18 minute read
Member News
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK WITH THE CULTURA GROUP’S 25 CANNON STREET
Lifting and planting large trees is all in a day’s work at the Cultura Group, even when said trees are being ‘slung’ over a seven-storey building and lowered into an access and space restricted area on top of an underground car park sited in the middle of the City of London.
And 25 Cannon Street is just such a day’s work. In partnership with contractor J Coffey, Cultura is carrying out a sensitive revitalisation of the public gardens which overlook the iconic St. Paul’s Cathedral. The works include new footpaths, new planting beds and the installation of seven large 2-3 tonne, 9 metre trees and is designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, specified for Magnolia Grandiflora, Pin Oak and Japanese Maples, which will create an established feel to this green space.
The challenge of installing the trees began with a long planning period, placing emphasis on the weight of the trees, the relatively small site footprint in Central London and the fact that there was an underground car park directly below with load bearing restrictions. Closing adjacent roads was not an option as this would have caused the heavy traffic use in this area to gridlock. Ultimately, this left Cultura with only one feasible location to site the mobile crane.
Working with specialist contractors, City Lifting, Cultura prepared the trees for lifting using slinging techniques designed to support the entire weight of the root ball without placing any stress onto the stem of the trees. Any load bearing on the trunk would cause permanent damage and subsequent failure of the tree.
Utilising a 60 metre boom length crane, the trees were lifted, ‘swung’ (with just 10 metres of clearance) and lowered carefully to their pit sites.
In collaboration with the landscape architect, the trees were positioned to ensure maximum visual impact and anchored into place using underground guying systems.
At approximately 50 minutes per tree to lift and plant, this element of the project was delivered quickly, professionally and with minimum disturbance to the surrounding users.
Learn more about Cultura by visiting
www.culturagroup.co.uk
Hy-tex unveil new Eco-haven™ tree guards – the world’s first carbon negative fully biodegradable solution
Accredited Supplier Hy-Tex UK launched their Eco-Haven™ Tree Guards in autumn 2021 and are now showcasing the unique features and benefits this product will bring to the ever-evolving landscaping industry.
Eco-Haven™ represents an entirely new range of fully biodegradable but durable tree guards, shrub shelters and vine guards. They incorporate a modular design that makes them simple to transport and are easy to install and re-use.
The development of the tree guard put particular emphasis on its environmental credentials. After many trials and obstacles, including Brexit and the pandemic, Hy-Tex UK created the world’s first fully biodegradable tree guard that is carbon negative. Carbon negative is the reduction of an entity’s carbon footprint to less than neutral, so that the entity has a net effect of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere rather than adding it.
Being made from a plant-based biopolymer, Eco-Haven™ is also a sustainable solution and made in the UK.
Hy-Tex’s ongoing commitment to the environment is one of the company’s core focuses, and the Kent-based company has pledged to support a wide range of tree planting schemes across the United Kingdom as 2022 approaches. They aim to do this by providing their tree guards, along with their Ecotex 100 Tree Mats - a tear-off tree mat roll.
For more information on Hy-Tex (UK) visit
hy-tex.co.uk
Clean your hard surfaces this winter with the TT Paving Solutions Range
Ransomes focuses on value with new website and any less costs more campaign
If you are an established landscape professional looking to expand and diversify in a profitable and professional manner, Accredited Supplier LazyLawn® - who describe themselves as the UK’s biggest artificial grass supplier and installer are seeking licensees to join their 30-strong licensee team across the UK.
Opportunities are available particularly in the North and the South West, and licensees will quickly be able to tap into training and technical support, both to set up and ongoing as new products and skills develop. The LazyLawn® brand has powerful recognition and a positive professional reputation, winning a Which? Best Buy 2021 award.
Amanda Ford, LazyLawn® licensee since 2013 commented: “Having the LazyLawn® brand, PR team, IT and technical support behind us was just what we needed and within 2 years, we were able to claim our first LazyLawn® Licensee of the Year crown.”
LazyLawn® is part of the Evergreens Group UK who have been pioneers in the supply and development of artificial grass into the landscaping industry for over 35 years. To take your first step towards profitable, professional and pioneering artificial grass installation, contact LazyLawn® Head Office to discuss available territories and setup requirements. Visit the LazyLawn® website at www.lazylawn.co.uk/ license-opportunities/ to find out more, call 0800 023 2343 or email
info@lazylawn.co.uk
This winter, Accredited Supplier CED Stone Group have a fantastic new addition to the range of high-quality cleaning and maintenance products in stock; the TT Paving Solutions Range. Offering a complete cleaning system for all hard surfaces such as porcelain, stone, ceramics, cement and masonry products.
