Pro Landscaper November 2023 by Eljays44

NOVEMBER 2O23

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Welcome

hange can be hard. It might mean learning new methods or accepting that the way we used to do things wasn’t necessarily the best way, or even going back to a previous system after trying something different. With that in mind, you might notice that your issue of Pro Landscaper looks a little different this month. We’ve brought back an inspirational project on the cover, for instance – giving you, dear reader, a chance to have your own work as the cover star. We’ve also shifted around a few of our sections, with the intention of making it easier to navigate the magazine, from business advice, through to our ever-popular portfolios, then on to features before arguably saving the best for last – the people that make up our wonderful industry. We’re fortunate that, despite an ongoing skills shortage and concerns over an ageing workforce, we are still seeing so many inspiring people join the landscaping industry, and this is exemplified in Pro Landscaper’s 30 Under 30: The Next Generation, in association with Green-tech. As you’ll see on page 74, our winners this year have all got an abundance of ideas on how we could enhance our sector, and this will undoubtedly lead to change – we'll likely be challenged, for the better. If their suggestions are anything to go by, our winners will be striving for an industry that’s more sustainable, more diverse, more pro-active, more engaging and more confident. Some of their ideas might be hard to hear, and as we’ve already alluded to, change can be difficult – but if we embrace it, we’ll have the chance to see our industry adapt and grow. I hope you’ll join me in congratulating the Class of 2023, and please do let us know your thoughts on our latest issue. Until next month!

Nina

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Pro Landscaper | November 2023

CONTENTS

BUSINESS

How could AI impact the landscaping industry? It’s making its way into other sectors, with mixed reactions, and we could start to see artificial intelligence used in landscaping and design. Could it be beneficial?

CONTENTS November 2023

How transparent should an employer be? Keeping staff in the loop as much as possible can help to retain them, says Ken White

Let’s Hear It From...David Stevens The prolific garden designer is testament to taking opportunities as and when they come along

INSPIRE

FEATURES

Social Shrubbery From a dilapidated space to a stylish yet family-friendly garden in Crouch End, thanks to Acacia Gardens Ltd

Picture Perfect AS Landscapes Design & Build Ltd has created an impressive show garden for year-round use, from pool to pergola

41 4

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Park Life London’s One Thames City now has a new park featuring play areas and hundreds of trees, built by Elite Landscapes

Pro Landscaper’s 30 Under 30: The Next Generation 2023 in association with Green-tech This year’s inspirational winners revealed

Managing Expectations Being skilled on the tools or a long-serving employee do not necessarily equate to being a good manager – so, what does?

A guide to ‘domestic rewilding’ The term ‘rewilding’ might only apply for large scale restoration, but its principles can be applied to smaller gardens with a host of benefits

prolandscapermagazine.com

CONTENTS

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Pro Landscaper Sustainability & Biodiversity Awards 2023 in association with Kress Discover the shortlist for the inaugural awards

NOVEMBER 2O23

Cosy

COURTYARD ACACIA GARDENS LTD

LET’S HEAR IT FROM

David Stevens FSGD

Are you Plant Healthy yet? More and more nurseries are achieving the new certification to enhance Britain’s biosecurity

WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Pro Landscaper’s 30 Under 30: The Next Generation 2023

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS What makes a good manager?

PEOPLE

The Balancing Act of Nature Recovery Marcus Watson and Chris Bawtree on weighing up the need for food production alongside biodiversity and rewilding

102

Lighter Touch Landscapes Gabrielle Shay and Kerrie Mckinnon of Studio Supernatural share why slowing down leads to better results

105

Attention to Detail Mark Straver explains why it’s imperative that the industry is making responsible plant choices to avoid biosecurity risks

113

Obituary: Jeffrey Bernhard OBE Tony Brophy reflects on the life of the first chairman of the British Association of Landscape Industries

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35 Pro Landscaper | November 2023

BUSINESS ‘SIGNIFICANT VALUE’ TO BE ADDED BY UK HORTICULTURE, SAY NEW HTA REPORTS

he Horticultural Trades Association’s (HTA) new two-part report,‘From Nursery to Nature’ and ‘Delivering the Environmental Improvement Plan through the Value of Plants’ outlines the ‘significant value’ UK horticulture can contribute to growing a greener future. The new reports, launched at The Value of Plants at Horticulture: The Conference, provide insight into the value of UK horticulture relative to the economical, ecological, and sociological landscape. Consumers spend nearly £3bn annually on plants and trees, the HTA estimates that should prices increase even 5% (relative to

ROUNDUP

the rest of the economy), the volume of plants supplied could fall by over 10%, creating a knock-on effect felt throughout the supply chain. The industry supports over 760,000 jobs and contributes almost £30bn to the UK GDP, with one-third of UK international tourism inclusive of park and garden visits. Data shows well-maintained gardens can increase property value by up to 20%, and the planting of a hedging barrier around schools has been shown to reduce the concentration of particulate matter, nitrous oxide, ozone and other atmospheric toxins by up to 77%. hta.org.uk

SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR SGD AWARDS 2024

Industry Updates

DEFRA ANNOUNCES NEW BIODIVERSITY NET GAIN TIMETABLE

efra has set out a new timetable for the implementation of the upcoming Biodiversity Net Gain legislation, following the announcement that it would be delayed. Under the updated timetable, developers in England will be mandated to deliver 10% “Biodiversity Net Gain” from January 2024 onwards when building new housing, and industrial or commercial developments. Legislation for small sites will be introduced from April 2024, as originally planned, with nationally significant infrastructure projects planned for 2025.

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“The updated timetable and guidance we are setting out today will help smooth the transition,” says biodiversity minister, Trudy Harrison. The government has committed to publishing all guidance and regulations by the end of November this year, including the statutory biodiversity metric, the draft biodiversity gain template, the habitat management and monitoring plan template and further advice packages for landowners, developers and local planning authorities. gov.uk

he Society of Garden Designers has announced the shortlist for its annual awards. Sixteen designers and 23 projects have been shortlisted, including recent RHS medal winner Harry Holding, Andy Sturgeon FSGD and newcomer Emily CrowleyWroe. Projects include the Wellbeing Garden at RHS Wisley, an eco-friendly mosque in Cambridge and four communal residential gardens located atop London’s Battersea Power Station. “The SGD Awards 2024 shortlist illustrates why garden design matters to all of us. Each and every one of the nominated projects demonstrate creativity, passion and dedication to our craft and are not only beautiful, but provide important environmental benefits and enhance the quality of life for the people using them,” says Lynne Marcus MSGD, chair of the SGD Awards. “These projects offer thoughtful, creative responses and are testament to the skill, artistry and commitment to sustainability being brought to bear on the industry today.” Gardens in seven of the categories will be entered into the People’s Choice Award, which is now open for votes via the SGD website. Winners will be revealed at the SGD Awards ceremony on 2 February 2024. sgd.org.uk

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

BUSINESS GREENFINGERS BREAKS GROUND ON LATEST BUILDS

ork began last month on Greenfingers’ latest garden builds at The Nook in Norfolk and Demelza Hospice in Sittingbourne, Kent. The Rest & Reflect Garden will be the first garden space created at The Nook, which is East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices newest site. Designed by Gold-medal winning designer, Anne Marie Powell, the garden located at the top of the site will offer a tranquil, sensory space, with the inclusion of quiet areas encompassing the site, providing “all who spend time at The Nook with a peaceful hideaway”, says Linda Petrons, director of fundraising and communications at Greenfingers. Suffolk-based company Stewart Landscape Construction is leading the build, which is being funded by several of the charity’s supporters, including the National Garden Scheme, Evergreen Garden Care, and Leisure and Outdoor Furniture Association.

MAJESTIC TREES BECOMES AN EOT

ajestic Trees has become an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT),‘ensuring’ the company ethos and core values can continue. Managing director Steve McCurdy and his wife Janet have sold 74% of the nursery to the Majestic team, with the current management team becoming directors. “The team’s future is both secured and most

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Demelza Hospice Care for Children in Sittingbourne is the site of Greenfingers’ first-ever garden almost 25 years ago. Andrew Fisher Tomlin and Dan Bowyer are leading the design, with local contractors Baylis Landscapes heading up the build. The garden will focus on nature engagement, featuring biodiverse habitats, including a bog garden, a wildlife safari with a wild meadow area, an ant walk and a bug hotel, with complete accessibility for all visitors. The project is being supported by Millbrook Garden Centres, Clarins and other Greenfinger patrons. greenfingerscharity.org.uk

importantly is rewarded,” says managing director, Steve McCurdy. McCurdy, who is now 63, says despite having “no plans to retire”, the High Court battle against Defra in 2022 had a detrimental impact on his health, prompting his decision. “I’ve been mentoring the management team for many years; the illness forced my management team to really step up, so the time seems right to begin this transition process.” McCurdy retains 26% of Majestic Trees and plans to continue as managing director for the foreseeable future. From an external viewpoint,“nothing will be different,” and with this transition will come “exciting growth plans.” majestictrees.co.uk

THE RENAISSANCE OF DENMANS GARDEN The award-winning, Grade II registered garden, Denmans is renowned for its 50+ year-old gravel gardens, horticultural diversity, strong layout and planting design, and peaceful year-round interest.

SIX TAKEAWAYS FROM THE STIHL FULLY CHARGED ROADSHOW 2023 Stihl kicked off its Fully Charged Roadshow last week to showcase its range of cordless tools for professional users. Discover the key things we learnt from its inaugural event at York Gate Garden in Leeds.

NAVIGATING CASH FLOW CONCERNS IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Shaun Barton, partner at Real Business Rescue, explores five essential strategies that can fortify your landscape business, ensuring not only survival but sustained growth.

PRO LANDSCAPER'S UK LANDSCAPE BAROMETER We're looking to enhance and develop our state-of-market report to ensure it offers even more value to our readers. Our UK Landscaper Barometer will return in our January 2024 issue to kickstart next year with a bigger and better overview of our industry, so watch this space!

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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Over 50 years of breeding and cross breeding has led to the Resista® Elm range. These have fantastic form, leaf colour, vigour and hardiness and have been bred to be 100% resistant to Dutch Elm Disease. Hillier Nurseries are proud to be the sole UK grower and supplier of Resista® Elms consisting of Ulmus ‘New Horizon’, Ulmus Fiorente and Ulmus ‘Rebona’. Tracing provenence While they are on the Hillier nursery, each Resista® Elm tree is micro-chipped so they are all traceable. This is important to protect the decades of research and should any problems arise, their provenance can be traced. Tens of thousands of these new resistant Elms have now been planted the length and breadth of the British Isles and in Europe — from Madrid to the Steppes of Russia – with no incident of any succumbing to Dutch Elm Disease. Protecting an endangered species A further positive outcome has been the ability of the Elms to become a habitat for the endangered White-letter Hairstreak butterfly that relies on the Elm trees to breed. This once common butterfly experienced a catastrophic decline in population in line with the demise of the native Elm. Lungs of the city These Elms screen pollutants out of the air, they easily adapt to urban environment, tolerate stress be it drought, frost, salt, high water, compacted soil – they grow vigorously and they are beautiful: Elms are perfect trees for cities.

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Resista® Elm Cultivars Ulmus ‘Rebona’ Its leaves are a little smaller and darker shades of emerald. This Elm is extremely tolerant of adverse conditions. It will succeed in highly exposed locations, even next to the coast with salt spray. Ulmus New Horizon This medium to large tree forms an attractive rounded canopy in maturity. The trunk thickens fast; the dense growing, healthy leaves create a highly aesthetic appearance. Ulmus ‘Fiorente’ Strikingly beautiful. Its dominant central leader is surrounded by graceful branches that flow and cascade upwards. A hybrid of Ulmus pumila and Ulmus minor.

to discuss Resista® Elms for your project: 01794 368 733 or email trees@hillier.co.uk 18/08/2023 11:47

How could AI impact the landscaping industry?

BUSINESS

With the rise of AI dominating the market, is it something to be welcomed or sceptical about? WORDS: ASHLEIGH BROWN

identifying plant diseases. But why bother explaining it ourselves when AI can do this for itself? According to AI-powered language tool ChatGPT: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool in landscape design and maintenance, offering innovative solutions to enhance efficiency, sustainability, and overall landscaping outcomes.” It’s true that AI “empowers professionals to become more effective and efficient in their jobs” thanks to “its ability to automate tasks, analyse data, and provide valuable insights,” says Stephanie Bayer, executive partner at Athena – a firm that connects people to remote executive assistants. “In today's fast-paced and technologically advanced world, the prevalence of AI has grown exponentially. AI has become an integral part of various Stephanie Bayer, executive industries – revolutionising the way we work.” partner at Athena One advantage is its capacity to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as data entry, report generation, scheduling, and other administrative duties. “This automation allows individuals to redirect their energy toward higher-value activities that require critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills.” By leveraging AI-powered analytics tools, businesses gain a deeper understanding of customer behaviour, market trends, and operational efficiency. “These insights drive informed decisionmaking, enabling professionals to make strategic choices backed by data-driven evidence.” AI systems also have the ability to continuously learn and adapt. “As professionals engage with AI tools, they benefit from increasingly accurate and tailored results, boosting their effectiveness in various tasks and enabling continuous professional growth.”

ollywood writers are up in arms about it being used in the film and television industry, and Irish musician Hozier is threatening his own strike if artists are not better protected from the threat it poses. But if you listen to French DJ David Guetta, “the future of music is in AI”. So, is artificial intelligence to be feared or embraced? And how could the landscaping industry be impacted? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the field of computer science focused on creating machines and software that can think, learn, and perform tasks that typically require human input. Looking to landscaping, there are several ways in which AI could be introduced, from collecting data to

AI has become an integral part of various industries – revolutionising the way we work

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Pro Landscaper | November 2023

BUSINESS

Having spoken with Bayer in regard to her studies, she spoke of how quality, improving the “this is from my perspective, providing a firsthand account of how speed and quality of AI has positively impacted my role and productivity. By sharing my decision making and experiences and insights, I aim to highlight the practical benefits of ultimately leading to AI in the workplace, especially in tasks relevant to my position.” a more agile and Within the landscaping industry, as Bayer suggests, AI can assist responsive industry. in the admin and research stages of a project. With the ability to However, Holme’s simulate how a landscape will evolve over time by analysing factors goes on to say that AI like plant growth, weather patterns, and environmental conditions, may not be compatible it can predict changes and help designers make informed decisions. with existing machinery Designers can use these predictions to plan for future which may mean maintenance and ensure that landscapes remain visually appealing businesses will need to invest in compatible machinery to and functional. AI could also recommend the best plant accommodate it, or bespoke software may even need to species for specific locations based on factors like be created in order to work with certain sectors soil type, climate, and maintenance that may be expensive and slow to produce. requirements, using real-time information “A balance must be struck between on plant health and irrigation systems. fear and excitement, intuition and George Gaia Holmes, horticulturist intelligence, caution and recklessness at The MacRobert Trust and co-Host in this transition; but out of it we of the For the Love of Plants will see an industry close to our podcast, predicts that AI will be hearts flourish into one that is present in some form in every more streamlined, predictable industry in the near future. and resilient.” “Collective naivete or Skyler Westergard, the eagerness must be met with learning and development careful and informed adoption specialist at US commercial but with a speed of investment landscaping provider LandCare, that is driven by the knowledge believes that the biggest benefit of that, ultimately, this will likely be incorporating AI into the workflow is George Gaia Holmes, best for the bottom line long-term as that it can free up time for humans to horticulturist at The MacRobert well as the world we live in.” do things only humans can do. “Humans Trust and co-host of the 'For the Holme’s mentions that a key use of AI are creative, emotional, and highly Love of Plants' podcast will be precision horticulture, using AI-powered intellectual individuals. This helps us connect machinery to perform precise tasks such as planting, with others and form meaningful one-on-one harvesting, and pruning, reducing labour costs and relationships with our customers, community, and improving efficiency. “Autonomous tractors and robots equipped employees. AI is just math. It can’t create a close relationship of trust with AI can perform tasks like soil sampling and seed planting with with a customer as you and I can.” high precision.” Westergard says it is “an exciting, if not a little intimidating, AI presents a massive potential for waste reduction in terms of technology that will affect every person's life”. Fears of AI technology's raw materials, work hours and final product being of consistent capabilities stem from fast-paced development over the past few years – protective legislation has not been able to keep up. “As a society, we need guidelines and safety around how AI works and how we use it. We want to ensure it doesn’t harm any segments of society, and predominantly minorities or historically underrepresented or underserved groups.” Westergard’s advice would be to take your AI learning little by little and be patient. “AI should be thought of as an intelligent co-worker. It can help us create, be organised, interact with others, and better manage our professional and personal lives. AI can allow humans more time to do what only humans can do, which is to use our unique capacities and developed brains to form trusting relationships with other humans.” Despite the hysteria within the media and the fear that surrounding industries have provoked into job security, research suggests that there are ways in which artificial intelligence can increase productivity whilst maintaining a core human input. As the industry grows and develops, new generations and new technologies will enhance projects, taking risks – working smarter, not harder.

A balance must be struck between fear and excitement, intuition and intelligence, caution and recklessness in this transition; but out of it we will see an industry close to our hearts flourish into one that is more streamlined, predictable and resilient

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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ASK THE EXPERTS

How transparent should an employer be? Ken White reflects on the importance of being transparent with your staff in fostering loyalty

ransparency in the workplace is a concept that has gained significant attention in recent years, and for good reason. It refers to the extent to which an employer is open, honest, and forthcoming with employees about various aspects of the company, including its goals, policies, and decision-making processes. Striking the right balance between transparency and confidentiality is essential for fostering a healthy and productive work environment. Transparency begins with clear communication. Employers should be transparent when it comes to sharing the company's mission, values, and long-term goals. When employees understand the bigger picture and their role within it, they are more likely to feel engaged and motivated. Employers should also be transparent about company policies, procedures, and expectations. From attendance policies to performance evaluations, employees should know what to expect and how they will be evaluated. Transparent communication ensures fairness and reduces potential conflicts or misunderstandings. When it comes to decision-making, transparency is equally vital. While not every decision can be made by a committee, involving employees in major decisions that affect them can be empowering. Soliciting input, explaining the rationale behind decisions, and addressing concerns can build trust and foster a sense of ownership amongst employees. Financial transparency is

another critical aspect. While it may not always be possible to share every detail, providing employees with a general understanding of the company's financial health can reduce anxiety and uncertainty. Transparency in performance feedback and career advancement is essential too. Employees should receive regular feedback on their work, both positive and constructive, to understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Clear pathways for career advancement should also be communicated, giving employees a sense of direction and motivation. However, there are limits to transparency. Sensitive information, such as individual salaries, should be handled discreetly to avoid potential conflicts. Likewise, not all details of internal discussions and decisions need to be disclosed, especially when they involve confidential or proprietary information. The level of transparency an employer should maintain depends on the specific company culture, industry, and legal considerations. While complete transparency may not always be possible or advisable, it is crucial to strike a balance that fosters trust, engagement, and a sense of belonging among employees. Open and honest communication, clear policies, and involving employees in decisions whenever possible are key elements of a transparent workplace. Ultimately, a transparent employer is more likely to have a motivated, satisfied, and loyal workforce, which can contribute to the company's long-term success.

Providing employees with a general understanding of the company's financial health can reduce anxiety and uncertainty

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ADVICE

The panel HOLLY YOUDE Chair of the APL, Holly Youde, is a director at Urban Landscape Design in the North West and The Landscape Academy, a purpose built training centre dedicated to landscaping in the UK.

JAKE CATLING Jake founded his domestic landscaping company, The Landscaping Consultants, aged just 24. He is now a BALI board director and the BALI South Thames chairman, and has delivered various awardwinning gardens and outdoor spaces.

KEN WHITE Ken White, former chairman of the APL, leads the multi-award-winning Frosts Landscape Construction, which carries out large commercial and private estate projects across the UK.

ROSEMARY COLDSTREAM Rosemary has won numerous awards for her work, creating high-quality gardens for both domestic and commercial clients. She is a fully registered member of the SGD and sits on the board of directors at BALI.

SARAH EBERLE Chelsea’s most decorated designer boasts a collection of RHS medals and is a member of the LI, SGD and the Institute of Horticulture. Sarah strives to create as sustainable gardens as possible.

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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ADVICE

he modern workplace is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by technological advancements. Many employees now employ mobile devices for both professional and personal tasks, blurring the lines between work and personal life. These activities encompass actions such as checking personal emails on corporate devices or accessing work-related information on personal smartphones or tablets. In larger organisations, a prevailing trend is either to furnish company devices or to adopt a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, thereby permitting employees to utilise their personal devices for work-related tasks. Effectively managing how employees use their personal devices at work presents several challenges. The widespread use of mobile phones particularly complicates the distinction between professional and personal responsibilities, especially in the context of the growing trend of remote or flexible work arrangements. This can give rise to issues such as: •C onfounding work-related information with personal data. •A ccessing, storing, and processing confidential information. •S ecurity vulnerabilities due to inadequate malware protection. Employees may neglect to secure their devices with passwords or transmit sensitive information in insecure ways. In contrast, corporate devices typically come equipped with antivirus software and feature restrictions that safeguard sensitive data. The issue is further exacerbated when employees travel with their devices, potentially resulting in unsecured crossborder data transfers, which could violate data protection laws. When employees use their personal devices for work, employers must remain vigilant to these risks and adhere to relevant data protection regulations. A fundamental approach to managing personal devices involves the implementation of a BYOD policy. This policy serves to confirm that work-related

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

It's nothing

PERSONAL Using personal devices at and for work is more complicated than it sounds, explains Danielle Ryu and Kai Sammer information remains the property of the employer, even when stored on an employee's personal device. It can also outline procedures for retrieving and erasing data from personal devices when employees leave the company. Additionally, the employer's IT department can enforce an electronic BYOD policy to ensure compliance by securing the device and encrypting company data. For employers opting to implement a BYOD policy, this will establish guidelines for employees who wish to use their personal devices and should encompass acceptable usage, information security, privacy expectations, employer access rights (if any), and responsibilities related to technical support and expenses. The judgment of Pipia v BGEO Group Ltd 2021 underscores the

significance of providing a contractual right of access. In this case, the service contract of a former employee granted the employer access to documents stored on any "computer." The court ruled that a smartphone falls within the category of "computer", even when the device is the personal property of an employee. Therefore, a well-drafted employment contract or BYOD policy can be highly beneficial in navigating issues that may arise during employment and post-termination. To mitigate the risks associated with employees using personal devices for work, employers can conduct workplace data audits and introduce mobile phone policies that manage, restrict, or prohibit usage during working hours. These policies clarify what the company deems acceptable and unacceptable in terms of mobile phone use, leading to increased productivity, reduced disruptions, improved employee wellbeing, and enhanced data security.

