edition of 2000 printed cards posted to gallery's mailing lists
Commissioned for Art of the Garden by Tate Britain