From Algae and Black Spot Remover to Universal Water Based Sealer, the products in the range can help remove, clean and seal. In addition, specialised Macchia and Ventosa machines are available to hire, designed to make cleaning your hard surfaces a simple task.
TT Paving Solutions can be used with or without the machines, however using the Macchia and Ventosa provides a quicker application and faster results, designed as a complete cleaning system approach to ensure maximum desired results.
Visit cedstone.co.uk to find out more or book an onsite demo. The world’s first mower manufacturer, Ransomes, is cutting a path to electricpowered commercial and municipal mowing under the Any Less Costs More campaign and its largest brand investment this century.
Ransomes’ new mission and vision are focused on providing short-term and long-term benefits to customers, consumers and the environment. The digital investment, unabated by the pandemic, comes through a new web presence, which will provide an industry leading digital offering, whilst on the turf, the target of electric lithium powered commercial mowing has been firmly set for launch in 2022.
Ransomes Marketing Manager, Adam Underwood explains: “We want people to be confident when they are sat on a Ransomes mower that they are sitting on the benchmark for commercial and municipal mowing. It’s very important for people to understand the value of incredibly specialist machinery, and we certainly are that. So, the Any Less Costs More campaign is really about the lifetime value of our products and how it pays to invest in us. It’s worth investing in the 200 UK-based specialists on-site at our factory, it’s worth investing in UK manufacturing, and it’s worth investing in machinery that is compliant with clean and green power.
“Getting that message out is important, but listening is even more important. We spent the last year engaging with consumers, dealer customers and colleagues to understand what Ransomes means to them and what great will look like for the next five and ten years for the brand.”
Find out more at ransomesjacobsen.com
MARSHALLS HELP TO MAKE COOKRIDGE STREET PUBLIC REALM ACCESSIBLE TO ALL
Suregreen introduces Vigilis-Bio: The Future of Sustainable Forestry
Accredited Supplier Marshalls Landscape Protection, part of hard landscaping manufacturer Marshalls Group, has designed, developed and produced a bespoke, accessible seating installation as part of a project to rejuvenate a public space in Cookridge Street, Leeds city centre.
The development, which began in October 2020 and concluded in April 2021, set out to transform Cookridge Street from a heavily trafficked road to a communal pedestrianised space. The ambition of the project, as part of the Connecting Leeds scheme, was to increase public space within the city centre – with a particular emphasis on making the area more inclusive for those with accessibility issues.
Marshalls Landscape Protection was approached by John Sisk & Son, the contractors delivering the project, to build upon an original concept and develop it further. Additionally, Marshalls Landscape Protection was tasked with producing two bespoke retaining walls that incorporate integral seating within the design.
Marshalls Specification Development Manager, Dominic Renney, discussed the process: “In collaboration with all parties involved, we put together a design and function criteria for the bespoke retaining walls. With a great understanding of the brief, we created a concept that used Portuguese Carina granite and FSC®certified Iroko timber. Both materials are exceptionally hard-wearing and will serve the city for many years to come.”
Dominic continued: “Accessibility was a major component to the brief, so we designed the walls to be at a height that made it easier for wheelchair users to move between their chair and the seating.”
In addition to improving accessibility, introducing a new green space to the public realm was a key driver for the project. The areas within the retaining walls have been utilised for this purpose, with turf, trees and foliage being planted. Not only has this benefited the aesthetics of the city centre, it has also helped to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the project, an aim shared by all parties involved.
Having been completed for several months, the feedback from local businesses and members of the public has been overwhelmingly positive. Head of Projects and Programmes at Leeds City Council Jane Walne, said: “Because Cookridge Street is near to a library and museum, it was important for us to make a welcoming and accessible community space. We’re very happy with the seating produced by Marshalls, as it’s both visually appealing and functional – which is exactly what we wanted.”
For more details about Marshalls Landscape Protection please visit:
marshalls.co.uk/commercial/ landscape-protection
Over the last two years, with the aim to tackle one of the forestry industry’s plastic pollution challenges and support the UK’s afforestation efforts to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, Accredited Supplier Suregreen and its partner Biome Bioplastics have made significant investment in Research and Development to bring the new Vigilis-Bio range of biodegradable tree shelters to market. These shelters are now ready for large scale UK-wide field testing and initial commercial sales.