The widespread use of mobile phones particularly complicates the distinction between professional and personal responsibilities

OR ACLE SOLICITORS Oracle Solicitors is an award-winning law firm with a deep understanding of the landscape industry and expertise in employment, commercial, litigation, property and contract law. Oracle Solicitors, founded in 2002 has since grown to include offices in London, Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester, Frankfurt, and Addis Ababa – please visit: oraclesolicitors.co.uk

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How do you solve a problem like

PRODUCT FAILURE? Contractors must stand together and call out suppliers that refuse to help when a product falls below standard, argues Gareth Wilson

will tell you now before we start that I’m going on a rant. Time and time again I get calls from contractors saying they have had issues with a product, and either the suppliers or manufacturers won’t respond, are incredibly difficult, or the so-called warranty they provide is next to worthless. They deny there’s an issue, and at best they will simply replace the a later date and grouted up. After all that product. But here’s my big issue: they do effort, the slot drain company didn’t want to not cover the reinstallation labour cost know about dealing with the issue.“So, take of the contractor’s time, which in some the suppliers to court,” I hear you say. Well, instances is a substantial sum. there are not many landscaping companies Before I really get started, this that can afford to do this, especially after article is not about contractor installation replacing the product at the contractor’s error; it’s about product failure. own cost, and the suppliers know this. Earlier this year I was asked I also hear so many issues regarding to go out to inspect some galvanised decking boards splitting down the slot drains that were causing middle and the supplier stops the surrounding grout to responding. Taking a big have rust stains. It was company to court is Taking a big clear to see that, not easy, especially if company to court is despite the project you’re a small not easy, especially only being finished business, and the if you’re a small three months prior financial backlash to my visit, the can be harsh in business, and the galvanised slot some cases. financial backlash drains were failing Time and time can be harsh in and actually rusting. again the contractor some cases The company owner gets hit hard in the had to replace the slot pocket, especially if the drains at his own cost, which suppliers won’t own the issue. I can assure you was not a matter So, what can landscapers do? The of a few quid – we're talking thousands of first thing is to check the company’s reviews pounds. This involved lifting the existing for issues and ask on social media if any paving, of which most were broken. It had other contractors have had issues with the been bonded down, the bedding mortar company. Also, look at the company’s had been removed, and the slot drains Ts & Cs. If there’s anything that you’re not reinstalled, and mostly new paving was comfortable with or needs explaining, ask put in place. I went back to the site at via email so that there is a paper trail. Ask

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the suppliers questions about their policy and steps they would take if there’s a product issue. Landscaping is hard enough these days without having to contend with product failure. In my book, if products fail there should be a labour refund too. I feel this must be pushed much more by the contractors. Clients are urged to carry out their due diligence with contractors, so it’s now time contractors carried out their due diligence with suppliers. I am urging contractors to work solely with manufacturers that will give back, not just take. At the very least, suppliers could offer fair discounts on the contractors’ next few purchases from the said company. It’s all about working together. Choose your suppliers wisely.

GARETH WILSON Leaving college at 17, Gareth has worked in the landscape industry since 1989. Progressing onto highend projects, he has picked up seven RHS gold medals. He is a member of multiple professional bodies. He provides technical and product advice to large companies, mentors and trains contractors and garden designers in landscape construction and on show gardens logistics across the UK. Gareth also provides mediation services, he is a member of the BS7533:102 committee and is an industry awards judge. gkwilsonlandscaping.co.uk

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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“MY BIG ADVANTAGE WAS THAT I GOT INTO GARDEN DESIGN BEFORE I WAS MARRIED, AND I EXISTED ON VIRTUALLY NOTHING”

Multi-award-winning garden designer David Stevens has enjoyed an illustrious career WORDS: NINA MASON

avid Stevens has a wealth of knowledge to pass on, and there's a lot you could learn from the prolific garden designer; but if you take just one lesson away, it should be to grasp opportunities when they come along. The international garden designer has 11 RHS Chelsea Gold medals to his name, is working on his 23rd book, and counts Alan Titchmarsh and Adam Frost amongst his friends. It’s not luck but drive and ambition to avoid standing still, says Stevens. When he was training to be a landscape architect at Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich) in the 60s, Stevens came across a book called ‘Room Outside’ written by John Brookes MBE, one of the most well-known designers in the industry who passed away five years ago. Stevens decided to take a gamble and

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wrote to the author, asking him for a job. Much to Stevens’ surprise, Brookes wrote back telling him there was a vacancy at Syon Park in Brentford, so he invited Stevens to visit him there and to bring his portfolio. “I packed away the old mower in the Ford Anglia van and went to work with John,” says Stevens, who had been running his own landscaping and maintenance business but was eager to be a designer. He’d always been an avid artist with a skill for detailed drawings but didn’t know about landscape architecture and garden design when he was in school, so he’d pursued a variety of other careers, from joining the police force to selling gold leaf and stamping foils. It wasn’t until one of his squash partners, who was a landscape

gardener, asked him to do some sketches that Stevens’ passion for horticulture began. When he started working with Brookes at Syon Park, the London home of the Duke of Northumberland with a landscape by Capability Brown, Stevens’ eyes were further opened as to the possibilities available in this industry, and he was learning from one of the best.“He was the doyenne, I suppose. I learnt such a lot with him and about him and his work, which was a great grounding. When Syon folded, there were two options: you could either go into local government, which was safe and they paid you, but it was dead boring; or you could go into private practice, which was much more exciting, but nothing was guaranteed. It was hand to mouth. And that’s how I started off.” His first big break came through Homes & Gardens running a garden planning

If you’re a designer you should be able to embrace all types of gardens and landscapes

GARDEN DESIGN SKETCHES

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

service in the magazine. Through this, he was approached by celebrities to design their gardens, including the late Bobby Moore, who led England to victory in the 1966 World Cup as team captain. Another was for a countess in Austria, which Stevens says was like featuring in a James Bond film.“I flew out and there was a big black Mercedes waiting outside the airport. We drove off into the mountains to this huge chateau and I was taken up to my room, where there were silver trays with food laid out on them – it was madness.” Stevens was also given the opportunity to design show gardens, in the UK and abroad. His first Chelsea garden was with Homes & Gardens in 1972 with a tiny budget. “I’ve never looked back from there, it was super. One garden or one sponsor led to another. Chelsea was different then; it was the only major horticultural show. There are so many shows now and the problem is getting sponsorship to create gardens.” The addition of BBC Gardeners’ World Live is welcome though, Stevens says. It’s not too far from where he now lives with his wife, Pauline, in the West Midlands. They’ve lived all over the UK, from buying and converting a derelict fishmongers for their first house in Wandsworth (“the only people who would give us a mortgage were Ken Livingstone and the GLC”) before moving out of London to places like Buckingham and even France. They’re now based the furthest north that they’ve lived, near to their two children. "I’ve never specialised in one sort of garden,” says Stevens. “Some garden garden designers only do big country gardens or only town gardens, but I think that if you’re a designer you should be able to embrace all types of gardens and landscapes. When I started off in London, I was doing a lot of town gardens, and as I’ve gained experience, I’ve designed bigger gardens and I love doing these. I’m designing a lovely one just outside of Oxford and another just south of Birmingham, and they’re fascinating, with areas around the house, wonderful lawns, and a lot of them have meadows. It's a different scale altogether.” Designers are “facilitators”, says Stevens. “It’s not the designer’s garden; it’s the client’s garden, and it’s our job to put those ideas together. We facilitate the way that the garden

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works, and we take our expertise and the client’s wishes and mould these into something that works for them. At the end of the day, I love the garden I create, but it’s not my garden, and that’s really important.” Regardless of size, all these gardens are designed by hand rather than CAD. “I love drawing, I just love it. I’m at an age where I don’t particularly want to use Vectorworks or SketchUp, because I can sketch up myself, and very well. And I can do perspective drawings. I sketch for clients, which is quick and easy and has a personality of style in the drawing. Vectorworks is brilliant because it takes quantities off for you and all those other

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things; but I’m old school in a way, and the drawings are beautifully scaled. We were taught to draft at Thames Poly; we’d spend hours just doing A1 sheets of lettering by hand. People would think that’s monstrous now – we thought it was monstrous then, but it teaches you how to draw.” Stevens describes himself as “space orientated” rather than plant orientated. It was the same with John Brookes, he says.“When John and I worked together, I think we only knew about 25 plants between us! It’s about the spaces; if the spaces don’t work, nothing will work. It doesn’t matter what field you’re in, all the basic principles still apply, whether it’s garden design or landscape design or architecture – it's all design, period. Design is so important, there are no boundaries to it, and it keeps evolving.” Sometimes not for the better – Stevens still drives a 20-year-old Honda sports car because “all the lines have been taken out of cars...they’re so ugly now." Fortunately, Stevens is passing on his flexible approach to design, teaching at places from Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland to Filoli Gardens in California. “It’s a lovely garden just south of San Francisco, which is probably one

of the most beautiful cities in the world, it’s gorgeous.” He first started teaching with John Moreland at Capel Manor College’s design school, which they ran together for around a decade. They taught a three-month course that was one of the first dedicated entirely to garden design rather than landscape architecture. “I love teaching. You’ve got to enthuse and amuse people – those are the two key elements in teaching. Design is a wonderfully enjoyable process, and that’s what teaching is about: teaching them that enjoyment and that it’s not a dull book subject. It’s a people business with so many different dimensions." Now, Stevens teaches both garden design and planting design regularly at Barnsdale, the garden of the late BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Geoff Hamilton, who Stevens knew personally from his own television stints on the show. (Stevens has also presented his own shows, including the six-part series Gardens by Design). He also taught Adam Frost, one of the current presenters who started off his career at

You’ve got to enthuse and amuse people – those are the two key elements in teaching

1 RHS Chelsea, B&Q, The Princes Trust 2 Large country garden outside Bristol 3 High tech garden, Citroen, RHS Hampton Court 4 Acrylic and water pyramid, Olympia 5 Garden in Peak District using local materials and built by Adam Frost

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Barnsdale with Hamilton.“Adam and I are great friends...he was my main contractor for 10 years. Then, I got him into Chelsea, and we built [British design and restaurateur] Terence Conran’s garden between us; I did all the planting and Adam did the construction... He’s been ambitious, and I suppose I am as well, so we get on quite well together.” It’s not an easy industry to make a living in sometimes though, admits Stevens. It’s a “low overhead business” but it does tend to still be London centric because that’s where the clients are.“You’ve got to have a passion for it, and you’ve got to be good at it. A lot of people go into it with rose tinted glasses. My big advantage was that I got into garden design before I was married, and I existed on virtually nothing.” The public is more aware and appreciative of garden design, though, and there are far more garden designers than when Stevens first started out. He was nearly one of the founding members of the Society of Garden Designers, joining the year after it was established in 1982, back when it was a “fledgling” organisation known as the Society of Landscape and Garden Designers. It now has more than 2,000 members of varying levels of membership. “The Landscape Institute – or the Institute of Landscape Architecture at the time – was the only body before that, but they were focusing on big projects. The SGD was a bit like the APL (the Association of Professional Landscapers),

We're concentrating less on slippery, shiny, expensive surfaces and concentrating more on recycled and upcycled materials

which was set up by Alan Sargeant basically for domestic landscapers, whereas the British Association of Landscape Industries is more for commercial and bigger scale work.” Stevens is now a fellow of the SGD and serves on the council. Two years ago, he was honoured with the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his commitment to the industry.“People need to join organisations. The SGD is great too; it’s a good vehicle for business – most of mine comes through the SGD website. And the association works hard.” He uses Lynne Marcus, the previous chair of the SGD, as an example. “She was the one leading the Say No to Plastic Grass campaign. "She's right, it's certainly not environmentally friendly and while it might be viewed as carpet on a roof garden it creates a totally sterile environment elsewhere, eliminating any life beneath. It is largely produced from

petrochemicals and I frankly never recommend it.” The SGD is now “quite rightly” encouraging designers to look at the carbon footprint of materials.“I won’t use porcelain paving because the carbon footprint is so high; it’s fired at more than 1,000 degrees, there’s a lot of processing in it, and it’s got to be shipped from countries like Spain or Italy. Then, it’s got to be laid and it’s a complicated laying process as well.”

The industry is moving towards using lower carbon materials, says Stevens. “We're concentrating less on slippery, shiny, expensive surfaces and concentrating more on recycled and upcycled materials." As you can likely tell from his’ passion, he has no plans to retire any time soon. He’s writing his 23rd book, called ‘The New Suburban Garden’, which looks at how gardens have developed over the years and is due next year – if he gets the time to finish it.“Someone could phone up tomorrow and ask me to go abroad to design a garden and off I’ll go. That’s what it’s all about. I think I get a lot of that from John Brookes.” In other words, Stevens will continue to jump at opportunities as and when they arise.

6 Country garden in Hertfordshire, UK 7 Winning the Best Constructed Garden and Gold Medal at Gardeners World Live for the APL 'What Lies Beneath' garden , with Phil Tremayne 8 Gold Medal garden for the South African Airways Cape Town Flower Show

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shrubbery ACACIA GARDENS LTD

COSY COURTYARD GARDEN, CROUCH END

PROJECT DETAILS

Project value £29k Build time 5 weeks Size of project 40m2

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hen presented with a run-down space made up of uneven surfaces, dilapidated lawn, and narrow borders – which were full of clutter, an old rabbit hutch and no places to set out furniture – Acacia Gardens Ltd was ready to take on the challenge and create a modern, family friendly space for socialising, relaxing and creating the peace to allow the clients to unwind in.

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The team used a variety of interesting materials and textures and wildlife friendly planting to create a feeling of privacy when in the garden and inspiring views from the house. The space was to feel like a garden and encourage the clients to spend time outside surrounded by foliage, the sound of leaves brushing together and ultimately provide a little natural sanctuary in a very developed neighbourhood. Being a small garden, the challenge Acacia faced was to create a sociable space with enough room to accommodate a group of six to eight people without the garden becoming too hard landscaped and void of planting. The garden was overlooked from all

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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directions, so allowing enough space to plant large mature shrubs and small trees was integral to maintaining a good balance of hard and soft landscaping. The garden was split on two levels. The lower terrace immediately by the house is formed of dark clay pavers laid in a stacked bond pattern flanked with two planting areas of multi-stem Amelanchier trees and herbaceous plants, framing the views onto the larger upper terrace. A small metal morning bistro furniture set is located here, allowing wide views onto the garden. The upper terrace is contrasted by using light grey sawn sandstone paving with a custom-made raised planter and corner bench formed of Siberian larch. The lighter tones and warmth from the timber contrasts well with the darker lower terrace and clearly defines the two spaces. The upper terrace also features an overhead pergola over the seating area where evergreen

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jasmine is encouraged to grow and cast dappled shade, privacy, and aroma to the seating area. The fences are painted dark to recede in the background and allow the upper terrace to take centre stage. The planting maintains the architectural form of the loquat tree, which was crown lifted and pruned. This evergreen sets the tone for the garden with its large, tropical leaves. Two multi-stem Amelanchier ‘Robin Hill’ trees were planted close to the house to frame the views onto the garden from the kitchen. Bringing planting up close to the house and in the foreground helped achieve and maintain the feeling of a ‘garden’ as opposed to an outdoor room. The lower terrace is set within these two trees, giving a different ambience and mood when enjoying a morning coffee. A Japanese maple which was previously in a planter was freed and planted in the ground, further adding to the tranquillity of the space. The upper terrace has a deep planting border to the rear which allows the loquat tree and the delicate Japanese snowbell to express itself. Ground planting is formed of ferns, pines, Japanese forest grasses, astrantias and geraniums. Another Japanese maple that was salvaged from the existing garden is planted in the shade of the loquat. The raised planters which surround the corner bench are planted with purple salvias, blue geraniums, alliums, pines, and grasses. Evergreen jasmine climbs high above and trained over a pergola. Heath sawn sandstone was used as it provides warm tones of light, mid grey and occasionally copper, when wet. Its smooth texture is comforting and looks great when contrasted with the rougher textures of clay pavers, which were chosen for their dark appearance but contained a warm subtle tone of dark brown which picked up on the copper veins running through the sandstone paving. Siberian larch was used for the corner bench, raised planter and pergola. 1 Bold textures create bursts of interest 2 Upwards views of planting 3 Seating meets multiple natural elements 4 Lighting creates new dimensions 5 A personal touch completes the package 6 Fireworks? No – just flowers 7 Contrast was a vital consideration 8 Purple with green for further sprouts of contrasting detail to the planting palette

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REFERENCES Garden design and planting Daniel Shea Garden Design danielshea.co.uk Clay pavers and heath sandstone London Stone londonstone.co.uk Fence painted Cuprinol cuprinol.co.uk Blade drain ACO aco.co.uk

The pale straw tones of the larch with its grain running through it will be allowed to silver over time and blend with the grey tones of the sandstone paving. The large pergola structure is the central hub of the garden, where time will be spent relaxing amongst the verdant planting, socialising in a private and accommodating space. The structure is large but softened by planting within the raised planter, the trailing climbers growing over it and also the foreground and back planting. This structure integrates into the garden and will age over time along with the planting.

The materials have all been selected for their beauty but also their sustainability. These materials will improve with time and along with the matured planting, this garden room will provide many years of enjoyment. Acacia Gardens tried to maintain as much of the plants as possible and did so. The loquat tree wasn’t a favourite of the clients, but they were persuaded to keep it, assuring them it was a positive attribute and a shame to remove. The loquat was pruned up, planted with complementary planting, and lit up at night with a wide angled light, and the client now loves the plant. Site constraints were difficult. All materials in and out were though a shared alleyway and onto the street. The landscapers were very open and courteous with the neighbours as were the planting team. The design was conscious of the access issues, and reduced the amount of wastage, hence the decision to include a split-level terrace design which ultimately added real benefit to the space, helping define the lower and upper terrace. Over a year on and it’s standing proud and solid, with no snags to be reconciled. The craftsmanship of the paving, and most impressively the raised planter, corner bench and pergola were of the highest quality. Acacia Gardens fulfilled and exceeded the client’s expectations, sticking to its guns and creating an exceptional and high-quality residential landscape. 9 Lighting completes the scene in lower light 10 R ising flowers add height to the planting bed Photographs ©Eleanor Walpole

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Timber: Siberian larch Silva Timber silvatimber.co.uk Support block work, sleepers, and soil Thompson of Crews Hill thompsonsofcrewshill.com

ABOUT Acacia Gardens is a north London garden design and build company. Its complete garden design and build package ensures that gardens can become a reality at a cost-effective price. Acacia Gardens has been designing and landscaping north London gardens for over 20 years. It prides itself on creating exceptional and high-quality residential landscapes, with a mission to ensure that its customers are delighted with the garden design and build service. acacia-gardens.co.uk

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Exquisite joinery for distinctive gardens Design | Craft | Install

Visit the design studio, workshop & showroom

gardentrellis.co.uk 01255 688 361 The Garden Trellis Company Ltd. 355A Old Road, Clacton-On-Sea, Essex, C015 3RQ.

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W PERFECT AS LANDSCAPES DESIGN & BUILD LTD AS SHOW GARDEN

ith over 20 years of working within the industry, AS Landscapes created a design brief that would showcase its flare and construction skills, as well as key design trends and a large selection of specifically chosen products for use in a family garden and outdoor living space. This would also come to include the company office with the potential for use as a show garden for potential clients and designers to visit when discussing future projects as a physical, visual aid to assist in confirming product choices.

PROJECT DETAILS

Project value £300k Build time 5 months Size of project 625m2

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It would be used for both office space, entertaining and informing, with outdoor living as the main objective. Needing access and continuity between inside and outside, AS Landscapes wanted to show how the garden can be used all year round by creating useable areas for all occasions. Separate zones for eating, entertaining and relaxing together were included, with areas

for a growing family including a fire pit, swimming pool and an area of artificial grass – all whilst retaining the flow of construction throughout the garden. AS Landscapes used a variety of paving types and styles to create these areas and demonstrate how differing materials can be used together to add contrast within a project and create a more interesting series of textures. From London Stone alone, it included the company’s light grey porcelain, charcoal edgings, clay pavers in charcoal, black slate cladding, DesignBoard composite decking,

DesignClad in Corten steel and decorative tiles for a modern look. With help from designer, The Distinctive Gardener, AS Landscapes used trees to build height and structure with dense under planting to enhance the colour and provide softness to the hard landscape. Around the pool, taxus cones were potted and symmetrically placed to enhance the clean and formal unity. Flowers and foliage were then scattered throughout beds to give

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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the garden a different look and colour with each season throughout the year. Garden sculptures were later added to create a more interesting contrast and a larger impact on the beholder. In order to enhance the sustainability of the project, a large green roof was installed on the new office building, along with fruit trees and nectar rich native plants to provide plenty of food and homes for wildlife. AS Landscapes also added a wildlife area

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outside the show garden where it has plans to add beehives and eventually add the construction of the planned “bug hotel” with an additional hedgehog access points under fences. The Koi Pond was fitted with an extensive bio filter system that requires limited use of chemicals, alongside the lighting used which is designed with directional low voltage fittings limiting light pollution.

The garden did present several challenges along the way, such as large drainage issues, making the ground very difficult to work on.

1 Two tone furniture builds a safe atmosphere 2 Aerial views of the garden – a unique way to witness the strategic design 3 Furniture creates a complete space to share 4 Natural seating built into the design – a fire pit serves as a focal point for socialising

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REFERENCES Porcelain, edgings, clay pavers, cladding, DesignBoard, DesignClad, decorative tiles London Stone londonstone.co.uk

A rainwater harvesting tank needed to be installed before the garden could be started as the drainage system was being trenched across the garden to dry out the surface and to make the site accessible for machinery, construction, and future use especially in periods of inclement weather. This garden project has been a significant success for AS Landscapes. Fulfilling their brief and continuing to provide a space to introduce new clients to their portfolio. 5 A beautiful pool – perfect for summer weather 6 The fire pit seating area seen from the stairs Photographs ©Locations Photography

ABOUT Working in the industry for over 20 years, AS Landscapes is a landscape design and build company based in Surrey. It specialises in all types of hard landscaping such as driveways, patio installations, garden walls, outdoor kitchens, artificial grass and much more. The team also carries out various soft landscaping, create planting schemes and offering a full landscape design service. as-landscapes.co.uk

Pots for taxus cones Red Mud Hut theredmudhut.co.uk Outdoor kitchen Sumo Outdoor sumooutdoor.co.uk Garden furniture Ocean Designs ocean-designs.co.uk Artificial grass Easigrass easigrass.com Cedar battens Champion timber championtimber.com Pergola Broadview Shading Solutions broadview.co.uk Planting plans The Distinctive Gardener thedistinctivegardener.com Green roof Green roofs direct greenroofsdirect.com Garden sculptures The Sculpture Park thesculpturepark.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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GU ID ED BY N ATU RE

GRDN Landscape + Garden Design (Photography by Alister Thorpe)

Guided by Nature Schellevis® produces concrete paving and elements to connect architecture with nature. Always supporting and respecting the outdoor space they are placed in. The entire range has the same Schellevis® appearance. Used in combinations, the products help transform every outdoor space into a harmonious, timeless living environment. Visit our website to see our products in a variety of outdoor spaces, in different ways and often combined.

For UK enquiries: Ryan Burge | 07960 988 327 | ryan@schellevis.co.uk www.schellevis.co.uk

PORTFOLIO

PROJECT DETAILS

Project value £5.4m Build time Six months Size of project 7,172m2

ELITE LANDSCAPES ONE THAMES CITY

PARK LIFE

lite has brought to life the entranceway park for London’s Linear Park in One Thames City. This is the Nine Elms' gateway to the park, and includes play areas, seating, hundreds of new trees, and pedestrian walkways. London-based property developer R&F hired Elite Landscapes as acting principal contractor on this scheme, for the construction of all the external landscaping along the new Linear Park at One Thames City. The company worked alongside Gillespies, responsible for project design and Camlins, working on the execution of the operation. The scheme is wide-ranging and consists of complex hard landscaped areas of sandstone and granite, with resin pathways linking features such as large play equipment and precast seating around the site. There is a planted aquatic water feature, feature lighting and external electrical supplies, large mature tree planting, large usable lawns, and feature shrub planting, to soften the space. Elite Landscapes was engaged to build the park within a six-month programme, working closely with the landscape architects, Camlins

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and Gillespies, to ensure the scheme was delivered to the high-level expectations. A build such as this would have typically taken significantly longer to complete, so planning and delivery throughout the scheme was essential to get right and avoid substantial delay penalties. The scale of this build involved up to 60 people on site at any one time working from the centre of the site outwards. As well as complexities in the technical part of the build, there were also challenges with the soft landscaping. The procurement with the trees was on tight deadlines for areas to be planted and turfed. The size and scale of the trees, of which the larger trees weighed around 15t, meant that the team had to arrange deliveries into London at key times due to the extra-long vehicle requirements in London – Elite Landscapes believes these are some of the largest trees to be delivered into London in recent years. This involved 1 Arrival plaza acts as gateway into the park, with play area and the start of the water feature winding along the open lawn ©Flying Pix

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PORTFOLIO co-ordinating cranes that had capacity to lift and locate such large specimens. All this was done with a project starting in the depths of December. The project itself is a mix of hard and soft landscaping, with the key features being the specimen trees and water feature that cuts the length of site consisting of aquatic planting, to help encourage biodiversity amongst the urbanisations. The water feature has two bridges that allow access into the tree lines and planted areas, and large cropped granite copings to the south. The central feature is a large turf lawn with amphitheatre seating to one side. To complement the soft landscaping and extensive tree planting is paving which splits up the Linear Park and allows access from one side to another. The paving is a mix of sandstone and granite designed to take the weight and size of a fire engine, ranging in size from 100 x 200mm to 600 x 900mm. As the site is surrounded by construction, access was limited to certain times. The impact of this was limited during most of the hard landscaping as materials were palletised and a storage area was available. For the tree deliveries, coordination with highways, crane operations and hauliers were key. Some of the trees weighed in excess of 14t and were 22m tall, therefore needed specialist trailers and transport to and from Europe. Elite Landscapes had the added challenge of engaging with the fire service in order to maintain access through the complex working area in the event of a fire. This was extremely challenging when trying to install water features, hard landscaping, and planting within tight timeframes. As the site was drawing to a completion the access to areas became less and less, essentially shutting off vehicle and machinery routes. The site teams had to coordinate reductions in labour, machinery and deliveries while maintaining a tight deadline. Traffic management was timed with well-planned deliveries, permits and closures. Off peak working was also implemented to assist with completing the project within the programme dates. From the start of the project, Elite Landscapes was under time pressures and a condensed programme led to all involved being required to go above and beyond their daily roles in order to deliver to the time frames. A key aspect of the project’s success was the communication lines with the client and all involved parties which helped manage delays and overcome operational challenges. Procurement and design were also managed carefully

2 Large turf lawn acts as a central feature ©Flying Pix 3 Tranquil water feature runs along the park featuring aquatic planting to enhance biodiversity ©Paul Scott 4 Trees weighing over 15t, believed to be some of the largest delivered to London in recent years ©Paul Scott 5 Play equipment to encourage a family and community atmosphere ©Paul Scott

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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PORTFOLIO

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Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PORTFOLIO

REFERENCES Client R&F Properties rfpropertiesuk.com Landscape architect (Project design) Gillespies gillespies.co.uk (Operation execution) Camlins camlins.com Water Feature Fairwater fairwater.co.uk Irrigation Waterwise waterwise.org.uk

so the complex palette of material with long lead times could still meet programme deadlines. The project has sought to procure where possible all sustainable, ethical, and responsibly sourced and certified materials, contributing to the design's current 23% carbon reduction. The scheme itself involves the regeneration of the area to promote community engagement and sustainable urban development. Elite itself has moved all machinery to HVO fuels to lower its carbon footprint. It has also invested in and intends to expand on the introduction of electrical tools to lower emissions via battery or no fuel tools. Taking six months to complete, One Thames City presents the backdrop of lush parks, mature trees, and beautiful gardens that the client R&F Properties wanted to create for local residents.

6 Two bridges connect the areas across the water feature and through the tree line ©Paul Scott 7 Benches encircle large green space ©Paul Scott

ABOUT Co-founded by Dave Twist in 1999, Elite Landscapes has quickly grown from a family business into a multi-million-pound company with over 300 site operatives and projects spanning across London, the South of England and the Midlands. Offering a full landscaping service to developers and main contractors, it prides itself on being able to deliver the complete package. elitelandscapes.co.uk

Planting Robin Tacchi Plants robintacchiplants.com Trees Van den Berk Nurseries vdberk.co.uk Bruns bruns.de Soil and aggregate Sivyer hsivyer.com Paving Hardscape hardscape.co.uk Marshalls marshalls.co.uk Resin bound/play surface Ace Resin aceresin.co.uk Edging Kinley kinley.co.uk Street furniture Bramhall bramhall1840.co.uk Play area Duncan & Grove duncanandgrove.com Lighting MDN UK mdnuk.co.uk

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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Air

Smart Space

Blue

Green

At GreenBlue Urban, our heritage is deeply rooted in the urban forest, and our expertise in urban greening extends far beyond trees. With a track record of successful solutions, we encompass green walls, rain gardens, and play a pivotal role in designing and implementing greener, healthier urban spaces for all!

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Creating healthier urban spaces in harmony with nature

Come and see us at Stand C70

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November 2023 Full page.indd 1

18/10/2023 09:55:18

Go & See

PROMOTION Make sure you stop by these stands at this year’s FutureScape, from 21-22 November at the ExCeL London

AT FUTURESCAPE 2023 AZPECTS Azpects Ltd is showcasing its newest colour in the EASYJoint Select range, Platinum, which offers the perfect jointing compound for any sandstone or porcelain patio. Azpects, a seasoned exhibitor, is recognised as a familiar face among attendees, bringing over a decade of expertise to the event. For finishing touches that last, choose EASYSeal and EASYCare, EASYJoint Select's best companions. Don't miss the opportunity to see its latest products on stand C70. azpects.co.uk

Stand

C70

BSW TIMBER BSW Timber is the UK's largest sawmilling company, supplying the nation with a range of certified British timber products for uses such as fencing, decking, landscaping, construction, and joinery. Visit stand C10 to see timber in a new light and explore the entire range. Also showcased is the innovative IRO Timber range of charred cladding and decking, inspired by the traditional Japanese Yakisugi process, where wood is charred to give a beautiful, tactile finish. IRO is a 100% natural timber, available in 10 colours, that can be used in imaginative ways to breathe life into both internal and external spaces. thebswgroup.co.uk

Stand

C10

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Stand

BOOM & BONHEUR

I10

Boom & Bonheur is part of the former Lappen Nurseries, with a legacy dating back to 1894. Its fields are stocked with specimen trees, solitaire shrubs and conifers, multi-stemmed and umbrella shaped trees, and a large variety of shaped and preformed plants. With over 1300 acres in production and thousands of species and varieties, it is among the largest of its kind. At FutureScape, it will present itself to the public under its new name Boom & Bonheur. The team is looking forward to meeting you at FutureScape and to working with you in the very near future. Boom & Bonheur – because trees give life and bring happiness. baumbonheur.com

DANIEL SAMPAIO DESIGN Daniel Sampaio is a Brazilian-born furniture designer. After studying Furniture and Product Design at Nottingham Trent University, he moved to London to pursue his current Master’s degree in Furniture Design at Central Saint Martins. For the Outdoor Living and Wellness Expo 2023, he is exhibiting his piece, Iara, which carries Oscar Niemeyer’s principle of ‘form follows feminine’. Its name derives from a figure from Brazilian folklore based on the ancient Tupi-Guarani mythology, also known as the “Mother of Water”. She can be seen either as a water nymph, a siren, or a beautiful mermaid that lives on the Amazon River.

Stand

A87

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PROMOTION

GRILLO Grillo is the ideal outdoor kitchen partner to have up your sleeve. For landscapers seeking to elevate their projects, Grillo Vantage is a design-led outdoor kitchen, blending Iroko hardwood with beautifully finished cabinetry. With a choice of barbecues and appliances, craft the al fresco area your clients have been pining for. Our user-friendly modular system allows you to easily plan, visualise, and present the design in 2D or 3D to your clients. Join us at FutureScape, stand A32 for a chat to find out how you can exceed the standard for outdoor living spaces. grilloliving.com

PLATIPUS LANDSCAPE SOLUTIONS

Stand

I41

Since first pioneering underground tree anchoring more than 40 years ago, Platipus has developed the most comprehensive range of professional tree anchoring and irrigation systems for every planting situation. The range includes its award-winning D-MAN System for on-structure and shallow planting as well as Piddler, a targeted Irrigation System that delivers water directly to the root zone. If you are attending FutureScape be sure to visit the Platipus team on Stand I41 where the team will be very pleased to answer any questions on tree anchoring, irrigation, living walls and its latest innovation Plati-Grip, a multi-purpose spiral anchor ideal for securing landscape fabrics. platipus-anchors.com

Stand

A32 PROVENDER NURSERIES

Stand

I60

Visit Provender Nurseries at stand I60 – winner of the Trade Nursery of the Year 2023 at the Pro Landscaper Business Awards earlier this year. Provender Nurseries is a team of progressive, passionate plants people, with an eye for quality plants that will bring your designs to life. Provender Nurseries supplies top quality plants alongside excellent landscaping products, soils, composts and related horticultural sundries to the trade. The award-winning team with its wealth of experience and industry knowledge is able to advise on any aspect of any planting scheme with a dedicated quoting team that can price, source, and supply your projects. It has been Plant Healthy certificated since 2021. provendernurseries.co.uk

Stand

F70

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

WILDFLOWER TURF™ Wildflower Turf™ boasts two decades of unrivalled expertise in wildflowers. As a pioneering force in the UK, it provides invaluable knowledge and top-tier products for crafting wildflower spaces. Its commitment to environmental sustainability shines through in its recent transition to plant-based bio-netting across all turf offerings, without compromising product excellence. Wildflower TurfTM offers an extensive range of products, including Wildflower TurfTM, MeadowScape ProTM, and MeadowSow seeds and share its expert knowledge through its consultancy services and training days. wildflowerturf.co.uk

Stand

D50

WYEVALE NURSERIES Wyevale Nurseries’ theme for the show is native multi-stem trees, including Betula utilis and Pinus sylvestris, underplanted with Hedera Algerian Bellecour® – ideal for landscape architects, commercial landscapers and garden designers to see. Bellecour® is a new non-climbing, low-maintenance, attractive, ground-cover ivy that retains its juvenile state and is great for hard-to-reach places, representing a saving on person power and tending time, as well as money. Amenity sales executives Alan Young and Dan Maskew will be on the stand giving away 1L Hedera Bellecour on a first come basis, while stocks last, so people can try before they buy. wyevalenurseries.co.uk

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ROOFTOP DECK: LONDON,DECKING BOARDS: KEBONY®, ARCHITECT: TOM STUART-SMITH, LOCAL DISTRIBUTOR/ INSTALLER: THE OUTDOOR DECK COMPANY

©The Outdoor Deck Company

here’s a new name on the UK decking market. Having set up teams across Europe, the USA and Asia, Grad has brought its aluminium solution across the Channel. “There’s an opportunity in this market,” says Tiffany Ulph, managing director for the UK arm. Its focus until recently was solely on decking, but it has now expanded into cladding, which could be an even greater opportunity here, she adds. Not that it doesn’t already have a loyal following in the UK. The Outdoor Deck Company, for instance, has been importing Grad for the past decade and it continue to

ON DECK

cladding to make installing these products easier, but it has evolved over the last two decades, says Ulph.“It has been updated and improved, and continues to be improved, so what we have now is an aluminium rail with plastic clips, that sits underneath.” It beats laying wooden joists, says Ulph.“You have to lay out the decking boards on top and screw them all in have Grad as a prominent individually, which part of their portfolio of is hugely laborious, decking and cladding systems. and you have to It has used it on high-profile make sure that the projects such as penthouses alignment is perfect at Battersea Power Station, between each board. London’s Royal Opera House and Then you’ve got wood Google head office in King’s Cross. touching wood, which And whilst Grad might be new to the UK encourages rot as there’s less air market, the system was created back in 2006, flow, and you can’t lift up the board once it’s later launching as its own brand six years nailed down. On top of that, because you’re later. It was then bought by Burger et Cie, putting screws through the board, the integrity which is based in the historic wine region of the wood isn’t maintained. We have of Alsace, in 2016. Grad has always been innovated to improve that whole process. You a system that goes underneath decking and lay down the aluminium rails and there are clips along the rail that have been attached in the factory, so the alignment and spacing is already perfect. All you need to do then is clip the boards on top. There’s air flow beneath as the board is not touching the rail and there are no nails and screws. You can easily remove a board using a special key that clips in and the boards lift.” The aluminium rails and clips are also fully recyclable, says Ulph, DESIGN: TIM EXCLUSIVE GARDENS, INSTALLATION and Grad is working with a PARTNER: AWOOD, BOARD PARTNER: MOSO number of decking partners

©Olivr (olivr.nl)

It reduces installation time by up to 50%, so that’s a huge benefit in terms of project completion

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Aluminium decking solution Grad has set its sights on the UK market

globally including Accoya, Kebony, Thermory and MOSO, as these are all “durable and long lasting” boards that work well with the system.“Any boards can be grooved with the Grad profile, as long as it’s a compatible material, be it wood, composite, ceramic or aluminium. There are a few woods that we wouldn’t recommend as they take on too much water, and we don’t want to associate ourselves with a wood that could fail with the system. We need to test it in the lab and ensure we’re happy.” It’s a versatile product and there are so many opportunities and markets for Grad, says Ulph. But its focus is on landscapers and landscape designers.“One of the biggest selling points is that it reduces installation time by up to 50%, so that’s a huge benefit in terms of project completion. Landscapers have been welcoming of this innovation, instantly seeing how this can help them.”

PRIVATE POOL BY WOODSOLUTION: MOLIETS, FRANCE. DECKING BOARDS: ACCOYA®, ARCHITECT: WOOD SOLUTION

With a new e-commerce website launching soon, new partnerships and a growing sales team, Grad is “going big” in the UK, says Ulph. It might be the new kid on the block, but Grad has spotted an opportune market, and it will be taking full advantage.

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©Nicolas Chapman @nico_chapman_photography

PRODUCTS

SO SOLID RAAFT Farrino porcelain decking The solution to fire and wind problems whilst boasting a high-end and elegant finishing touch, the Farrino decking is a high-performance porcelain decking surface for a terrace or balcony. It’s a highly resistant and long-lasting product that passes the BroofT4 British fire rating and incorporates a wind tie-down system. It is available in six different finishes. raaft.co

PRODUCTS

Discover the latest decking products to hit the market

RYNO GROUP TerraSmart® Vitrified Composite decking

Ryno Group’s Vitrified Composite is the non-combustible decking for specifiers who expect unrivalled beauty, design flexibility, a stunningly realistic hardwood finish, high performance, very low maintenance, and a product that is Class A1 fire rated, slip resistant, CE and EPD certified, and wind-uplift ready. rynogroup.co.uk

INT005

TALASEY GROUP’S PIRANHA COLLECTION

Hahn Plastics Ltd’s innovative product INT005 125 x 50, a recycled plastic substructure, is a game-changer for forward-thinking landscapers, offering unparalleled longevity, resisting rot, splintering, and pests. Its eco-friendly composition aligns with sustainability commitments, while providing a robust foundation for luxury composite boards. Hahn's recycled substructure promises durability, cost savings over time, and an eco-conscious choice, redefining the standards for outdoor spaces in the contemporary landscape. hahnplastics.com

Terrafuzion is a range of three superior composite decking products. Each board shows an enhanced woodgrain finish and is dual-sided to reveal two different shades of the same colour palette. These are: Espresso/Mocha, Sandstone/Island Mist and Slate/Graphite. The collection offers maximum performance with its heavy-duty capped surface, meaning it has a higher resistance to staining and scratching. All Piranha composite products are responsibly sourced and constructed from a combination of FSC 100% timber and recycled HDPE plastic. piranhadecking.co.uk

HAHN PLASTICS LTD

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Terrafuzion decking boards

New to the UK market this year, French brand Grad is Grad an aluminium rail that sits beneath decking (or cladding) to make the installation process more accurate and efficient. Boards can easily be clipped onto the railing – and removed, if necessary – allowing air flow beneath the boards and removing the need for nails or screws. The clips have been attached to the rails in the factory, so they are already perfectly aligned and spaced. gradconcept.com

GRAD

Ecodek has launched its new capped decking Evolution collection – Evolution. These deck boards are the first to feature EcoTechTM, an outer layer that provides a highly textured woodgrain finish and extra protection against stains and fading. Underneath, its solid core provides strength, durability, and longevity, whilst its hidden clip system leaves a seamless finish. Available in light and dark brown, black, and light and dark grey, Evolution comes in two standard lengths – 3.6m and 4.8m – and can be cut to sizes from 1.5m to 6m. It is rot, split and slip resistant and manufactured in the UK from 90% recycled and sustainably sources materials. ecodek.co.uk

ECODEK

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PRODUCTS

Supplying

SUSTAINABILITY

ith several manufacturing sites across the UK, BSW Timber is a large-scale producer of certified timber products for various industries and applications. Grown to have over 3,000 employees and a £1bn turnover, BSW Group is now not only the leading sawmiller in the country, but the largest timber and forestry business as a whole. It sells more than 35 million saplings a year to planting schemes across the country,“from importer of timber in the world, the seed all the way through to behind China and now the US,” the sawn product, we've got some explains Brennan. sort of interest,” says James Planting more trees in the UK Brennan, head of marketing at is key to resolving this, he adds.“As BSW Group, who has been a forest management business, with the company for we've planted a billion over seven years now, trees, which is placing himself obviously fairly Our aim at firmly at the significant BSW is to reduce heart of the given the business and climate the reliance on all that it agenda.” imported materials stands for Although and to get people – sustainability. Scotland's to back British The BSW leading the message is to way in the UK’s encourage more tree planting use of homegrown quota, it has still only materials and to support the planted half of its target this industry. “As a country, we year.“It's alright saying we need to actually import 82% of the timber use more material that has been we use, which is huge. That manufactured in the country, but makes us the third largest we need to be actually planting

Founded in 1848, BSW Timber has become the largest UK sawmilling company, working to boost sustainability and secure a future that is both grown and made in Britain

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

more trees, otherwise we’re not going to be able to support and sustain that. It seems absurd to be so reliant on imported materials when we have the land for not only planting, but also utilising the

natural resources that we have in in the UK," says Brennan. “Our aim at BSW is to reduce the reliance on imported materials and to get people to back British. Which is why Made in Britain is so important within timber especially.” Made in Britain brings together brands that are manufacturing their products in Britain and its members are recognisable through the use of its registered collective mark. “What we're trying to achieve as a business and why we need to encourage people to buy more Made in Britain products is because of the support it provides the British industry.”

Alongside this, is the Grown in Britain initiative. Over recent years there has been an increasing emphasis on the importance of source.“People want to support our nation’s woodlands and forests by purchasing local timber products and major construction companies, high street retailers and public authorities are demanding certified and accredited products as part of their procurement policies.” BSW has taken on both responsibilities, combining grown and made together, and the company says this "works quite nicely as this means that the product is not just manufactured in Britain, but grown and produced here too, rather than having come from overseas. Both Made in Britain and Grown in Britain are "entirely different but complement each other.” BSW offers a comprehensive basket of products – so rather than having to go to a number of suppliers, customers can find all that they need in one place.