Extensive lab testing and accelerated weatherageing assessments have demonstrated that the novel solution, manufactured by Suregreen using Biome’s proprietary bioplastics material, performs as well as conventional tree shelters to guard and protect the first five years of a tree’s life. However, unlike their traditional counterparts, Vigilis-Bio tree shelters do not need to be collected for disposal at the end of their useful life. Instead, they slowly fragment into small pieces where the soil bacteria completely breaks them down in the span of two years, leaving behind only CO2, water and a few naturally occurring minerals.
Find out more at sure-green.com/vigilis-bio
YGS Landscapes celebrates 40 years of membership
As YGS Landscapes mark an incredible 40 years of Association membership, we spoke to their Managing Director Steve Warren-Brown, to find out more about what has changed over the course of time and what the future holds in store for the Accredited Contractor. What was YGS Landscapes’ initial reason for joining the Association? My father joined BALI as Yealm Gardening Services, now YGS Landscapes. Whilst working with him as a 16-year old, he impressed upon me the significance of BALI. After leaving Merrist Wood College 3 years later, I bought the company and even now can still recall the terror I felt when we were chosen randomly for vetting. We passed easily, but I remember, as a 22 year old, being very stressed about the process and wanting to perform as highly as possible. As a very young and inexperienced designer, I placed huge emphasis on being successfully re-vetted, which then in turn, did come around and we sailed through. Personally, and on behalf of my company, I have always have been proud to be a BALI member.
You must have seen a lot of changes across both the industry and our Association over the last 40 years - what’s the biggest difference between then and now? We don’t plant hydrangeas and pampas and hypericum anymore!
On a serious note, awareness – we used to spend hours explaining what landscaping was. People would ask if we did patios or pruning or fencing. As an industry, especially in Plymouth – in my peer group, I was a grasscutter. There was no idea of the concept of what landscaping was about.
On a more general note, in the commercial sector, landscaping is far more considered and recognised, but still there is some thinking that could be aligned between industries. Lastly - health and safety has moved on, thankfully!
What is it that has kept you with the British Association of Landscape Industries for all these years? My belief in their ideal. My standards that I’ve upheld throughout my practice have always aligned to the Association. The vetting process reinforced belief in ideals and goals of the association from the off. YGS were the first and only member of BALI from the area for years. We absolutely recognise the significance of membership. Can you tell us a little more about your community outreach? Why is it so important to you to give back to Plymouth? Put simply, we want to make a difference to people. Everything that we have done up to this point and the standing we have made is to make a difference. YGS is a sponsoring company of Building Plymouth, a local initiative to get people into the construction industry. We are heavily voluntarily involved in community projects, for example, Road to Mayflower, a series of citywide community-led projects to commemorate Mayflower400.
More recently, we volunteered to pull together an in-kind, fit-for-purpose garden for a terminally ill child in Plymouth, after the mother requested assistance. We will always lend a hand where we can.
If I can capitalise on my position in business and in the industry for greater good then that’s what I’m here for. I champion other issues such as mental health; and sit on the board for Young Devon which is a South West charity that helps young people.
I have lived in the city all my life and I am committed to giving back to Plymouth. It’s a beautiful city, underrated, with huge potential. Historically the city has undersold itself but these times are very exciting and there’s lots to come.
Your micro forest scheme working with schools and colleges, as well as corporate sponsors, sounded fascinating. Can you talk a little about what the goals of that project are? The first goal is a wish to plant a micro forest in or for every school in Plymouth. YGS are proposing to plant 406,000 trees – one for every child in Devon (correct at the time of the pandemic).
Coined by Akira Miyawaki, a Japanese botanist, the microforest presents an opportunity: it’s a new and innovative way of planting. YGS are coupling the planting of microforests with an educational pack/story books to build a primary school module. Adding a story to the planting will give it more emphasis and attract more interest. Crucially, if people are talking about planting trees in schools, it can only be a good thing. YGS are currently trying to grow within the industry - can you tell us a little more? Our growth strategy is to double the size of our company in the next three years. We want to create as many opportunities as possible in the group. The philosophy is that the bigger the company grows, the more people we’re harvesting with good environmental intentions. Anybody working in the industry arguably has the right views on the planet, wants to make a greener difference and thus a greener future. And frankly, that is okay by us!