Backed by the fact that it continues to plant trees and manage these woodlands, Brennan and the team at BSW are going above and beyond to ensure that they’re looking after the future of forestry in this country. bsw.co.uk

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We’re fully stocked for the new planting season Green-tech is the largest supplier of tree planting materials in the UK • Huge range of shelters, guards, spirals, stakes, canes and sundries, in stock and ready for dispatch • The largest official distributor of Tubex shelters

Bringing you new and innovative products • Rainbow Terra shelters, the first and only certified soil biodegradable tree and vine shelter • Made from UK wood and plant-based resin, Rainbow Terra Shelters have excellent light transmission, ensuring optimum growth

Delivering a sustainable future for tree protection • Extensive range of sustainable and biodegradable tree planting products, including NexGen, Tubex Nature and Rainbow Terra • Collection and recycling service, providing new life for used shelters and spirals

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PRODUCTS

BACK to the ROOTS Grown in open ground opposed to containers are bareroot plants – the way forward or more hassle than they’re worth?

ENGLISH WOODLANDS

oing back to the roots of supply, there’s a method of planting whereby dormant plants are dug, transported, and replanted without the restrictions of heavy potting or root balls. Various species of trees, hedgerow, and flowers are planted from seed in vast open ground where their roots have the space and depth to spread and grown without restrictions. Available to be extracted between the the ground and covered over with the months of November and March when the plants lie dormant, they can be necessary soil. dug up as and when required for transportation to a new location where Bareroot is easier to transport in large they are replanted straight into open ground. numbers too, says Carter, as there is no At Wyevale Nurseries, bareroot is the foundation of the company, dating pot required, less compost, no plastic and back to 1930 when owner Harry Williams first began to grow within baked therefore less overall labour, making it bean tins or paint pots following a trip to America where he gained more sustainable and environmentally planting inspiration, having originally approached a jam factory for use friendly. “The main disadvantage of of their used jars. Wyevale says container grown products have been the bareroot is the danger of the roots drying out between extracting and superior choice for the majority of its customer base, until now with the replanting which means the transfer time is limited to hours or days. launch of its new website specifically for the rising demand of bareroot. However, this is an issue that can be easily managed. At English Key account manager at Wyevale, John Lawrence spoke of how the use Woodlands, we supply a sugar cane planting bag which has a black of bareroot has changed over time. Machinery is now used to pluck the inner and white outer lining and as long as they remain tied, they hold desired plants out of the ground and gently remove the soil from moisture and ensure the roots don’t dry out before planting.” around the root.“We then store and send them out. Arriving Lawrence takes a different approach. Using a cold store, with the customer with a fully developed fibre system that's which controls temperature and humidity to ensure the ready to go, they can just put straight in the ground.” root remains moist,“temperatures are set to around two Joanne Carter, sales director for English to four degrees Celsius, and humidity is set to 90 to Woodlands, says bareroot products are generally 100%”. This allows the plants to stay in prime three to 10 times condition between being extracted and cheaper than delivered to the customer. those grown in The alternative mentioned by both nurseries is ball-root or to heal the root before planting, which involves the Joanne Carter, sales director, containers. They making of a small trench for the plants to lie within English Woodlands tend to have and be covered in soil, giving the plant the necessary a stronger root system nutrients before planting. since they're grown out in Both Carter and Lawrence say that the trends for the use the field and therefore have a higher of bareroot planting revolve around large planting numbers within root mass and stronger root system, a shorter timeline, with bulk orders for commercial projects being key. which also allows them to adapt to Carter suggests that “there's a huge trend towards woodland hedge and their new environment quicker fruit trees; they are particularly popular at the moment, and we believe JOANNE CARTER OF when transplanted. Faster and easier this is due to increased environmental awareness, biodiversity, and ENGLISH WOODLANDS to plant, they can simply be placed in assistance for wildlife.”

They tend to have a stronger root system since they're grown out in the field

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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Design: TIM Exclusive Gardens Photography: Olivr Installer: Awood

THE REVOLUTIONARY INVISIBLE FIXING SYSTEM CLADDING

DECKING

Interior, exterior walls and ceilings

INVISIBLE FIXING

Boards clip directly onto the Grad® system removing the need to screw or nail directly into the wood.

EASY-FIT

Installation on most ground types

PRECISION ALIGNMENT

The unique concept of pre-equipped rails ensures perfect alignment on every installation.

LONG LIFE

The easy-to-fit system means training is quick and easy, and mistakes are minimised.

Engineered to warp less and survive longer in better condition due to improved ventilation and water management.

WWW.GRAD-SYSTEM.CO.UK

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Thanks to the Grad® system’s innovative design, installation times are more than 50% faster than traditional decking and cladding.

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18/10/2023 15:05:28

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PRODUCTS

Creating a

HEDGEROW HAVEN Hedging can offer privacy whilst also making a garden or development more biodiverse

iodiversity continues to be a buzz word, and for good reason. The introduction of Biodiversity Net Gain legislation might have been delayed, but developers have already started to introduce its principles in the hope of creating more wildlife-friendly developments. It’s not just commercial projects or new housing estates that can boost their biodiversity, though; domestic projects have plenty of opportunities too. And regardless of the size of the project, hedging is an ideal solution, serving a number of purposes, from boundary marker to screening, or wind barrier to pollution reduction; but with the right species, hedging can also provide a habitat for local wildlife.

“To encourage wildlife, a hedge should be

WYKEHAM dense to provide shelter and protection; but where possible should contain different species MATURE to provide food/nectar for as many different PLANTS birds, invertebrates and animals as possible. “When planting larger hedge plants, or instant hedging, it’s especially important to ensure that they are species suited to the conditions on site. Choosing the right plants for the right place is the first step in encouraging biodiversity and opting for native species suited to those conditions is often a sensible option but it can be limiting. "There will always be some sites where native species are the only permissible option, such as where planning stipulations place limitations; but if there is more freedom in species selection then be creative! Non-native plant species can be equally as attractive to wildlife, especially when it comes to berries for birds. Pyracantha can be a useful option for adding into an aging hawthorn hedge to scramble through to give evergreen cover as well as extending the season for flowers and berries but be careful as some species can be a little too efficient at self-seeding and may be too invasive for use on some sites.” wykehammatureplants.co.uk

PYRACANTHA

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CARPINUS BETULUS

biodiverse hedge has READYHEDGE "A a large number of varieties of plant in it. The traditional field hedges can have five to seven different species per metre and they are thought of as diverse. When planting a mixed hedge, it is normally 60% hawthorn and then other hedging plants such as hazel, field maple, and sloe. “In practice we find it best to plant three different types per metre as that makes it easier to calculate what is needed. When planting they need to be treated the same as any other hedging plant and cared for in the same way as well. We would avoid using things like Leylandii and Thuja. “These mixed hedges are very utilitarian and not very decorative so a Fagus sylvatica or Carpinus betulus hedge may be preferable in situations like this; and, if evergreen is wanted, taxus and Ilex are brilliant as well. “Whatever is used, even a single species hedge will give a home to a wide variety of flora and fauna and is still more biodiverse than a fence.” readyhedgeltd.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PROMOTION

THE ROBUSTNESS

of Readyhedge

The Worcestershire based nursery continues to hedge against adversity with continuous growth over the last two decades

ack in 2016, when the UK voted to leave the European Union, Simon Williamson saw an opportunity for British nurseries. “We’re naturally good growers,” he said, and Brexit had the potential to create a more cohesive industry. Seven years on and Simon’s initial optimism is being tested. The new Border Target Operating Model, which is being implemented over the next year, isn’t inspiring much confidence either for importing from the continent. “I can’t see how it’s going to work properly and how they’ll get the quantity that we import through in the time period,” says the founder of Worcestershire-based nursery Readyhedge. “The season is coming up now when the country gets a lot of imports from bareroot transplants and rootballs, for example, and the risk to plants if they’re held up at these

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

new border control points could cause a massive problem.” Then there’s the additional paperwork, the indecisiveness from government and the soaring costs associated with imports. Phytosanitary checks need to be carried out on either side of the border, adding further unnecessary and potentially costly delays. “There could be a lot of dead plants – who's paying for that?” It’s not just government, though, that is holding us back from grasping the opportunity provided by Brexit; it’s the industry-wide skills shortage. “We have enough soil variables and expertise over here, but we’re limited on staff who can deal with it; they need a lot more training and for people to get into horticulture. We can grow virtually everything over here. But the Dutch are more innovative; they can do it cheaper, and they invest in mechanisation.” We’re lagging behind, says Simon. “Nurseries have closed.

When I started in horticulture, there were so many other nurseries, but now nobody wants to go into horticulture and the land is being sold for development. We’re losing a lot of the expertise and children don’t want to carry on family businesses.” Fortunately, that’s not the case at Readyhedge. Simon’s children, Toby and Jess, are both looking to take over the family business in the future. Slowly, Simon is relinquishing some of his tasks to both of them. “It’s a feel-good business to be in, growing plants,” says Toby. “The government is setting up schemes to plant so many trees in so many years, and we’ve already been doing that for 20 years – producing plants and planting them in the ground. It’s a good business for the planet.” And despite the hurdles of Brexit, it’s a profitable business to be in, with a recent tweak to its branding – including a new logo – showing its desire to adapt and look ahead. “We’ve been fortuitous with the name Readyhedge – it's like Ronseal: it does what it says on the tin. So, we didn’t rebrand dramatically; it’s just a simple font change.” It’s a reminder, says Simon, that Readyhedge is at

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PROMOTION the forefront of hedging because that’s what it focuses on. “It can have its downsides, because you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, but it hasn’t been like that for us. We’ve managed to forge through and expand over the last 20 years.” It produces around 50,000m of instant hedging each year, and around two-thirds of this are sold directly to commercial clients but end up in a residential setting; its main clients are landscapers, garden designers and housebuilders. “Hedging is always going to be needed,” says Simon, and Readyhedge carved a niche for itself when it was first founded by introducing a product range that offered instant gratification. “We turned it into a whole system; if somebody ordered a metre of hornbean hedging 10 years ago, it would be exactly the same to order now because we have a production system with no real variation year on year in quality. It’s like it’s come out of a machine.” But its well-oiled machine might get a bit of a shakeup thanks to the new peat legislation. The professional horticultural sector is expected to phase out peat by 2026 with some exceptions, followed by

THE NURSERY FROM ABOVE

Schemes could become more expensive with the amount of maintenance required for plants growing in peat-free mediums too, he predicts. It might sound like there’s a lot for the nursery industry to contend with at the moment – and there is, there’s no denying it. But Simon remains optimistic and is exploring plans to further enhance its main site in Pershore as well as to expand as the site has become “sort of landlocked”. Readyhedge already has contract growers in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, another site in Worcestershire, as well as sites further afield in Ireland and Holland. “But

at the end of the day, we make more money when we do it ourselves.” A new greenhouse is in the works at Pershore to prevent fewer deaths of less hardy evergreen stock throughout the winter, after Readyhedge lost more than £100k of evergreen stock at the start of last December when the temperature dropped to minus 12oC – extreme

We’ve been fortuitous with the name Readyhedge – it's like Ronseal: it does what it says on the tin

a complete ban from 2030. Readyhedge has reduced its peat usage by 40% and is now working towards Defra’s ultimate deadline. Few have tried going peat free with hedging, though, so there’s little trial and error to go by, says Toby. “We have had to do it ourselves and so, this year, we are doing a big peat-free trial.” Whilst all nurseries are striving to reduce and eventually eradicate their use of peat, there are concerns about less water retention when using peat-free alternatives. “The world’s biggest problem is water supply, and we will be using more water,” explains Simon. And it’s about a third more too, shares Toby. Increased watering also results in more runoff, stripping fertiliser, so a higher concentration may need to be used – and prices of fertiliser have gone up, says Simon.

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temperatures seem slightly harder to predict. Admittedly, the “halcyon days” of sales during the pandemic are over. But as Simon says, hedging is always in demand, and by sticking to what it knows, Readyhedge is primed to meet this demand. readyhedgeltd.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PRODUCTS JOHN CHAMBERS WILDFLOWER SEED John Chambers Wildflower Matting

WILD ONES

PICTORIAL MEADOWS Purple Haze Pictorial Meadows™ Turf Purple Haze is one of Pictorial Meadows™ much-improved colour-themed favourites. It is a well-structured meadow for all sorts of soil conditions and locations. Colours are

Find a diverse mix of species and aesthetics with wildflower turf

John Chambers Wildflower Matting is a balanced mixture of native wildlifefriendly wildflowers and grasses in a pre-grown matting that provides an instant wildflower meadow. It is grown in a special substrate which is designed to aid fast establishment. Wildflower matting is pollinator-friendly, quick and easy to install and requires very little maintenance; usually one cut per year, after seed has set. It provides first year colour and offers long-flowering, diverse displays. John Chambers Wildflower Matting is ideal for general landscaping projects, bespoke garden designs, specialist landscaping and golf courses. johnchamberswildflowers.co.uk

LINDUM TURF Wildflower Turf

GRASSLANDS Species Rich Wildflower Turf

Having spent more than 30 years trying to eliminate ‘weeds’ from his beloved Rysport turf, Simon Baxter, managing director of Grasslands, is now perfecting ways of getting native plant species back in.“Our family business is predominantly focused on the new-build housing market, where the cost of wildflower turf has always been a barrier. But our pioneering methods allow us to highly mechanise wildflower production and pass on considerable savings to our customers”.

Clover Turf

As winner of the Sustainable Garden Product of the Year award at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023, it will come as no surprise that Lindum Turf’s Wildflower Turf is great for the environment. Not only does the mix of 27 wildflower species provide fantastic habitat for pollinators, but the turf is also produced on a 100% natural, non-polluting growing medium. Lindum Turf has pioneered turf growing without the use of plastic meshing that once buried, degrades into microplastics. This means that you can create an instant wildflower meadow that enhances biodiversity and is kind to the earth. turf.co.uk/wildflower

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Never one to willingly turn down a sale, Grasslands’ Frank Webster found his antennae twitching after the third enquiry for a clover-rich turf product. He contacted the team at Germinal Seeds to see if they had a solution. As luck would have it, they were working on a cultivar of clover which would be perfect for

inclusion in lawn turf. Its climate smart DoubleRoot clover gives exceptional performance in challenging summer conditions, and combining it with Grasslands’ Rysport turf means it can stand up to everyday pedestrian traffic. grasslands-turf.co.uk

predominantly purples and white, with spikes of blue for contrast. This meadow develops a very naturalistic look as it matures and is equally at home in urban and rural settings. If left uncut as late as possible, Purple Haze provides great autumn/winter season seed heads for birds. An instant impact perennial meadow, this mix contains 31 different flowering perennial species, formulated to create densities of over 150 plants per metre. pictorialmeadows.co.uk

WILDFLOWER TURF MeadowScape Pro™ – Native Enriched Introducing MeadowScape Pro™ – Native Enriched, a groundbreaking creation from Wildflower Turf's pioneering research lab. This pre-seeded growing medium cuts seeding establishment time from three to five years down to three to four months. The innovation lies in its purity-tested seed blend within a peat-free, weed-free, lightweight material, boasting Hydropor™ technology for superior moisture retention, and rapid germination.The Native Enriched mix features 29 UK native wildflowers and 23 naturalised perennial and annual blooms. To install, simply prepare the area and apply the MeadowScape Pro™ at a one-inch depth. Keep it damp for four to six weeks post-installation and watch the wildflower meadow flourish. wildflowerturf.co.uk

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GRASSLANDS’ SPECIES RICH WILDFLOWER TURF OUR AUTUMN CROP IS N OW READY TO HARVEST

Enjoy huge savings and win contracts with our rate of £7.75/m2 plus £80 delivery (both subject to VAT)

Typical seed mix Species

Description

Centaurea nigra

Common Knapweed

Percentage 5.00

Ranunculus acris

Meadow Butter Cup

1.00

Linum usitatissimum

Flax

1.00

Lotus corniculatus

LEO Lotus corniculatus

7.50

Medicago lupulina

VIRGO Medicago lupulina

3.00

Plantago lanceolata

Ribwort Plantain

2.00

Galium verum

Lady’s Bedstraw

2.00

Trifolium repens

ABERLASTING (small/med)

7.50

Prunella vulgaris

Self heal

2.00

Achillea millefolium

YARROW

1.00

Silene dioica

Red Campion

0.40

Silene alba

White Campion

0.40

Filipendula ulmaria

Meadow Sweet

2.00

Agrimonia eupatorium

Agrimony

8.00

Leucanthemum vulgare

Oxeye Daisy

3.00

Onobrychis vicifolia

Sainfoin

6.00

Malva moschata

Musk Mallow

1.00

Vicia sativa

Common Vetch

2.00

• Our Species Rich Wildflower Turf comes palletised in easy-to-lay conventional rolls, as does our conventional Rysport turf, not awkward slabs.

Digitalis purpurea

Foxglove

0.75

• In the warmer months, our Species Rich Wildflower Turf is chilled to alleviate sod heating.

• Our Species Rich Wildflower Turf is a mix of wildflower species, selected for their environmental, sustainability and aesthetic benefits, with fine grasses for added interest and durability. Generally, the wildflower element will amount to 80%+ as it matures. • Our Species Rich Wildflower Turf does not require low fertility soils to thrive. However, it may be better to avoid laying on green waste-rich manufactured soils.

• Simply lay our Species Rich Wildflower Turf as you would Rysport. THE MOST CRITICAL ELEMENT IS WATERING! • Our Species Rich Wildflower Turf is PROUDLY PLASTIC FREE and comes on recycled and recyclable pallets. Every effort is made to provide this broad range of species. However, our Species Rich Wildflower Turf is a natural product and some species may not survive or thrive subject to local conditions.

For further details please contact Frank: Mobile 07747 863398 Email frank@grasslands-turf.co.uk

Trifolium pratense

Red Clover

1.00

Daucus carota

Wild Carrot

0.75

Stachys officinalis

Betony

0.50

Rhinanthus minor

Yellow Rattle

3.00

Agrostemma githago

Corncockle

5.00

Papaver rhoeas

Corn Poppy

0.20

Centaurea cyanus

Cornflower

3.00

Anthemis arvensis

Corn Chamomile

0.50

Chrysanthemum segetum

Corn Marigold

Anthriscus sylvestris

Cow Parsley

2.00 0.50

Sanguisorba minor

Salad Burnet

1.50

Lathyris pratensis

Meadow Vetchling

6.50

Anthoxanthum odoratum

Sweet Vernal Grass

5.00

Trisetum flavescens

Golden Oat Grass

5.00

Phleum bertolonii

TENO

2.50

Other

7.50 100%

grasslands-turf.co.uk

PROMOTION

THE ADVANTAGES OF

SOWING YOUR TURF

during the autumn season

Pictorial Meadows shares the best time to consider laying turf and reasons behind this

f you’re looking for a simple way to transform your project into a blossoming tapestry of colour this autumn, then look no further than our Pictorial Meadows™ turf. Pictorial Meadows™ meadow turf products provide a range of landscape solutions that combine flexibility, ease of installation and maintenance, along with unique combinations of beautiful and resilient plants to create colourful and sustainable garden landscapes. Autumn is the best time to lay our flower meadow turf. Here, we explain why. Easier ground preparation When laying turf, you will need to clear the existing vegetation from your site. You do this by hand weeding or digging. Clearing vegetation will be simplest in late summer/early autumn when herbaceous

WOODLAND EDGE, BSKYB

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

THE GARDEN ROUTE, ST AUSTELL

plants have yet to die back, and you can still see them. You will also find that the ground is more likely to be dry and workable. Stronger establishment Pictorial Meadows™ turf is a resilient product composed of a wide range of hardy perennial flowers, but we still want to reduce the risk of drying out before rooting. When we lay turf in the autumn, moist conditions mean that the turf roots will be able to supply the leaves with water,

while warm conditions will encourage these roots to move quickly into the soil and access deeper moisture. With any planting, the main aim is to reduce the impact of ‘transplant shock’. This means trying to reduce the chance of a plant drying out before its roots become able to find and supply water to the leaves. In the example of glasshouse raised vegetables, we gradually acclimatise them to outdoor conditions before planting on open windy sites where they could quickly desiccate. With trees, we water copiously in the first two years while their roots are growing out of the planting hole. Shortening days and cooling temperatures will limit growth and flowering, with many plants gradually moving into winter dormancy. This means that by the time spring comes around, the turf will have had at least six months to root before beginning to grow strongly and flower.

Widest range of turf Turf availability is lowest in summer while the season’s crop is still maturing and highest in autumn when the turf is first ready to lift and sell. We produce a variety of turf mixes suitable for a range of conditions. By ordering in autumn, you will always have the greatest choice. Time to lay your turf Ultimately, you can usually prepare ground, obtain and lay turf without irrigation until around mid-April in most years. We are, however, seeing increasingly hot, dry springs and the later you lay turf, the greater the chance you will need to irrigate. If you’re planning a turf project now, we suggest laying between the beginning of November and the end of December for the best results.

At Pictorial Meadows, we’re here to assist you every step of the way. Browse our range of designer meadow turf: pictorialmeadows.co.uk If you have any queries about your project or our turf products, please contact our friendly team online or call 0114 267 7635.

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30 UNDER 30

©Tim Howell

’S

The class of 2023

prolandscapermagazine.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2022

AT LAST, NON-COMBUSTIBLE DECKING THAT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE WOOD. With a successful track record of over 30 years in decking systems for balconies and terraces, RYNO® is proud to launch its new, visually stunning, Vitrified Composite™ decking board. Boasting a sensationally realistic wood-effect finish, it provides architects, designers and specifiers with outstanding performance while replicating a classic timber aesthetic, indistinguishable from its natural counterpart. RYNO’s Vitrified Composite is the latest addition to its high-performing, Class A1 fire-rated selection of available decking solutions.

A beautiful wood-effect finish RYNO’s Vitrified Composite decking is available in a selection of striking wood-effect finishes, ranging from Brazilian Walnut to Himalayan Birch. All five finishes achieve a stunningly authentic hard-wood feel, and the various hues and tones ensure the boards can be seamlessly integrated into a wide range of projects. Providing customers with the right choice of finishing systems is at the heart of RYNO’s philosophy. While there is always a strong focus on premium quality materials and noncombustible innovation (see IGNO), aesthetic appeal remains top-of-mind. Modern manufacturing methods for the perfect product Vitrified Composite decking boards are extruded from a composition of clays and feldspar and fired (or vitrified) in the same way as porcelain. Because of this, the boards share many properties with porcelain decking, such as stain and fire resistance. Whilst also benefiting from a composite construction which offers a resistance to moisture, fading and weathering. For instance, Vitrified Composite boards receive a class A1 fire rating, ensuring they are well-suited to remediation projects and could be an effective alternative to conventional decking components. Low maintenance decking for carefree enjoyment. Project managers and construction professionals will appreciate the very low maintenance requirements that come with Vitrified Composite decking. Beyond simple cleaning, the boards need little else to ensure they retain their striking finish and original aesthetic appeal. When treated with care, the boards remain scratchresistant, making them a very good choice for high-traffic areas. Slip and scratch resistant decking great for high traffic applications. Vitrified Composite boasts excellent slip resistance making this material an excellent choice for all hightraffic terrace applications. All five finishes received the “low slip risk” classification.

FIND OUT MORE AT RYNOGROUP.CO.UK

Quality and safety certified! As with all RYNO products, Vitrified Composite boards are CE-marked and conform with all relevant European health, safety, and environmental protection standards. An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is available for those interested in comparing the environmental impact of their construction materials. RYNO’s Vitrified Composite boards represent the next evolution in decking technology. They combine a striking wood-effect finish with the aesthetic allure of composite decking, they are an excellent choice for projects where there can be no compromise between aesthetics and performance. Our Class A1 fire-rated wood finish was inspired by nature and designed for life: take a closer look at our TerraSmart® Vitrified Composite™ decking system and see it in person at London Build 2023 | Stand F44

30 UNDER 30

From the sponsor

’S

entoring, encouraging sustainable practices, reaching senior leadership positions and encouraging ED&I in the landscaping industry – these are just a few of the ambitions of the winners of this year’s 30 Under 30: The Next Generation in association with Green-tech. They’re eager to grow the reach of their companies, to explore fauna and flora in other countries and to set up their own organisations and charities. They’re passionate about biodiversity, peat-free production and inclusive design. It is a privilege to read the numerous and wide-ranging goals of our winners, all with their own unique career paths. Over the next few pages, you’ll see passionate people from garden design, sales and marketing, grounds maintenance, nurseries and growers, arboriculture, landscape architecture and podcasting, to name a few. Some are showcasing how non-visible disabilities need not hold you back or are eager to draw a more diverse pool of talent to horticulture, be it more women or those from the LGBTQ+ community. Their ideas for how to improve the landscaping industry (page 74) also emphasise why it is so important that we continue to explore ways to tackle the skills shortage. Attracting the next generation of horticulturists brings with it forward-thinking approaches and innovative ideas and an aversion to simply following the norm. Every year, I’m in awe of our winners and their achievements so far, as well as the achievements which are yet to come. I’d also like to thank Green-tech for continuing to help us to reward and recognise our winners and for ensuring its own employees are supported and offered opportunities for development in their own careers. Congratulations to the class of 2023!

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Nina

“Congratulations to all winners of Pro Landscaper’s 30 Under 30: The Next Generation awards. Green-tech is proud to sponsor this initiative which seeks to find and profile 30 rising stars within our industry. The awards help to highlight first-hand the career opportunities available within our sector and demonstrate that roles within landscaping, horticulture, arboriculture, and garden design are a meaningful and respected choice. All 30 winners are shining examples of what hard work and determination looks like. Pro Landscaper provides a valued platform to showcase your skills and achievements whilst inspiring those that follow in your footsteps. To be named as a winner is a significant achievement and one which singles you out and provides the opportunity to promote yourself and boost your career. Congratulations once again.”

KRIS NELLIST MANAGING DIRECTOR, GREEN-TECH

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Proud sponsors of:

Award-winning landscapes start here • A trusted supplier to the landscaping, forestry and construction industries for over a quarter of a century • Over 10,000 product lines with extensive stockholding and a robust supply chain • Renowned for our professional advice and excellent customer care • Nationwide, flexible and next day delivery options • A comprehensive programme of CPD seminars and training seminars

T: 01423 332100 www.green-tech.co.uk sales@green-tech.co.uk @greentechltd

@greentechuk

green-tech-ltd

Landscape • Forestry • Construction • Ecology • Groundworks • Specification • Grounds Maintenance

30 UNDER 30: THE WINNERS

GEORGE BARTON

ASHLEIGH AYLETT

KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER, GREEN-TECH

LANDSCAPE DESIGNER, ERLAM STUDIO + JOHN DAVIES LANDSCAPE With a philosophy revolving around the principle that design should be approached from the inside out, Ashleigh Aylett started by studying interior design, winning New Designer of the Year. But after five years, her fascination with nature in gardens and landscapes became increasingly clear, so she decided to pursue this underlying passion as a career. Aylett achieved her RHS Level 2 qualifications and became a member of the team at Emily Erlam and John Davies' collaborative London studio. She is also actively involved in a community woodland garden in Bedfordshire and is hoping to inspire and nurture others to choose a career path in horticulture.

Age

KELSEY BRACE

Age

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Age

CHARLIE CHAMBERLAIN TEAM LEADER, TIVOLI GROUP LTD

HEAD OF MARKETING, PRIMETHORPE PAVING After helping his father and brother on various construction projects throughout school holidays, Kelsey Brace then watched his family start working on the first landscaping project when he was at university. It was a distraction, he says – and though he completed his degree, he went straight into the family business once he’d graduated. Since then, Brace says he has spent the last eight years building a reliable supply chain across the globe, enhancing internal systems and reaching out to local landscapers. Turnover has increased ten-fold in this time, and now that Primethorpe Paving has become the “go-to supplier” for many in Peterborough, Brace wants to expand this across the entire country to be the reliable option for all landscapers in the UK.

Throughout his five years at Green-tech, George Barton has been recognised for his passion, commitment and drive. He started working in warehouse and dispatch before joining the sales team as soon as a role became available and has since received several promotions – his latest being to the role of key account manager, looking after a database of around 40 landscapers which contribute a significant percentage to the company’s overall turnover. He says he is truly proud to be working on some of the biggest landscaping and forestry projects in the UK. Last year, Barton became a GoLandscape ambassador to help inspire the next generation into the industry.

Age

Charlie Chamberlain started as an apprentice three days after leaving school and hasn’t looked back since. For the last 10 years, he has been working on an active MOD airfield and last year was promoted to team leader, managing a team of two and ensuring high standards are met. He is undertaking a Level 3 Supervisor course, having already undertaken an array of qualifications, and earlier this year his team was awarded Team of the Quarter for the South Region at Tivoli for its role in preparing The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for The Royal Sovereigns Parade and a visit from the King.

RYAN CLARK

LANDSCAPE SUPERVISOR, OAK VIEW LANDSCAPES LTD

Completing a Level 3 diploma in Horticulture left Ryan Clark hooked on a career in landscaping. He even scooped the BALI Chalk Fund’s Student of the Year award. Oak View Landscapes was recommended to him by his college tutor, so he joined the company in 2017 and has since pushed himself to take on any challenge that comes his way and value each opportunity. With a drive to impress and excel, he runs his own external team, installing and completing commercial developments. He is also part of Oak View Landscape’s working group committee, feeding back to the board of directors to continue to enhance the company. He aims to work his way up the ladder at Oak View Landscapes and become recognised by his peers as synonymous with a quality installation.

Age

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30 UNDER 30: THE WINNERS

CHARLOTTE COLE

WILD MAX DENTON DIRECTOR, BY DESIGN LTD

Age

ABI FAIRBROTHER ACCOUNTS MANAGER, PALMER LANDSCAPES LTD

A passion for numbers and an appreciation of the natural world drew Abi Fairbrother to join a landscaping company. The prospect of working in an industry that contributes to creating and maintaining beautiful outdoor spaces resonated with her values and has brought a sense of fulfilment that went beyond the routine tasks of accounting and administration. Fairbrother plans to leave a lasting mark on the sector with a peoplecentred approach and a focus on sustainability. She has played a crucial role in developing and implementing a sustainable purchasing policy at Palmer Landscapes and aims to become known for championing sustainable practices.

REBECCA FRYER CONTRACTS MANAGER, NURTURE LANDSCAPES LTD

As the youngest female contracts manager at Nurture Landscapes, Rebecca Fryer manages a team of 25 grounds maintenance staff across a wide portfolio of static sites. Fryer joined the grounds maintenance industry in her early 20s, progressing from administrator to a more practical role where she was able to gain hands-on experience and an appreciation of the work she was carrying out. She took a five-year break from the industry, but her passion brought her back and she joined Nurture Landscapes in 2021. Fryer is building her skills to progress to a leadership position and would love to encourage other women into operational based roles.

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Max Denton founded Wild by Design in 2018 to create a garden design and construction business that is focused on giving private clients the opportunity to affect change in their own garden through wildlife friendly landscapes. Denton says it has been “the most rewarding five years” in which the company has gone from just him and co-director Tarun Aluvihare to employing four people and has also become a member of the British Association of Landscape Industries. Denton hopes that the work by Wild by Design inspires both children and adults to become passionate about protecting wildlife, and to build a business that looks after its employees and is regarded as one of the best in the industry for quality, design and customer service.

HORTICULTURIST/PODCAST PRESENTER, THE MACROBERT TRUST/FOR THE LOVE OF PLANTS PODCAST

At just 19 years old, Charlotte Cole already has a lot to be proud of. She began her career hoarding houseplants in her early teens, going on to become co-presenter of the podcast, For the Love of Plants and a member of the Young People in Horticulture Association. Up until recently, Cole was a seasonal gardener for Exbury Gardens and a private gardener. She moved to Scotland in September to become a trainee gardener with the renowned MacRobert Trust before undertaking sustainable agroforestry in Brazil, where she hopes to develop the food forest and learn about Brazilian flora and management. Cole has numerous ambitions, all of which equate to supporting and promoting the preservation and appreciation of plants and landscaping.

Age

GEORGE GAIA HOLMES ACIHort

Age

HORTICULTURIST/ PODCAST PRESENTER, THE MACROBERT TRUST/FOR THE LOVE OF PLANTS PODCAST George Gaia Holmes discovered the healing benefits of horticulture during the pandemic and started growing their own plants – a fate they say had been staring them in the face their whole life as the name George means ‘one who works with the earth’. They are now a qualified horticulturist, co-hosting For the Love of Plants podcast. George has a long list of achievements already, including being accepted on the first RHS Youth Engagement Panel, twice being a regional finalist for the Young Horticulturist of the Year, speaking (and helping to organise) Sparsholt College’s second Pride event, and training as a mental health first aider for the Young People in Horticulture Association.

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

30 UNDER 30: THE WINNERS

DANNY GREEN

ACCOUNT MANAGER, CROWDERS NURSERIES

With a passion for plants from a young age and an even bigger passion for business, Danny Green believes that a career in this industry is important due to the impact it can have on people’s lives. Whilst studying Horticulture, he was part of the Young Gardeners of the Year team at the Ideal Home Show, and on graduating, Green went to work for Hortus Loci, helping the nursery to achieve its best results yet as show plant manager. Through his own personal experiences, Green has learnt the value of well-considered outdoor spaces and the value these can have on a person’s mental health. His long-term goal is to set up a charity that would renovate the gardens of hospitals, mental health centres and homeless accommodation.

HARRY HOBLYN

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DIRECTOR AND NURSERY MANAGER, RYMER TREES LTD

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EMMA HINDLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, GROUND CONTROL

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From suggesting small improvements for playgrounds to working on major, multi-million-pound solar farm and renewable energy schemes, Emma Hindle thrives on the diversity of her role. She’s an advocate for a nature-first approach and has developed new techniques as well as a newfound confidence since being enrolled in Ground Control Academy’s management course. Hindle hopes to become a thought leader in landscaping and encourage more women to join the sector by showcasing the opportunities available and mentoring those who require support.“Wider representation of women in senior roles is only a positive thing for the industry and I will relish the opportunity to learn and develop into such a role.”

ANNABELLE HODD Age

OWNER AND SENIOR DESIGNER, IVY AND WHYTE GARDEN DESIGN SUSSEX

Since joining the landscape industry, Annabelle Hodd says she has gained a new appreciation for the world in which we live and for those who help to build and sustain it. She was previously an architectural designer, and though her transition to landscape design was challenging, Annabelle says there is no better feeling than helping someone to fall in love with their garden and nature. She joined Ivy & Whyte two years ago before setting up her own franchise of the company last year, going from part-time assistant to owner in a short space of time. Hodd believes that a career in this industry is not just a job; it is a path towards empowering individuals and addressing global challenges.

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Harry Hoblyn tried to resist the allure of working with plants for as long as possible, having come from an agricultural and horticultural family. He even started a degree in Forensic Computing. But by his early 20s, he felt the pull to work outdoors and switched to a degree in Horticulture and has since helped to build a peat-free tree nursery from the ground up, after being approached by three people to start Rymer Trees. It is now more than halfway through its second season and growing without peat “seems to be working”, says Hoblyn. He wants as many trees as possible used in landscaping to be responsibly sourced and for Rymer Trees to establish trees, not just plant them.

DANIEL JOHNSON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, WATG Eager to make a difference, Daniel Johnson thrives on the challenges of shaping the future, with an emphasis on sustainability. He started his career in Canada as a design consultant for a not-for-profit, through which he collaborated with schools to transform their barren grounds into nature-based learning and play environments. Johnson then pursued a master's in Urban Design in London, concentrating on designing for climate change through nature-based approaches. WATG has proven to be the ideal canvas for him to blend his passions for design, nature, and travel. He has engaged in meaningful work that transcends the conventional boundaries of hospitality design.

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30 UNDER 30: THE WINNERS

MIHKEL KAJANUS

BRANDON KING

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KYLE LESLIE

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CONTRACTS MANAGER, NURTURE LANDSCAPES LTD

Working for an arboriculture company during his teenage years, Brandon King saw limited progression routes, choosing to move on to complete a management degree. Armed with more knowledge and experience, he felt equipped to delve back into the industry and get back outside doing what he loved. He started Broadleaf Midlands Tree Care Ltd, operating in the domestic sector, though has plans to expand into commercial contracts. King is keen for his long-term goals to be centered around sustainable practices, leaving a greener legacy for future generations, and has set up a ‘Planet Promise’ to donate a tree to be planted to a UK woodland for each tree Broadleaf needs to remove for its customers, alongside other initiatives.

SOPHIE LOCKHART CONSULTANT LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, WSP Having always had a passion for the great outdoors, Sophie Lockhart saw landscape architecture as an opportunity to enhance, protect and adapt landscapes for an uncertain future, with a goal of becoming a leading voice in an industry that has the potential to bring about positive change. Hoping to better respond to the growing challenges associated with climate change, Lockhart believes “there has never been a better, nor more important time to change the way in which we view our landscape.” She graduated with a distinction in landscape architecture and says she has a passion for the natural environment as a positive driver for change.

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ELSA MELROSE Following two weeks' work experience in a local garden centre, Kyle Leslie expressed an interest in a career in landscape gardening from an early age. After leaving secondary school to begin working for Nurture Landscapes Ltd as an apprentice in 2012, Leslie is now the contracts manager at the same business park (Aztec West), managing a portfolio of just under 100 sites – 15 of which were entered into The Green Organization's Green Apple Awards in 2022, all achieving Gold. With a passion and love for learning, Leslie aims to develop the biodiversity side of the business and continue to expand sustainable planting.

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DIRECTOR, BROADLEAF MIDLANDS TREE CARE LTD

LANDSCAPE FOREMAN, GARDEN CLUB LONDON LTD At just 17 years old, Mihkel Kajanus was chosen to represent his home country of Estonia in landscaping at the World Skills 2015. His passion was evident from a young age; this, paired with his unwavering dedication and natural disposition for a challenge, has propelled him from award to award. After winning Gold at the APL World Skills UK competition in 2022, Kajanus went on to be a key member for the building of an RHS Chelsea Show Garden, winning a Silver Gilt medal. He hopes to continue working with Garden Club London overseeing high value projects.

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HORTICULTURIST, HARRY HOLDING STUDIO

Growing up in London, where nature and wildlife were not easily accessible, Elsa Melrose developed a strong interest in the relationship between people and the natural world, discovering the power to transform ordinary spaces into thriving ecosystems. Starting within a family-run nursery before obtaining a Level 2 Professional Gardener qualification, Melrose aspires to leave an indelible mark – a legacy of rekindled harmony between urban landscapes and the natural environment. She hopes to establish and run her own nursery that goes beyond plants and propagation but also serves as an educational hub for those who don’t have direct access to gardens and greenery.

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

30 UNDER 30: THE WINNERS

HENRY MILLS JUNIOR GARDEN DESIGNER, ARNE MAYNARD GARDEN DESIGN

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Henry Mills quickly gained broad experience in all the key aspects of the industry, learning from some truly inspirational mentors. Mills knew that gardens were his calling and having worked in a variety of roles within the landscaping industry over the last seven years, he chose to combine his passion for design and the outdoors and become a garden designer. Going from companies such as Bowles and Wyer – working as its youngest foreman – to undertaking the challenging London College of Garden Design diploma at Kew, Mills then applied for a job at Arne Maynard Garden Design and now enjoys every aspect of life as a junior designer.

WILL PETTITT

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DIRECTOR AND LANDSCAPER, TOPOFORMA LANDSCAPE As director of Topoforma Landscape Ltd, Will Pettit strives to have a high-quality finish on all projects for his clients to enjoy, displaying his skills for both the general public and industry professionals to view at prestigious shows such as RHS Chelsea, Hampton Court

SAMUEL MONAGHAN PRODUCTION MANAGER, WILDFLOWER TURF LTD

NURTURE ROBBIE PHIPPS GARDENER, LANDSCAPES LTD Having worked as a delivery driver, Robbie Phipps was struggling to see any further progression, so with a growing interest in the environment around him, Phipps decided to explore options that would allow him to make a difference. With no previous experience, Phipps started an apprenticeship with Nurture Landscape at Twycross Zoo, which is composed of 100 acres including a mixture of picnic areas, formal and informal hedging, and a tropical butterfly house. He is now going on to start a Level 3 Management and Supervision in Horticulture apprenticeship, looking ahead to a career and the opportunity to inspire people looking to explore a career in horticulture.

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JUNIOR LANDSCAPING SITE COORDINATOR, LANDFORM CONSULTANTS LTD

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

Practically minded, Samuel Monaghan decided to undertake a degree in Civil Engineering, but was keen to keep within the horticultural and agricultural sector, with a good eye for detail and an ability to think of the bigger picture to be creative and orient strategies in a progressive direction. As production manager at the Wildflower Turf nursery, Monaghan oversees the planning, management, and development of all growing, maintenance and dispatch of wildflower products at three UK sites, contributing wherever he can to keeping Wildflower Turf Limited at the forefront of green infrastructure development.

JACK READER and Tatton Park. This year, he achieved a gold medal at Chelsea for ‘St George’s Alight Here’ garden, working with designer and fellow 30 Under 30 winner Emma Tipping. Always using the highest quality materials and plants possible, Pettit works hard to further his carpentry skills and metal fabrication, aiming to allow his business to offer many different high-quality options for clients to have in their gardens.

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As junior site coordinator, Jack Reader is at the heart of site operations. Choosing the industry as a school leaver, going into it as a “green” 16-year-old apprentice, Reader has been fortunate enough in his first six years to have the privilege of seeing a project transfer from a paper plan and a patch of earth to an extraordinary landscape or garden. Having worked on some incredible projects, not least award-winning show gardens, Reader can see the bigger picture on site and feels that he can be useful to colleagues by sharing what he knows to make them feel more comfortable and informed.

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30 UNDER 30: THE WINNERS

HELEN STICKLING ARBORICULTURAL SUPPORT OFFICER, LONDON BOROUGH OF BROMLEY

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From a graduate intern for the environment services, Helen Stickling became a business support officer where she identified a strong interest with the tree team. Going on to work with arboricultural services, Stickling has been progressing in arboriculture ever since. Now working as the arboricultural support officer, she is working on how climate increases may cause a struggle for survival amongst native tree species. Stickling has compiled her knowledge from various seminars to produce a list of tree species which are predicted to survive in future climates in the hopes this forethought will have a positive impact for decades to come.

GEORGINA STRETCH CHARTERED LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, THE ROYAL PARKS

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Georgia Stretch admires the quality of custodianship achieved throughout the Royal Parks she works within and aspires to become part of its design and management history. Her passion for the industry is reflected in her academic and professional achievements, including undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional chartership successes. Working across 13 of The Royal Parks, having focused on Richmond and Bushy Parks working on a post-covid restoration project, she finds it deeply unsettling how we've witnessed the degradation of our natural world, and is now working hard to help restore our landscapes.

PENNY WALKER JUNIOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, ANN-MARIE POWELL GARDENS

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After spending hours designing gardens as a child, for Penny Walker, there was a clear and determined career path. She chose her GCSEs and A-Levels with landscape architecture in mind, and has been given more and more responsibility within her role which she feels is allowing her to progress. With delegated jobs from the senior landscape architect and senior garden designer, Walker could spend weeks drafting construction details, then the next moment be generating planting schedules. She hopes to progress further and grow into a knowledgeable and well-rounded employee.

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©Tim Howell

EMMA TIPPING GARDEN DESIGNER AND HORTICULTURIST, EMMA TAMSIN TIPPING GARDEN DESIGN

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Emma Tipping studied Cultural Geography at university which was the beginning of her love of landscape design. She is fascinated by the geographies of spaces and how the designs impact on how we feel and behave. With real-life experience, Tipping learnt the art of propagating, border planting, and maintenance, using different machinery and working in the kitchen garden which helped her to learn quickly and continues to inform her designs. She won a Silver medal in the RHS Young Designer of the Year competition at Tatton Park 2022 which led to the highlight of her career so far – winning a gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023.

TIM YOUNG REGIONAL MANAGER, COUNTRYWIDE CHESHIRE Over the past five years, Tim Young has been learning to run the family business. As the youngest regional manager for one of the largest franchises within Countrywide Grounds Maintenance in Cheshire, grounds maintenance has become a true passion, having watched his dad for inspiration. Since joining the company, Young has tried to always push team building, including numerous team events and growth sessions, looking to become a major part of the team to help the business become more sustainable and lower its carbon footprint. He wants to continue to empower his staff to achieve their goals, finding joy in seeing others achieve.