Find out more at ygslandscapes.co.uk
Garden Irrigation –
An essential form of insurance
Accredited Suppliers Origin Amenity Solutions highlight the importance of landscape and garden irrigation and why it shouldn’t be overlooked. After you have spent thousands of pounds plus all your time laying lawns and planting gardens, isn’t it important to ensure everything grows to its optimum even during the driest conditions; how many expensive plants and trees have you lost because the homeowner hasn’t watered them properly?
Over the summer months, when the plants have the opportunity to grow at their fastest to fill the gaps in the gardens, the limiting factor to growth can be water. The installation of a simple automatic irrigation system can ensure you never have to rely on the homeowner to water the garden again. This isn’t as expensive or complicated as you might think.
Landscape irrigation
Landscape irrigation incorporates pop-up sprinklers in the lawns, and dripline or drippers in the gardens. Deep-water irrigation can be installed for your bigger trees & shrubs; all of these areas can then be fully automated. This means the systems will turn on automatically in the middle of the night when the plants can recover from a hot dry day. It’s also when the homeowners are normally asleep so the irrigation system isn’t annoying the kids wanting to kick a football around on the lawn. Each area of the lawn & garden can be provided with different amounts & frequency of irrigation to reflect their individual requirements to ensure you’re not overwatering some gardens. Shaded gardens can be given different amounts of water from gardens in full sunlight.
Irrigation controller
A simple Rain Bird Irrigation controller need not be expensive and allows everything to happen without human intervention. You can control the irrigation system from your phone app. If rain has fallen, the system will not turn on.
A rain sensor is a simple device that you can mount discretely at the top of a fence.
Rain Bird rain sensor
If you would like to add irrigation to your landscape & garden designs or would like to learn how to install irrigation systems, please contact us. We conduct training courses to show you how to design irrigation systems for your gardens & how to install them. This could be another string to your bow and will help ensure your next landscape project will be insured against dry weather conditions for years to come.
Learn more at: originamenity.com or contact sales.
irrigation@originamenity.com
Green-tech helps to green up a solar powered Park & Ride facility
Accredited Supplier Green-tech has contributed to the UK’s first fully solar powered Park & Ride facility in West Yorkshire. Designed by landscape architect Mott Macdonald in partnership with main contractor BAM Nuttall, the brand new Stourton Park & Ride heralds in a new era of clean, green public transport.
Served by a fleet of fully electric buses that run into the city centre every ten minutes and forming part of the Leeds Public Transport Investment Programme, the Park & Ride will help towards a net-zero carbon economy for the city by lowering carbon emissions, improving air quality, and reducing congestion.
A photovoltaic solar canopy covers a third of the site, which powers the terminal building, street lighting and vehicle charging points, and feeds excess electricity back into the local grid. The site provides 1,200 parking spaces along with 26 fast electric vehicle charging ports and 4 rapid chargers.
Over 11,000 trees have been planted in and around the park & ride site with an impressive 54:1 replacement ratio. The main central area includes raised Corten steel planters, shrubs, hedges, specimen and evergreen trees to provide year-round coverage.
Green-tech has an established working relationship with both Mott MacDonald and BAM Nuttall, and supplied all the stakes and crossbars, canes, tree belting and blocks to support the trees in the central area. All Green-tech square-sawn softwood and machine round stakes are FSC Certified and available from stock.
To protect the new perimeter planting from browsing animals and the elements Green-tech supplied 6,000 recyclable tree and shrub shelters, 450 square meters of 100% re-cycled jute Ecomatt mulch matting, as well as 275,000 litres of ornamental bark for the planters and beds. The Ecomatt allows air and water to pass through the layers whilst suppressing weed growth and acting as valuable insulation around the root area.
To ensure the best chance of successful establishment, 200,000 litres of soil improver was supplied to help optimise the structure and fertility of the soil, as well as over 300 sets of irrigation pipes with Aria inlets and Mona reservoir tanks. On the more exposed trees, Green-tech DropMan anchor systems were used, holding the tree stable without the risk of soil contamination from sleepers or kerb stones.
Finally, 1,000 square meters of impermeable gtRootBarrier® 325 was used where there was a need to deter roots from spreading too far.
Find out more at green-tech.co.uk