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Pro Landscaper | November 2023

30 UNDER 30

Celebrating and encouraging diversity encourages individuals from all backgrounds to contribute to landscaping from unique perspectives.

Getting apprentices on board would be good for businesses as they can be trained for the needs of the company and also gain relevant qualifications along the way.

More help should be available from the government to assist older horticultural businesses to transition into using modern technologies.

CHARLOTTE COLE

CHARLIE CHAMBERLAIN

More inclusivity for people to join the garden design industry where courses can be prohibitively expensive, deterring them from applying. HENRY MILLS

DANNY GREEN

What would make the landscaping industry better? Establishing comprehensive and structured professional development and training programmes within the landscape industry would be crucial.

If we are truly committed to ushering in a more sustainable era in our industry, then we have to learn to take more risks and experiment more with sustainable construction techniques.

Encouraging community engagement initiatives can foster a sense of purpose and pride among landscaping professionals

ASHLEIGH AYLETT

ABI FAIRBROTHER

ELSA MELROSE A focus on battery operated equipment...they are quieter, lighter and create less vibrations, which all help to improve the working conditions on site.

If it was advertised and celebrated more about the range of roles within the landscaping industry it would definitely be more attractive.

Inclusive design plays a key role in not only the integration of new spaces but also to creating better and more diverse landscapes for the future.

ANNABELLE HODD

SOPHIE LOCKHART A focus on battery operated equipment...they are quieter, lighter and create less vibrations, which all help to improve the working conditions on site.

ROBBIE PHIPPS

The removal of the stigma of mental and physical health in our industry.

Tax relief for companies that are facilitating planting of trees, laying meadows and generally improving our environment and wildlife.

Improving the perceived value of the industry from almost an afterthought at times and the first piece of a project to be ‘value engineered’, to an area that is seen as prestigious and necessary.

ROBBIE PHIPPS

SAM MONAGHAN

MAX DENTON

Social media is a big part of people’s lives now and our industry should have an increased social media presence. TIM YOUNG

JACK READER

Increased measures put in place by firms to welcome diversity and encourage inclusivity of all people.

More employment contracts than contracting. During certain times of the year, the workload dips, and those who are subcontracting can often find themselves short of work.

Promoting gender equality is crucial for a balanced and inclusive industry...Encouraging and supporting women's careers can help break down barriers and create a more equitable landscape industry. GEORGINA STRETCH

BRANDON KING

GEORGE GAIA HOLMES

As the cost-of-living increases, individuals may be forced to sacrifice careers that they are passionate about in order to secure a higher salary...Arboriculture can be an extremely strenuous and dangerous job, so salaries need to reflect that. HELEN STICKLING

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

More collaborations with experts in other industries – scientists, environmentalists, medical professionals – to show how landscaping contributes to tackling big social issues.

Other trades have qualifications that declare them as true professionals in the industry, making it more difficult for rogue traders to thrive. Landscaping could benefit massively from something like this.

EMMA TIPPING

KELSEY BRACE prolandscapermagazine.com

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G N I G A N MA CTATIONS

FEATURE

EXPE

ger o o d mana g a n e e or dive. rence b etw of its soar r The dif fe p e e s n one ca ager? o o d man a n d a ba d g a s e k a So, what m GERIDGE NNA MUG WORDS: A

he success or failure of any project is often the result of the Liz Nicholson, managing director of Nicholsons – which effectiveness of the management that has headed up the offers a range of services, from design and build to arboriculture team. That's not to say that they are personally – concurs. "In the horticultural and landscaping business, responsible for every achievement or people are employed who are really good at their jobs mistake. But as the thread that holds the team and, by seniority, then end up managing. But together, a good manager – whether it is the being good at your trade does not mean you managing director, the site foreman or the are a natural manager." nursery manager – is vital for instilling Nicholson cites the challenging nature a positive company culture that inspires of the industry – its seasonality, productivity and professionalism unpredictable weather and remote site amongst the workforce. working – as reasons why companies Just being an expert in a particular find it difficult to make the time to train field or a long-serving employee does not or recruit the right people into leadership necessarily make for a good manager positions. "A manager is not just either. "It's a mistake that all businesses, a good practitioner; they are a good big and small, make at some point," says manager of people. It's important to find Liz Nicholson, managing John Wyer, founder and CEO of design and that time to build that strategy of director, Nicholsons build company Bowles & Wyer. "Promoting management of others into your business." someone on the basis that they have been with you Being organised, results-oriented and technically for a long time, and you know them, and they know the sufficient is a manager's responsibility. But what is it that business very well, doesn't mean they will be suited to the role. It's raises that status from a proficient manager to a great one? Here are really important that you start with defining what the role is and 10 management techniques to help maintain happy, motivated, what you are trying to achieve. Forget the person; define the seat." successful employees, whatever level you are.

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A manager is not just a good practitioner; they are a good manager of people. It's important to find that time to build that strategy of management of others into your business

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

FEATURE

KNOW WHEN TO TALK AND WHEN TO LISTEN

Managers are often the link between the higher-ups of an organisation and the workforce, so keeping teams informed of the company's vision is a fundamental task of theirs. Ensuring everyone knows where the goalposts are and keeping them up to date with any developments or changes helps nurture a feeling of togetherness. However, communication works both ways, and everyone should feel they can contribute ideas or raise concerns to their line manager. "Really good managers listen twice as much as they speak," says Nicholson. She recommends asking open questions and then taking the time to listen to the answers. "Don't talk over them or leap in to find the solution. The best pathway for the person who has come to talk to you is to find their own solution, and then you endorse it, add to it, or simply support them." It raises morale and instils confidence and trust in both the employee and the manager.

DEVELOP YOUR TEAM'S SKILLS

A manager's job is to not only look at promoting the needs and targets of the company but also recognise and develop talent within it. It's a win-win situation. By being an advocate and supporting employees through mentoring or training courses, they will not only feel valued but ultimately remain loyal to it, too. "I always think those hierarchical management pyramids are the wrong way round where the 'grand fromages' are always at the top. I don't agree with any of that. I think the directors are at the point at the bottom, and we support others so they can fly. We have a lot of mutual coaching and mentoring that is quite informal, but I feel we grow together." In addition to a huge resource directory of knowledge, which includes TED talks that the company keeps on the server for any of its employees to delve into, Nicholsons' middle-senior managers and newly recruited graduates have the opportunity to study for qualifications from the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). Bowles & Wyer is equally passionate about ensuring its employees receive training. "We have a strong belief that all our people should be the best versions of themselves,"

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

2 ONE STYLE DOES NOT SUIT ALL Success is a team effort, so adapting management styles to suit each individual makes sense if you want to get the best from them. And if a manager knows the strengths and weaknesses of each member of staff, they can capitalise on it, putting together a team that is balanced and that will operate effectively together. "Managers need to be approachable and deal with the personal circumstances of the employee, meeting the individual's needs as much as the company's. No one wants to be treated as a number," says Lexi Harrison, account manager at Wright Landscapes in Cheshire. "We have a weekly planning and management review where we'll discuss where we need to go with operatives, forecast the jobs that are coming up and build in the requirements, such as training or where people need to be operationally for the job."

says Wyer. "Our training is geared specifically towards that as much as it is towards the skills that we need them to do their job. If they put forward a good case as to why they should be trained in something, even if it isn't directly relevant to their job, we'll do it." The company has even set up the Hort Academy, which gives employees across the business hands-on experience and a foundation in the horticultural industry. Wright Landscapes also encourages its employees to develop their skills. "We don't push people into training....we support them with training in the areas they specialise in and what they have an interest in. Investing in people, putting them on courses, and giving them more responsibility is inspiring for people. We have a high retention rate because of it."

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FEATURE

KEEP ON LEARNING

GIVE REGULAR FEEDBACK

It's okay for managers to have their own style. But across the company as a whole, it is key that they all know the rules, regulations and procedures. As Harrison explains: "It's important for managers to sing from the same hymn sheet, so employees know they are being treated fairly and equally."

DON'T BE AFRAID OF FEEDBACK

Who appraises the boss? From supervisor to managing director, it is just as important that those in management positions hear from employees about their own performance. It fosters an open culture and shows that employees' opinions are respected. And if a manager knows their own strengths and weaknesses, it may change the way they approach and handle different situations.

A good manager won't treat appraisals as opportunities to criticise a staff member's performance. Rather, they'll see it as an opportunity to gain valuable data and learn what an employee thinks about their current situation and future plans. From here, an action plan can be set which clearly states objectives and targets. Making time for appraisals or personal development plans with employees is vital. But don't wait a year to follow up with them. Meeting more regularly can be helpful and will show the employee that you do care about how they feel in the workplace.

DON'T PASS THE BUCK, BUT DO DELEGATE

Nobody can do it all. And the more tasks any one person takes on, the less likely they are to perform any of them well. Delegating empowers a team. By providing clear instructions on what needs to be achieved but not the method by which it needs to happen will give the team a sense of authority.

prolandscapermagazine.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

FEATURE

MAKE DECISIONS

Listening to colleagues is imperative, but if there are multiple dissenting voices, each with their own approach to a problem, then the manager must be the one to decide what the course of action needs to be. "I think knowing when to step in and knowing when people need help, when to support and when to direct is very important," says Nicholson.

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH STAY PUT

Face it, everyone makes mistakes. A good manager will shine a spotlight on the team's success but will also be the one who shoulders the responsibility if mistakes are made or goals are not met. In contrast, a bad manager will point the finger at the person who is at fault or shout at them for it. This will not only diminish the individual's confidence, but it will also affect their colleagues. "We have an open, blame-free culture. It's very, very important," Wyer says. "Mistakes get made in business all the time, especially in a fast-paced environment like this. However, mistakes are the quickest way of learning. You must not have people worry so much that they are terrified of making mistakes and end up hiding things because they don't want to be judged. That's the way that all sorts of terrible things happen!" Nicholson thinks that the best approach in these situations is to be honest. "As a manager, I am absolutely straight. If somebody has done something 'wrong' I'll be clear that it wasn't the best thing to do, but I'll also be very supportive. Straight-talking is important, and honesty is the best policy."

10 COMMUNICATE It cannot be stressed enough the importance of good communication. It's not just talking at people; it's ensuring messages are communicated effectively. Being clear, unambiguous, transparent, contextual and considerate of the communication needs of everyone involved ensures everyone knows what needs to be done, by whom and by when.

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

So, being a good manager is not only about being responsible for a team's output but also being responsible for supporting each individual in the team. Understanding what drives and motivates them, what their strengths are, and knowing or finding out the best way to guide them in areas they need to develop is a skill, and one that can be learned over time. Think about the way you want to be treated, as applying that train of thought to your management style will serve you well in the long run.

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FEATURE

ARE YOU PLANT HEALTHY YET? Ahead of its official public launch in spring 2024, we explore what the new certification is, what it means and why it’s so important WORDS: ASHLEIGH BROWN

y far the greatest volume of live plant movement is by the trade. So, industry, environmental organisations and government worked together to develop the Plant Health Management Standard (PHMS), published in 2019, and the associated Plant Healthy Certification Scheme, which was launched to the sector in February 2020. The scheme, which is governed by the Plant Healthy Alliance, aims to help organisations grow, supply and handle plants responsibly and safely, regardless of whether the plants are imported or grown in the UK, or a mix of both. It recognises that the movement of live plants is a high-risk pathway for the introduction of potentially damaging notifiable plant pests and diseases into new areas. The PHMS takes a proactive or ‘systems approach’ to biosecurity and sets out 31 requirements all aimed at protecting plant health. It aims to enable managers to demonstrate that the sites and the associated operations for which they are responsible are operating in a genuinely biosecure manner.

The Standard is broken down into different areas and covers whole plant cultivation and movement processes – from sourcing and supplying plants to ongoing site management and husbandry. Professional plants people then take responsibility for plant health by periodically conducting a systematic analysis of the critical points of their site and operations. This can be summarised as follows: • Stage 1: Initiation – identify the extent of the site(s), list all the host plants grown and handled, identify the pests associated with the host plants and map the pest pathways onto the site. • Stage 2: Assess the plant biosecurity risks from the business or organisation’s operations. • Stage 3: Pest risk management identifying the controls to minimise the risk to an acceptable level. Scheme coordinator at Plant Healthy, Alister Yeomans, says it was the HTA (Horticultural Trades Association) that pushed for the scheme. “The HTA as an association started to put the elements in place to get the standards

written and the scheme launched. But at a certain point, it was realised that it was not just about one association, but it was a much broader church of organisations that needed to be included.” So, it was passed onto the Plant Healthy Alliance, which is now made up of around 20 organisations that represent government agencies, such as the Royal Horticultural Society, the Woodland Trusts, the National Trust, and trade associations such as the HTA, the Landscape Institute and the Society of Garden Designers. But why is it so important? “I have seen what damage new pests and diseases can

PREES HEATH FOREST NURSERIES

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Pro Landscaper | November 2023

FEATURE

do when they have been introduced to for researchers, having a conversation to make a country. I've seen ash dieback in agricultural the standard the best possible version of itself. systems and in forestry systems; I think it’s And the good thing with these standards is probably the most worrying experience that you can keep updating them as new so far and we're just hoping knowledge comes along.” that the research “Plant Healthy is a rigorous community and process which is held in practitioners will high esteem throughout be able to identify the industry,” says some meaningful Matthew Napper, resistance in the assistant forest population and nursery manager at hopefully Prees Heath Forest support the Nurseries, which last of these holds Plant Healthy populations get accreditation. back up on to its “Becoming certified Joseph King, production and feet again,” shares highlights high logistics manager, King and Co the Tree Nursery Ltd Yeomans. standards and sets out “Plant Healthy good industry practice, makes you aware of things ultimately halting the spread that you didn't really think to of pests and diseases into the UK.” consider before and much more aware Rodney Shearer, managing director of forest of the problems that nurseries can cause by nursery Elsoms Trees Limited, says that “we're spreading diseases,” says Adam Smith, GM of all concerned about plant health, and diseases Wykeham Mature Plants, which grows mature are a major issue for industry.” trees and shrubs as well as instant hedging for At Elsoms, it already has statutory private sectors and local authorities. requirements for plant health, such as plant passports in place. “But Plant Healthy is there to try and complement what's already regularly measured and actually to go that stage further, to increase security and minimise the risk of the damage.” Joseph King, production and logistics manager for King and Co the Tree Nursery Ltd, was keen to apply for the scheme as it already had strict, voluntary biosecurity measures in KING AND CO THE TREE NURSERY LTD place, and the Plant Healthy certification was Smith adds how Brexit presented a great way to formalise this. “The scheme is a new set of border controls, and therefore a mark of responsible sourcing practices knowledge on biosecurity needs to be more and is now quickly becoming a biosecurity prominent. “The more I learned, the more requirement across government grants and I realised what we should be doing and contracts. This will result in more responsibly what we should tighten up on. For example, sourced and healthier plants being planted in diseases such as Xylella are more widely our environment.” known; however, things such as oak Napper says Prees Forest Nurseries “applied processionary moths and pine processionary to Plant Healthy as it illustrates that as a forest moths don’t as commonly appear on people’s nursery, we are being compliant with all radars. Then suddenly we’re becoming more biosecurity measures and as a result will be aware of the other problems out there and reducing the risk of pests and diseases entering are now able to spot the signs and control the the UK. Its stringent policies ensure that all spread – always one step ahead, trying to be measures are being taken to provide pest and as secure as possible.” disease-free stock. It is critical that everyone is Despite being due to launch publicly next compliant with all plant health management May, Plant Healthy has already partnered with standards to ensure plant and tree life do not more than 70 companies across the UK. “It is a succumb to the numerous pests and diseases sort of knowledge exchange – a two-way street that are out there. An additional factor which

The scheme is a mark of responsible sourcing practices and is now quickly becoming a biosecurity requirement across government grants and contracts

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

PREES HEATH FOREST NURSERIES

RYMER TREES

KING AND CO THE TREE NURSERY LTD

ELSOMS TREES

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Plant Healthy's measures reduces the risk of contamination and the spread of pests and diseases, helping to create a healthier environment

prompted us as a company to for accreditation with Plant Healthy. “Plant pursue accreditation with Healthy's measures reduces the risk of Plant Healthy is that grants contamination and the spread of pests and are stipulating that all diseases, helping to create a healthier nursery stock should be environment, the more industry professionals purchased from applied/ that apply the greater chance we have of certified nurseries, or halting the spread of new pests and diseases.” companies with a ready He would also advise anyone applying for to plant assessment.” Plant Healthy to document and provide as Matthew Napper, assistant nursery manager at Prees The Plant Healthy much information and evidence as possible Heath Forest Nurseries accreditation was the first highlighting the lengths that they go to in certification and most important one order to avoid the spread of pests and diseases. to Harry Hoblyn, director and nursery “I was given some advice from the assessor: manager at Rymer Trees, partly because of 'If everyone who deals with your plant health what it represents, but also because it is a matters suddenly left the company, the government funded scheme that could help to documents and information you compile as attract clients.“The business is more favourably part of your assessment should enable anyone looked upon as customers are pushed towards else to continue operating to ensure all the nurseries that are Plant Healthy testified.” same standards are met.’” Wyevale Nurseries’ production manager, Hoblyn at Rymer Trees is aiming to be as Kyle Ross was heavily involved with the design environmentally conscious as possible and and implementation of the Plant Healthy suggests that everyone should start to “think scheme. “We've been certified now for three about what is going years in a row. It involves a large two-day audit to happen in the run by Grown in Britain. They send out an future and build a auditor to our site and we basically go through company based on a large checklist, which includes things like that. People should screening, nursery cleanliness, trading be future proofing protocols and patch risk analysis to make sure themselves and we are compliant across our four sites.” make everything as This included the Ross’ container site of traceable as possible trees, transplants and field grown trees, so it and then you will HARRY HOBLYN was a hefty audit. “But once you have done it soar through the OF RYMER TREES once and have got everything in place, the auditing process.” next year has been easier, though they are And for Smith, the key to success was constantly updating the criteria.” disseminating the knowledge down to Napper makes the point everybody within their nursery, that trees and plants in “with a weekly meeting and Britain are now Plant Healthy chat each vulnerable to Friday afternoon, a range of new helping with the pests and diseases identification of because of the plants and their increased potential for movement of diseases, even if just goods around the a way of keeping the world and climate nursery clean and change. “The tidy.” The advice from Harry Hoblyn, director immediate affect to Wykeham is to pre audit and nursery manager our industry and whenever possible at Rymer Trees businesses as well as the “because then you are made greater threat to our forests aware of the things that you and wider environment has never didn't even consider.” been more prevalent.” Therefore, Napper As Plant Healthy is coming to the would encourage any commercial nursery, forefront of the industry, nurseries appear plant retailer, landscape management to be embracing change and striving to business, arborist, and public garden to apply protect the UK’s horticulture industry.

People should be future proofing themselves and make everything as traceable as possible and then you will soar through the auditing process

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A guide to

DOMESTIC ‘REWILDING’

Rewilding might only refer to large estates, but could we apply its principles to domestic gardens? And, more importantly, should we? WORDS: ASHLEIGH BROWN

ewilding Britain caused a bit of a stir last year when its garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show won Best in Show. One of its most public critiques was by prolific gardening presenter Alan Titchmarsh. He accused the garden of showing “no signs of gardening” and questioned whether it should have won the show’s top award. On rewilding in general, Titchmarsh said that it made “the assumption that nature is best left to herself and any muscling in on our part is to be deplored. Gardening is, by its very nature, intervention.” His views were shared by some but deplored by others. But what does rewilding even mean, and is it essential? As the large-scale restoration of nature, rewilding includes the reintroduction of habitats, natural processes, and missing species, in an attempt to reduce the climate emergency and extinction crisis. Knepp Estate in West Sussex, which boasts one of the UK’s leading rewilding projects, aims to break the stigma and guide the industry towards an open-minded approach.

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Head gardener Charlie Harpur joined the revolution just over a year and a half ago. “It was that perfect tie together of design and ecology which hooked me.” Sandwiched in-between the North and South Downs, the 320m of heavy Low Weald clay over a bedrock of limestone created a push for the whole rewilding experiment when owner Charlie Burrell decided the land was un-farmable and non-profitable, making things too hard to supply to a competitive market. From this deserted farmland has come quite the jump in the structural diversity and complexity of this landscape, and the mosaic of different habitats is starting to emerge – and with diverse habitats comes diverse wildlife too, creating what we know now as the Knepp Estate Rewilding Project. At 3,500 acres, Knepp is large enough to be able to carry out rewilding, but Harpur says all 23 million gardens in the UK can help to provide wildlife habitats; “that's nearly 4,500 sq km that can play a role in reversing biodiversity loss.” Explaining how mindset is going to be a big part of this push for change and size doesn't matter, Harpur says:

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

FEATURE

“Ultimately, I'm trying to get people to think branching out and throwing more roots into about the garden as an ecosystem, or the earth, increasing the carbon intake into the landscapes as ecosystems. Part of the ground, and creating channels through the conversation is about how to soil. They have also been known to expand opportunities for break trees as they rub against wildlife in the garden and and debark woodlands, create corridors for this trampling onto the wildlife to connect.” debris, planting Since introducing seeds. They provide a this way of thinking natural fertiliser and into Knepp, the can even transport variations and seeds that have quantities in fallen and cling onto species has jumped them as they roam. significantly. They “Perhaps a little bit Charlie Harpur, now have “bumper more radically, the pigs head gardener, populations of species will stick their snout into Knepp Estate like the purple emperor the ground and rummage butterfly. Over 50 nightingale around; we call this rooting.” territories are here on this estate, As the pigs push the earth around, which is a massive spike in the population for nudging the mud and turning over the ground the south of England. And the large tortoise layer, it is a repeated habit for the creatures shell butterfly, which was thought to be extinct as they do so for comfort, communication, here in the British Isles, was found living and cooling, or consumption. “It does really breathing at Knepp last year.” These are all key interesting things to the habitat as it causes indicators that this experiment has been worth a disturbance to the natural order.” the initial risk. As well as the wildlife that has made its home within the estate, some species have been reintroduced after decades of no free roaming. Knepp has rehomed the Tamworth pig, “which is as close as we could get to the wild boar legally in this country,” and the old Longhorn cattle – which are “as close as we could get to the extinct wild aurochs, which were massive cow ancestors that used to run this landscape” – as well as Exmoor ponies, red deer, fallow deer, roe deer and a variety of rabbits and other woodland creatures. KNEPP ESTATE “The real key to creating that mosaic of different habitats that we've just seen is providing homes for those species, using an array of The ground is then left in a variety of browsing and grazing animals. So, Knepp took different conditions. Areas of sun contrasting out 250 miles of internal fencing, which is pretty with shade – peaks of dry soil and hidden staggering, but it's actually quite representative of puddles below – leave significant differences how we manage our land nowadays.” in the productivity in the soil profile which Now these animals roam wherever they want means that there are suddenly new to go, they eat whatever they want to eat, and opportunities for other species. they crucially drive these landscapes’ natural Not every landscape will have the capability processes. “We often forget that flora and fauna to house such creatures, but that is not to say evolved alongside each other. So, these plants that the techniques provided cannot be have actually evolved to be eaten and they react replicated, whether it be by using a trowel to to these animals. These are fundamental natural randomly dig at the earth, pulling bits apart processes, which provide opportunities, and they and spiking at varying depths, to resemble boost biodiversity.” a pig’s snout; altering the way in which As the Longhorn cattle travel across the site, vegetation is cut back – chopping randomly to browsing and grazing, the vegetation reacts imitate a grazing cow and then leaving the

KNEPP ESTATE

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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The key is to think about which principles we can take from a large-scale rewilding experiment and put back into the garden

FEATURE

debris to settle on the ground. There are many ways in which people can take inspiration from the natural world. “If you look at the landscape and there's a kaleidoscope of habitats, then you've already started to rewild that landscape.” A practical definition for rewilding that was coined in a practical context in the US in the 1990s refers to the three Cs – Cores, Corridors and Carnivores. This has been decoded and adapted to the British climate: Cores, being the individual ecosystems, the landscapes, and gardens; Corridors are the connecting land that allows free movement of wildlife between connectivity; and Carnivores are exchanged for keystone species – the animals disturbing the landscape and directing natural processes. “Being one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet, now is the time more than ever to think about the spaces that 88% of the UK has in some capacity, KNEPP ESTATE and that is the garden.” So, if rewilding is restoring natural processes, can we ‘rewild’ the garden? “Yes, types of plant across 103 plant families we think you absolutely can,” says Harpur. within only one year of rewilding. “The key is to think about which principles “By creating this dynamic landscape, we can take from a large-scale rewilding which is natural process led, we tried to experiment and put back into the garden.” create diverse habitats with diverse The garden is a very unique, very vegetation, which is multi layered and domestic context with its own unique structurally complex. We tried to mimic ecosystem and something that Harpur is what we’d learnt. As gardeners and proud to be exploring within the 1.3-acre, landscapers, we've mimicked these kinds of Victorian walled garden at Knepp actions all the time, constantly House, which was once interrupting the landscape; a professional nursery we have the potential growing thousands of to open up We're beginning trees and shrubs opportunities for to think about gardening before being different species. in the right way. By simply completely “Now we're covered in beginning to shifting our mindset, we turf with one think about can take all those things massive croquet gardening in one step further and play lawn and being the right way. By a role in restoring used primarily simply shifting our ecosystem for weddings. “We our mindset, we worked with quite can take all those Charlie Harpur, a knowledgeable things one step head gardener, team on this project, further and play a role Knepp Estate also developing in restoring our ecosystem.” a neighbouring kitchen garden Harpur provides insight into by designer Georgia Langton.” what rewilding is and how to achieve it, but According to a survey conducted one thing not yet addressed is the real throughout the walled gardens, the team reason behind the controversy it causes: the found that there were 155 different plant way it looks. Jeremy Clarkson called the species planted across 47 plant families, Rewilding Britain garden at Chelsea “a which jumped up to nearly 1,000 different complete mess” in his column for The Times.

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Once established, though, a rewilded garden can create a disarray of colour and texture, contrasting against modern features and architecture. However, there can be more subtle alternatives that will still allow garden designers and architects to feel as if they have an enhanced element of control over the space. Hampshire based Wildflower Turf Ltd made the decision to diversify from traditional crops into turf production in 1982 and the family pioneered a soil-less growing system which it says inspired and transformed the industry. Managing director, James HewetsonBrown, began experimenting with wildflower products and by 2010 the sole focus was the production of wildflower turf. Today the business is made up of 60,000m2 of production capacity and it enables Wildflower Turf Ltd to continue to grow and innovate. Research and development scientist Helen Simmen defines rewilding as allowing nature to do its own thing without as much interference from us. “Many people think rewilding means leaving an area free from human intervention entirely, but that doesn't have to be the case. To me, it is not simply leaving nature completely to its own devices; it's also thinking about human landscapes, as part of nature, and allowing that wildness to come back into where it belongs.” Having joined Wildflower Turf at the start of last year, Simmen has seen a trend in how

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

To me, it is not simply leaving nature completely to its own devices; it's also thinking about human landscapes as part of nature, and allowing that wildness to come back into where it belongs

ROADSIDE RENOVATION: LOW GROW WILDFLOWER MIX, WARWICKSHIRE

point for rewilding – or more accurately ‘wilding’ especially on a smaller scale. As Clarkson goes on to say in his column, “wilding is good news for gardeners because it means they can keep on gardening”. He suggests this idea might better appeal to the public, as it “means you are using your clever thumbs and your understanding of science to put in plants that you know, because you have a head full of facts, are good for insects and birds and hedgehogs.” This idea might then appeal more to the landscaping industry too. Whether you have the ability to create a landscape with the sole purpose of rewilding, or if you are able to convince a client to incorporate native and non-native planting into a domestic garden, if Harpur and Simmen have taught us anything, it’s that every little helps.

WILDFLOWER TURF AT WARNHAM NATURE RESERVE, HORSHAM

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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rewilding can be seen as messy, untidy, and Not only can they be more aesthetically weedy. As a nation, we are quite attached to pleasing, but Simmen’s also assures us our gardens, she says. "We have a massive that wildflowers can be used “absolutely gardening culture in the UK, and I think the anywhere,” from a window box to a full field concept of rewilding has been seen, scale meadow. “The brilliant thing by some, as a bit of a threat is they're so easy to install to that. and easy to maintain if “But if you look you get it right.” at it on a more Simmen longer-term scale, believes that biodiversity there is a benefits of misconception rewilding that spaces will wildflowers likely outweigh are difficult to economic costs grow and in the long difficult to term because maintain but obviously if we says that's not Helen Simmen, research and don't do anything the case at all; “you development scientist, Wildflower Turf Ltd about biodiversity loss, just have to get them we'll have no viable way to installed correctly and make money from it anyway.” then they can be left to their Adding wildflowers provides an own devices. alternative form of rewilding that is arguably “My number one tip would be to spend more acceptable as they can be extremely time outside, enjoying nature and experience attractive and incorporated into existing the biodiversity that you're bringing into your human landscapes by combining floral species space, because that just helps to appreciate with grasses, the mixture of species allows for why you've done it in the first place.” a diverse range of ecosystems and wildlife. Wildflowers are perhaps the perfect starting

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The balancing act of

OPINION

NATURE RECOVERY Marcus Watson and Chris Bawtree explain how to balance nature recovery and re-wilding with the need for sustainable food production and economic development

s explained in an earlier article, we are at the foothills of the sixth mass extinction of species.1 Whilst we have a very long way to go before we reach the 95% extinction rate seen in the Great Dying, the International Union for Conservation of Nature predicts that all critically endangered species and two-thirds of endangered species may be lost within the next 100 years.2 The UN predicts that, without drastic action, one million of today’s species will be extinct by 2039. Closer to home, one in six species is at risk of extinction in the UK.3 The State of Nature report, compiled using wildlife data from over 60 conservation organisations, is a health check on how the UK’s wildlife is faring. According to its 2023 report, the UK’s wildlife, like that of most other countries worldwide, is continuing to decline. Plants and animals monitored since the 1970s have declined in abundance by an average 19%. Of 10,000 mammal, plant, insect, bird and amphibian species reviewed, 1,500 were assessed as threatened. The UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth.4 This bleak global outlook is driven in large part by population growth which has doubled since 1974 (roughly the authors’ lifetime) with the eight-billionth human being

born in late 2022.5,6 The human-generated threats to biodiversity are easy to understand. Broadly, they are the relocation of non-native species around the world which can decimate local wildlife populations, humaninduced climate change, deforestation and loss of habitat which are a consequence of the human species being the world’s most voracious top predator. As part of its COP15 commitments,7,8 the government has said that it is committed to increasing the amount of habitat for nature to thrive,6 but conservation organisations say more investment and a shift to much more wildlife-friendly farming and fishing are urgently needed. A more recent article makes the case for protecting and repairing biodiversity and asserts that land-based professionals are ideally placed to provide the leadership the world needs.9 Here, we attempt to explain how this might be achieved whilst balancing the need for sustainable food production and economic development.

The UK is now one of the most naturedepleted countries on Earth

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A historical legacy and the need for change The UK was the last country involved in the second world war to stop rationing food. Rationing ended completely in 1954, nine years after the war ended,10 and incentivising home-grown food production was necessary to feed the nation. People were encouraged to ‘Dig for Victory’ using every available plot of land to grow vegetables and fruit. Parks, front gardens, and even the land outside the Tower of London were converted into vegetable patches. As time moved on, the incentives changed name and process, but the purpose remained the same: food production on every available plot of land. The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), established under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, is the largest rural payment scheme providing financial support to the farming industry.11 Broadly speaking, it supports eligible farmers with at least five hectares of agricultural land who rear or grow agricultural products and keep some land suitable for gazing or cultivation, i.e. clear of dense scrub. The more land set aside for food production, the larger the payment. The incentives of 1940s and 1950s were right for the context of the time but they are no longer appropriate to a nature-depleted

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

OPINION

country which continues to incentivise the removal of biodiversity-rich scrub land and hedgerows through increased mechanisation and productivity in the drive for food security. With only 11% of UK land within protected areas, and not all of it managed for nature and wildlife, we are quite far off from the government’s pledge to protect 30% of land for nature by 2030. As the BPS comes to an end after the 2023 scheme year, a re-balancing of incentives towards nature recovery is therefore necessary if we are to reverse the loss of biodiversity on which all of life depends.1 An

crisis, especially if others follow India in banning the export of certain food commodities in a bid to calm rising prices and ensure food security at home. A resilient, healthy, sustainable food production system at home can help mitigate these risks. On the other hand, for the reasons described above, we need to make land available for nature recovery. To achieve this balance, the incentive systems must reward landowners and other key stakeholders to view all land and land management activities as valuable. High crop-yield land will be valuable for food production and lower-crop yield may be valuable for nature recovery and rewilding thanks to its biodiversity potential. Hopefully, this is what we are currently witnessing in the transition from the Common Agricultural Policy to Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. The aim of this government reform is to help grow and maintain a resilient, sustainable and productive agriculture sector

A re-balancing of incentives towards nature recovery is therefore necessary if we are to reverse the loss of biodiversity on which all of life depends

important aim of this rebalancing exercise must be that nature recovery should provide community benefits as well as a decent income for those who enhance, maintain and look after nature. Indeed, if it doesn’t pay, it won’t work.

Getting the balance right In effecting change, we must keep an eye on potential unintended consequences of advocating extreme positions. On the one hand, we must be able to sustainably feed an ever-growing nation without being over-exposed to the volatility of global food markets. The war in Ukraine reminds us of the risks: Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain producers and the war reduced its ability to export.12 Climate change and floods are also having a major impact on the availability of food. Failed crops in India and China,13,14 two of the worlds’ major rice producers, could deepen a global food

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

and, at the same time, to help the UK achieve its targets for the environment and climate. In this way, the schemes and one-off grants will pay farmers and land managers to provide environmental goods and services alongside sustainable food production.15,16 Biodiversity Net Gain Certainly, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG),17 a form of Natural Capital Credit, could help land management incentives evolve from the “one size fits all” centrally controlled agricultural production subsidies to an incentive system which engages a much broader audience in taking nature into account in its daily affairs: farmers and landowners of course but also builders, developers, entrepreneurs, local authorities, brokers, financial institutions, as well as communities. In a nutshell, BNG is a way to contribute to the recovery of nature while allowing land to be developed – the aim being to ensure the habitat for wildlife is in a better state (at least 10% better in fact) after the development than it was before. BNG will apply from January 2024 for larger developments in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and it will apply to small sites from April 2024 (this date is to be confirmed). Importantly, BNG will be managed non-centrally through planning authorities approving plans and enforcing developers’ BNG obligations through Section 106 (S106) agreements. To avoid such gains being undone over the time, the BNG obligations will be in perpetuity for long periods of at least 30 years. Thereafter, ongoing management could be paid for through ELM schemes. Developers may not always have the ability to improve habitat or biodiversity by 10% on their

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OPINION

development and so they will need to purchase biodiversity units from land managers off-site. Imagine a developer in central Manchester paying a landowner in the Pennines to enhance biodiversity on the landowners’ land. So, landowners, land managers, farmers could get paid by developers to provide off-site biodiversity units to achieve the required 10% BNG. Given biodiversity units are natural, living products, they can grow in value over time as the biodiversity on (non-productive, non-crop producing) land improves through effective management and husbandry. The BNG trading market is nascent, and agreements are currently often bi-lateral agreements between the developer and the landowner. As brokers, environmental trading platforms, land agents, etc, develop and start offering brokerage services, one can expect the market to mature, improving both the efficiency and liquidity of such transactions. A cornerstone for the proper functioning of such a market will be universal trust in the quantification of the biodiversity units created, grown, maintained and traded. Being able to accurately measure, report and audit BNG over time is critical. Natural England’s ‘Biodiversity Metric 4.0’ is a tool that can be used to do just this by calculating biodiversity net gain (or losses!) on terrestrial and/or intertidal habitats (marine net gain is in development). This tool is expected to be the basis of such quantification in England as it is expected to become statutory.18,19 Land-based professionals provide leadership and expertise As explained in March 2023, land-based professionals are ideally placed to provide the leadership and expertise needed to protect, enhance and manage land for biodiversity repair.9 There are already a number of organisations whose purpose is to help nature recover and/or rewild (the difference between the two approaches will be for another article), whilst also being economically sustainable. Projects such as

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Knepp in Sussex,20 Highlands Rewilding Ltd in Scotland,21 Wildfell in Essex22 and Devana in Cambridgeshire23 are all exemplars that provide pragmatic, economically viable solutions to improving and protecting biodiversity whilst providing a valuable service to developers and communities alike, helping to strike the right balance between development, food production and nature recovery. As these models become better understood, as the BNG markets and ELM schemes encourage us to see all land as valuable by providing meaningful incomes to its custodians, we can expect biodiversity to be increasingly protected and repaired at scale, with land-based professionals rightfully in the driving seat.

MARCUS WATSON Marcus Watson joined Ground Control in 2011 and led the company for close to a decade, handing over the reins to Jason Knights in January 2021. Marcus remains with Ground Control as non-executive director and a shareholder. In his advocacy work, Marcus champions the voice of business, entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability with Government, industry and academia. Marcus believes that business is a force for good and that business leaders have the opportunity and duty to build a vibrant and more sustainable economy that cares for our environment and the communities we live in, allowing us to lead prosperous, fulfilling lives without mortgaging our children’s futures. ground-control.co.uk

CHRIS BAWTREE Chris Bawtree joined Ground Control in 1999 delivering leading roles in Landscape Design, Landscape Construction and Woodland Creation. Chris’ current role is Nature Recovery Director for Ground Control’s Evergreen environmental impact fund. This involves delivering Nature Recovery projects on the ground as well as understanding Natural Capital markets and sourcing funding. Chris shares the view that business should be a force for good and is committed to demonstrating how this can be achieved for nature on the ground. ground-control.co.uk

References 1 M Watson, “Stopping the sixth mass extinction”, Pro Landscaper, Dec 2021, https://issuu.com/eljays44 /docs/december_2021/28 . 2 “Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’”, UN report, 6 May 2019, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ 3 V Gill & K Stephens, “Nature crisis: One in six species at risk of extinction in Great Britain”, BBC News, 28 Sept 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ science-environment-66923930 4 “State of Nature 2023”, https://stateofnature.org.uk/ 5 “Eight billionth baby born in Dominican Republic”, CBS News, 16 Nov 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/ philadelphia/news/eight-billionth-baby-born-indominican-republic/ 6 UN World Population Prospects 2019. 7 P Greenfield & P Weston, “COP15: Historic Deal Struck to Halt Biodiversity Loss by 2030”, The Guardian, 19 Dec 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2022/dec/19/cop15-historic-deal-signedto-halt-biodiversity-loss-by-2030-aoe 8 H Briggs, “COP15: Nations Reach 'Historic' Deal to Protect Nature”, BBC News, 20 Dec 2022, https://www. bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64019324 9 M Watson, “Nature says: give us the space, and we will finish the job”, Pro Landscaper, Mar 2023, https://issuu.com/eljays44/docs/march_2023/14 . 10 N Minney, “How did rationing work in the second World war?”, Museum of English Rural Life, 8 May 2022, https://merl.reading.ac.uk/blog/2022/05/everythingyou-wanted-to-know-ration-books/ 11 “Basic Payment Scheme”, DEFRA Guidance, 14 Mar 2023, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/basic-payment-scheme 12 “How is Ukraine exporting its grain now the Black Sea deal is over?”, BBC News, 26 Sept 2023, https://www. bbc.co.uk/news/world-61759692 . 13 R Mogul, V Sud & S Farooqui, “Climate change has ravaged India’s rice stock. Now its export ban could deepen a global food crisis”, CNN, 30 Aug 2023, https:// edition.cnn.com/2023/08/28/business-india/ india-rice-ban-export-farmers-loss-intlhnk-dst/index.html 14 D Liu & D Chow, “Chinese farmers hit by floods and drought say extreme weather is getting worse”, NBC News, 8 Aug 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/ world/china-floods-drought-farming-wheat-climatechange-rcna96111 15 “Landmark agricultural bill becomes law”, DEFRA News, 11 Nov 2020, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ landmark-agriculture-bill-becomes-law 16 “Environmental Land Management (ELM) update: how government will pay for land-based environment and climate goods and services”, DEFRA Policy Paper, 21 Jun 2023, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ environmental-land-management-update-howgovernment-will-pay-for-land-based-environment-andclimate-goods-and-services 17 “Understanding biodiversity net gain”, DEFRA Guidance, 23 Feb 2023, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ understanding-biodiversity-net-gain 18 M. Burke, “Measuring biodiversity net gain - Publication of Biodiversity Metric 4.0”, Natural England, 28 Mar 2023, https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/ measuring-biodiversity-net-gain-publication-ofbiodiversity-metric-4-0/ 19 “The Biodiversity Metric 4.0 (JP039)”, Natural England, from 7 Jul 2021, https://publications.naturalengland. org.uk/publication/6049804846366720 20 www.knepp.co.uk 21 www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk 22 www.ground-control.co.uk/insights/news/ wildfell-centre-for-environmental-recovery 23 www.ground-control.co.uk/insights/news/ the-devana-centre-for-environmental-recovery

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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Made in England

OPINION

omehow, it’s November again. For me, the end of the year is always a time for reflection and planning, but particularly in recent history, as there has been an unprecedented pace of change for the industry to adapt to, putting our flexibility to the test. Reaching for a thicker coat these past few days has got me thinking about the unpredictability of recent winters. Whilst the general trend is that winters are becoming milder, landscapers have also had less predictable cold spells and localised heavy snowfall to contend with. We’ve not only had to brace against more erratic weather conditions due to climate change; the last few years have brought the pandemic, cost of living pressures, and lots of political change, all impacting how we operate. For example, due to shifting consumer habits, accelerated by Covid, and a rise in online shopping, the supply chain and logistics industry has seen a boom meaning our sector has required more resilient services. But with challenges comes opportunity, and against the backdrop of changing economic and climate conditions, it’s important for the landscaping industry to find those opportunities to diversify approaches, innovate, and invest in our people, so that we continue to evolve – something I think is a strength of our sector. Changing demands gives room to think about how we can adapt and expand our offering. Biodiversity and environmental management is one example of a growing opportunity for our sector. A study at the end of 2022 by McKinsey & Company showed that only 5% of businesses include quantifiable biodiversity targets in their sustainability strategies. As custodians of public and private land, we’re ideally

prolandscapermagazine.com

NEW YEAR’S

evolutions

As we enter the penultimate month of 2023, Tim Howell considers the opportunities we have as an industry, despite the adversity it faces placed to change that and help more businesses focus on this emerging priority. Innovating using technology is also crucial to ensure we keep up with changing conditions and demands, while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our people too. At Mitie, investing in data and technology has enabled us to grow our professional winter maintenance offering and equip our colleagues to face more volatile winters. Our partnership with the Met Office gives us access to cutting edge technology and data analytics for accurate weather forecasting, as well as insights designed specifically for winter maintenance for the best expertise. This data is integrated into our LIVE portal, which also allows customers to track our gritting vehicles at their sites in real-time, making it easier

and safer for our customers and colleagues to deal with unpredictable weather. My colleague, Kirsty Cobb, has been a driving force in getting this technology off the ground. She’s brought diverse thinking as an ex-service person to her role as the head of winter services, having risen through the ranks after first joining Mitie in an administration role over a decade ago. This just goes to show that investing in your people is just as important as investing in technology in order to build business resilience. After all, growth and innovation rely on ideas. As I continue my planning for 2024 and beyond, I know that if the past few years are anything to go by, our industry will need to remain resilient and embrace further change. Keeping abreast of industry trends, investing in innovation, and continuing to diversify our services brings huge opportunities for the sector but by championing our people, we can spearhead this evolution.

Changing demands gives room to think about how we can adapt and expand our offering

TIM HOWELL Tim is a career horticulturist who has previously worked for Gavin Jones and Hilliers. Tim joined Mitie in 2002 to launch and develop the landscape business and is managing director for Mitie Landscapes. Mitie Landscapes delivers grounds maintenance, horticultural and winter services for some of the world’s best known brands, with a large and diverse customer base across the public and private sectors. mitie.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

OPINION

What is‘THE PLAN

FOR DRIVERS’? Driving is only the norm because it’s what we know – investment in transport could change this, says Christopher Martin

e have seen a lot of political posturing since the Uxbridge by-election, with a great deal of effort placed on and around transport. It is clear that this is an attempt to capitalise on feelings of upset to attract votes, which is nothing new; but in doing so, politics has shone light on the real problem, one that their actions are not solving. Transport is a tool at our disposal that needs to be used to serve our collective quality of life. Realising this is the key to being ambitious when it comes to planning policy and delivering change. From reducing flooding, targeting the urban heat island effect, making cities more sociable and emotionally connected, reducing inactivity and improving our health, tackling the affordability crisis, and supporting high streets and business – all of this is affected by how we plan for and shape transport, with outcomes – positive and negative – up for grabs. The case for designing streets and transport networks to yield better outcomes for quality of life, environment, and economy is clear – but it’s not that simple. The places we have already designed have created the culture in which we live, because places shape our behaviour, and behaviour over time becomes our culture. So, when we as the public hear about change, we get very heated, because we see it as an attack on our culture. By way of example, the Department for Transport (DfT) recently published a document entitled, The Plan for Drivers. If this was about making positive change to urban communities it would be about addressing issues; however, if this was about politics it would be speaking more to people’s fears about an attack on culture. If we look back at other DfT publications, we’ll find the UK’s strategic vision for rail; Bus Back Better, and a bold vision for

walking and cycling. In all of these documents but one – going back to my first point – we are treating transport correctly, as a servant to quality of life. In one we are acknowledging people are servants to transport. We have designed cities, towns and streets so that people’s only option to get to school, work, the shops, the cinema, even the gym, for heaven’s sake, is to drive – then we wonder why we have a generation of people who define themselves as 'drivers’. If you live in a place that affords an enormous choice in the ways in which you can move about, it’s likely that you are not a driver, nor a walker or a cyclist. Transport does not define you. When we don’t have a choice, we’re very protective of what we have because without it we're stuffed, so it begins to define us. Choice. This is what unlocks opportunity in transport. Investing in rail – wouldn’t that be nice – investing in cycling, in enabling children to walk to school; this unlocks choice, unlocks opportunity, eradicates transport poverty. We need to stop framing the conversation around what we might lose from making changes to our streets and spaces and start highlighting what we are losing right now by not innovating, and what we’ll be losing in the future from being left behind.

Transport is a tool at our disposal that needs to be used to serve our collective quality of life

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

CHRISTOPHER MARTIN Christopher is an influential urban designer and planner working all over the globe to help communities improve their public spaces; as well as supporting cities and governments to develop strategy, change policies, and make great places possible. He is co-founder and director of Urban Strategy at Urban Movement; a trustee of the UK charity for everyday walking – Living Streets; past vice chair of the UK Urban Design Group; and is a member of the United Nations Planning and Climate Action Group. urbanmovement.co.uk @ChrisCities

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OPINION

One finger cannot

LIFT A PEBBLE Collaboration is key, says Adam White, whose practice is joining a team to take on an exciting project for the National Trust

ollaboration and partnerships have become more commonplace in recent years. All the major landscape awards now include a category celebrating this approach to engagement, design and delivery, including the Pro Landscaper Business Awards. By bringing together a diverse group of people, it's possible to generate more creative and innovative ideas that may not have been thought of by a single person or a homogenous group. Collaborative design can also improve the overall quality of the scheme by allowing for more comprehensive problem-solving. Over the past five years, our design practice (Davies White Landscape Architects) has collaborated with a number of talented individuals and organisations. This has led to more innovation, efficient processes, increased success, improved communication and several industry awards. Collaborative design happens when you involve people from different fields starting from the early stages of a project. Our collaborative design process starts with four basic steps: brainstorming, iterative sessions, design feedback, and delivery. The key to collaboration is letting everyone do what they do best while also fostering communication and camaraderie. Past projects have included the RHS Back to Nature Garden co-designed with HRH The Princess of Wales (formally HRH the Duchess of Cambridge) and delivered in collaboration with four different BALI-registered contractors and over 20 suppliers and craftspeople. In 2020, we joined architects Tonkin Lui, Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture Nigel Dunnett FLI, ecologist Garry Grant and engagement experts Make:Good to develop proposals for Grosvenor Square in London. Most recently we have worked with the NHS

on a new garden for staff at UHS Southampton, collaboratively working with street artist Banksy. Our latest collaboration is for the National Trust. Our team is being led by garden designer and landscape architect Arit Anderson CMLI. Joining Arit and ourselves will be landscape architect Marian Boswall FLI and horticulturist Nigel Dunnett FLI. Together, we will transform the traditional parterre at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, to make it a more sustainable, climate resilient and biodiverse planting scheme. The 1.3-acre parterre at Wimpole Hall is currently a formal series of box-hedged triangular beds planted with annual bedding and bulbs. Sadly, it is becoming unsustainable and requires irrigation and regular replacement of plants. The current planting scheme is also under stress from cold winds, drought and increasingly extreme weather conditions. The collaborative redesign will create a more environmentally sustainable, biodiverse feature at the centre of the Grade I landscape. The collaborative design process will involve a series of online and in-person stakeholder engagement workshops led by our practice. Stakeholder engagement is essential to help foster ownership of any project and it begins way before we even start putting pen to paper and designing. The stakeholders are critical to helping us identify the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of the space. This information then helps us establish a set of shared design principles which in turn inform the design as it develops. Andy Jasper, National Trust director of gardens & parklands, says: "When the National

THE TEAM AT WIMPOLE

WIM POL E DESI GN TEAM

The key to collaboration is letting everyone do what they do best while also fostering communication and camaraderie

100 Pro Landscaper | November 2023

W IM PO LE HA LL

AN D GA RD EN S

Trust took on the care of Wimpole, the parterre had been lost for several decades. The scheme we have today was created in the 1990s to replicate what had been there in the 19th century. The formal design was very effective but is getting harder to maintain so it's time for a bold, pioneering new chapter.”

ADAM WHITE Adam White FLI PPLI is a chartered landscape architect and director at Davies White Ltd. He is a fellow and the past president of the Landscape Institute. He is a director of the Sustainable Landscape Foundation and the chair of the LI’s College of Fellows. davieswhite.co.uk

prolandscapermagazine.com

OPINION In a world of full of glorious images of gardens and plants it is often difficult to remember some of the basic design issues, comments Andrew Wilson

NO-ONE VISITS A GARDEN TO LOOK AT SHELTER BELT PLANTING BUT THEY HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON WHAT WE CAN PLANT

any years ago, I was fortunate to employ Marian Thompson as a tutor at The Inchbald School of Design. She had a marvellous knowledge and awareness of plants and planting design having worked with Geoffrey and Susan Jellicoe in their practice and alongside Geoffrey at what was originally Thames Polytechnic. I remember one of her exam questions stated: “Plants control what you see and how you move – discuss.” In a nutshell, it speaks of planting as more than purely decorative or ornamental. This week our planting design tutor James Aldridge and I introduced LCGD students to RHS Wisley, discussing construction and planting design. James started his teaching input with pretty much the same consideration – plants as something more than ‘decorative fluff’, as he called it. Using planting to create or define space within our gardens is rarely discussed, nor helping to reduce scale or create more intimate and comfortable areas of experience or use. Shrubs, taller perennials or grasses can do this to different degrees and effects, the latter being more filtered or light capturing or diffuse in form. We talked about plants creating overhead canopies often defined by specific branching formats in trees or larger shrubs. Pleaching or table pruned specimens can also deliver this to create privacy or sheltering shade, especially in smaller gardens or urban spaces when we don’t want to be overlooked. In larger gardens, planting can shelter and modify the climate of our gardens, creating more protected, warmer and equable spaces which are more conducive to wider plant growth and functional use. Topiary and clipped forms either as specimens or hedges can define space or set

DESIGNING

with plants

the scale of garden spaces through height and mass. All create structure that is softer in nature and generally lower in cost than construction. They may not be so instant in achieving their impact, and in a media influenced and generally impatient world that may often be an issue for our clients. But good planting design is worth the wait, changing the mood and character of the gardens we create. The fluff, as James puts it, is still important and has its place; but meadows and the majority of perennial planting will not create privacy or screening. It is a fill or an infill that whilst beautiful is not structural. How many articles, programmes and books concentrate on this functional aspect of planting and how many garden visitors comment on it as they wander through our great gardens? Too few,

They may not be so instant in achieving their impact, and in a media influenced and generally impatient world that may often be an issue for our clients. But good planting design is worth the wait

prolandscapermagazine.com

I should imagine, which is why the work of the garden and planting designer is so important. Twenty or so years ago I ran some evening classes for J.P Morgan as an add on for staff members interested in learning about garden design for their own use. One student owned four acres of open terrain in East Anglia and wanted to grow roses. I suggested that before we got down to the detail of roses, we needed to introduce shelter and spatial structure. After some lengthy discussions she lost interest as all she really wanted to do was select different roses, lost in a romantic haze. I often wonder how those roses are getting on. They probably all died or at least continue to struggle against those howling easterlies that whistle in from the continent. Over all those years of trying and failing she could have established her shelter belts, seen her trees mature and then planted her roses. A textbook to help might have been useful – any publisher interested?

ANDREW WILSON Andrew Wilson is a landscape and garden design consultant, director of the London College of Garden Design, and an author, writer and lecturer. lcgd.org.uk

Pro Landscaper | November 2023 101

OPINION

Lighter touch

LANDSCAPES

he Slow Food movement, founded by Carlo Petrini in the 1980s, initially aimed to celebrate local gastronomy and promote a more leisurely pace of life. Over time, it has evolved into a broader philosophy known as Slow Living. This philosophy regained attention during the pandemic, reminding us of the value of slowing down and has found adoption across various industries. The current enthusiasm for the slow movement offers an opportunity for landscape design professionals to advocate for a more thoughtful approach, emphasising intention, wellbeing, and environmental impact, aligning with the principles of Slow Living. Ironically, even inherently slow processes like landscape design have been rushed in our modern era. This issue is especially pertinent as we transition back to a postpandemic workplace culture reshaped significantly by the onset of AI and a technological revolution catering to fast-paced lives. However, there is an argument that AI has the potential to relieve us of mundane tasks, thereby making us more aware of the adverse environmental effects of our fast-paced lifestyles. For instance, the environmental cost of sourcing plants and trees from distant locations to meet tight project deadlines is often overlooked, neglecting simpler and more effective strategies like using locally grown species to guard against new pests and diseases. Moreover, the rush towards speed comes at a cultural cost. Craft, whether in plant cultivation or material creation, nurtures creativity, imagination, and environmental consciousness. Subcontracting this to the lowest bidder in a rush to meet unrealistic deadlines disregards the practical and enduring skills acquired through craftsmanship, such as a sense of accomplishment, patience, and collaboration. Devaluing the act of slow creation puts these invaluable skills and cultural heritage at risk. Our society's prevailing culture of instant gratification has infiltrated our gardens and landscapes, demanding a shift that appreciates the gradual process and reduces fixation on end goals. For designers, at a domestic scale, this shift could involve increased client involvement, allowing them space to participate

Gabrielle Shay and Kerrie Mckinnon share the environmental benefits of the slow approach

within their means. Achieving this requires designers to closely consider the available time and financial resources for long-term development, promoting a more collaborative process. In the public sphere, we must make room for adaptability, enabling landscapes to evolve in a sustainable, site-specific manner, catering to stakeholders' evolving needs. These principles align with the foundation of the Slow City movement, where designers and users collaborate closely, empowering individuals not typically involved in design decisions. To embrace the slow movement, designers should also strive to establish shared public spaces that foster moments of unhurried connection. This entails creating spaces that reflect the values of Slow Living and promote a sense of community through areas designed for shared leisure activities, such as communal gardening and group play. Finally, as designers, we should always consider the long-term sustainability of a project throughout the design process and extending beyond our direct involvement. Too often, there is a rush towards handover, with the misconception that landscapes are complete. It is vital to remember that landscapes are ever evolving. Regardless of scale, we must ensure that resources and space for adaptation are readily available to prioritize the ongoing sustainability of these spaces. In doing so, we can wholeheartedly embrace the philosophy of Slow Living and promote more mindful, sustainable landscapes in our fast-paced world.

Devaluing the act of slow creation puts these invaluable skills and cultural heritage at risk

102 Pro Landscaper | November 2023

STUDIO SUPERNATURAL Studio Supernatural is a landscape architecture practice based in London and Leeds. Kerrie Mckinnon is a chartered landscape architect with over 10 years’ experience, working on a wide range of projects in London and South England. She leads the public and some of the commercial projects within the studio from Leeds. Gabrielle Shay is a landscape architect, with years of experience in taking domestic projects from concept to completion and leads both private and commercial projects in the studio from London. studio-supernatural.co.uk

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OPINION

Mark Straver explains why it's never worth taking risks when choosing your planting list

t only takes one infected plant or wood pallet for harmful pests and diseases to enter our country and cause damage to our landscape. The emerald ash borer, for example, has destroyed millions of ash trees in America, and would utterly devastate our native ash trees already struggling from ash dieback. Plant health regulations are constantly changing due to the effects of climate change, so it's something we always have to stay on top of. The oak processionary moth is a pest from Europe that damages oak trees and can harm humans if their hairs are touched or inhaled. We didn’t worry about this 20 years ago because our climate was too cold, but thanks to rising temperatures and an import of infected oak trees in 2006, it is now established in London and restrictions are in place to prevent further spread.

Importance of PLANT HEALTH

We work with plants every day and want to encourage everyone to be scrupulous when it comes to making responsible plant choices

There's nothing wrong with the odd nibble Natural predators keep pests in check but introduce a foreign species into an ecosystem and the existing wildlife doesn't know what to do with it. Birds take up to five years to learn if a new insect is safe to eat. Insects maintain the balance in our ecosystem, but habitat destruction, unsustainable farming, and pesticides have had an effect, and the

DISCUSSING PLANT HEALTH

latest State of Nature report shows our bugs are declining, with some species decreasing by 65% to 70%. At our nursery, we avoid pesticides wherever possible and use Integrated Pest

prolandscapermagazine.com

Management. We bring in 'good insects' to deal with the 'bad insects' and allow a controlled number of pests to be present for the predators to feed from. Previously, the RHS deducted points for the smallest nibble on a plant in a show garden. But designers such as Cleve West and Tom Massey, along with Project Giving Back, have made significant efforts to actively campaign for better plant health, and the odd nibble is now perfectly acceptable. Defra and the Plant Health and Biosecurity Alliance Defra upholds strict measures, but we all share the same goal, and we appreciate the guidance we receive from chief plant health officer Professor Nicola Spence CBE and her team. We're proud to have a great relationship with Defra, which teaches plant health to its students at our nursery. Our team also sit in with Defra to ensure we stay informed, and we have a dedicated team member solely responsible for plant health. All staff are well-trained to identify pests and diseases. My business partner, Robin

Wallis, and I wrote our plant health policy together, which was used as a template by the Plant Health and Biosecurity Alliance, of which we are both members. Always play it safe and ask for advice We don't want to come across as 'preachy', but we work with plants every day and want to encourage everyone to be scrupulous when it comes to making responsible plant choices. By following the rules and playing it safe, you can help reduce the risk of pests and diseases. We use a traffic light system as a guide where plants are categorised by colour: red plants should not be imported, yellow plants require checking, and green plants are safe. If you're unsure, then ask for advice – there are always alternative plant options available that we can suggest for your projects.

MARK STR AVER Mark Straver is a thirdgeneration nurseryman based in Hampshire and has worked with plants since the age of 16. He is joint owner and director at Hortus Loci, which he founded with Robin Wallis in 2011. He’s known in the gardening world for his ability to source the best wholesale plants internationally, using his extensive knowledge, connections, and experience in the industry. hortusloci.co.uk

Pro Landscaper | November 2023 105

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OPINION

Beneath the

SURFACE

oil. We all know plants need it, and are aware that they do better in 'good' soil, but so often we have only the most stereotypical idea of what this is. Current discussions about soil are perhaps only confusing the issue. Here, I'm going to throw light on what appear to be these two very different narratives. One narrative is about fertility. Traditionally, anything to do with growing plants was about growing them to eat; good soil meant big cabbages, and big cabbages meant less hunger. This narrative has inevitably affected our history of horticulture; however, the majority of ornamental and amenity plants do not need the levels of nutrition that cabbages, potatoes and oats need. The fertility narrative has been picked up by the organic movement, which needs to prioritise supposedly 'natural' ways of growing food without synthetic fertilisers. It makes a point of maximising the organic matter content of soil, which is closely related to a soil's ability to hang on to nutrients.

The other narrative is completely different. Researchers and activists working with wildflowers in the 1970s became aware that they were able to get the best results on very poor soils; even heaps of rubble were better than 'nice' fertile soil. The reason is that fertile soils are rapidly dominated by the species most able to make use of the fertility. Infertile ones enable more species to thrive because they can't elbow each other out of the way. Ecologists will tell you that stress often leads to diversity. The 'wildflowers love low fertility' narrative is greatly strengthened by the fact that Europe's richest and most diverse flora is that of shallow alkaline soils, like chalk downland or north country limestone dales – an accident of deep geological and evolutionary history. And a good equivalent to this is highly alkaline post-demolition waste. Researchers continue to experiment with this approach. Essex-based John Little, whose core business is green roofs, has a fascinating garden with a rich flora flourishing on

The reason is that fertile soils are rapidly dominated by the species most able to make use of the fertility. Infertile ones enable more species to thrive because they can't elbow each other out of the way

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There’s no ‘one-type-fits-all' soil and low fertility has its place, argues Noel Kingsbury

various combinations of sand and postdemolition waste. Peter Korn in Sweden plants out large areas of perennials in urban schemes very successfully by using layers of sand up to 50cm deep. What is actually happening here is that the plants are often getting nutrients from the soil below, even if only subsoil, but that the nutrient reduction is enough to reduce the growth of vigorous species or weeds, which do not get a chance to establish in the sand. The sand also provides a habitat for insect species, solitary bees in particular. The invertebrate count of John Little's garden is very impressive. Another approach is to use thick layers of mineral mulch as a way of reducing weed seed germination in plantings. In this case, the removal of dead plant material at the end of the year is vital, to prevent a build-up of organic matter and therefore a possible resevoir of fertility. Low organic matter is crucial to this new thinking. Counter-intuitive, paradoxical, but the low-fertility approach seems to be gaining ground.

NOEL KINGSBURY Noel Kingsbury is a freelance designer, writer and researcher who has long promoted naturalistic planting design. He also runs the education website gardenmasterclass.org. noelkingsbury.com

Pro Landscaper | November 2023 107

OPINION

BRITAIN out of bloom?

’ve just returned from a trip to Europe, travelling through France, Belgium and Switzerland to our destination in the Italian Lakes. What was notable in many areas is that local communities, be they large and small, took pride in their places. There were plant displays at village entrances and hanging baskets galore, most with irrigation to simplify their season long care. The French, for example, have a contest called Concours des villes et villages fleuris ('Competition of cities and villages in bloom') which aims to encourage cities and communities of all sizes to implement policies which improve the quality of life of their inhabitants. We too have contests in the UK but perhaps we dilute the focus with two – Britain in Bloom and the Green Flag Award for parks. Encouraging communities to improve their environment seems to work in France where Ville Fleurie was started by the state and is linked to the tourism ministry but managed on a regional department level with no fees to enter. Here, this role here has rested with our local authorities, which have shrunk bedding displays or grassed them over as their budgets have dwindled. The exceptions are some tourist towns and seaside resorts where traditional seasonal bedding displays survived the cuts. However, these displays are pretty old fashioned, and I’d like to see more innovation and a different approach to planting – or are we still living in the 1950s? Others have reacted by significantly limiting the size and cost of seasonal bedding

Have we lost our civic pride to budget cuts, wonders Nick Coslett

Wouldn’t it be good to see greater civic pride being taken and allowing horticulture to show what is possible?

PLANTING IN THE ALSACE VILLAGE OF EGUISHEIM: CANNAS, SALVIA, PELARGONIUMS, THE YELLOW IPOMOEA BATATAS 'MARGARITA' WITH PENNISETUM GRASSES

displays, with some planting permanent beds of shrubs and perennials, but they don’t have the impact of the displays I saw, especially in France where they were organised by the local communities, often at village level. They incorporated long summer flowering perennials and some structural shrubs. These were also bolstered with summer annuals, but these displays were small in area whilst being tactically positioned for maximum visibility. They were also very well cared for; there were no dead plants, TRADITIONAL UK MUNICIPAL HIGH MAINTENANCE PARKS BEDDING AT COLCHESTER CASTLE PARK and irrigation was either automatic or very diligent. The Britain in Bloom competition run by the RHS does encourage some 3,500 communities to take pride in their places, with some 44 finalists. This compares poorly with the 5,000 communities in France all recognised for

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their efforts and where 257 were awarded four stars. Wouldn’t it be good to see greater civic pride being taken and allowing horticulture to show what is possible? Living in attractive places is good for the community health and wellbeing and impresses visitors. Of course, this is all about distribution of resources and priorities. Here in the UK, parks and horticulture is a discretionary service by the local authority and has no statutory defence against budget cuts. This is despite the known benefits to health and wellbeing quality landscapes deliver.

NICK COSLETT Nick is now retired but has worked in landscape offices, parks management and horticultural nurseries. For the past 20 years, he has also run soft landscape workshops at Coblands and Palmstead. He has been involved in BALI at a regional and national level, and is a trustee of the BALI Chalk Fund, as well as an awards judge.

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OPINION

END OF AN ERA Fair wages could be part of the solution to tackle our aging workforce and prevent long-established nurseries becoming housing developments, suggests Lewis Normand

have been speaking with a number of nursery owners in recent months who will be winding up their businesses in the next few years as they want to retire and their children or other family members don’t want to continue with their work. Indeed, many of you will recognise in nursery owners, particularly small or niche nursery owners, that passion has always driven them over profit. Some have children who are more financially minded and see nursery ownership as risk filled and with lower return than many other forms of employment. Others simply don’t share the passion or interest in horticulture that previous generations of their families have. One owner said to me that he couldn’t, in all good conscience, leave the business to his children as the effort was significant and the return too low. Most nursery owners have an asset that few of us have, which is land. As the famous saying goes, it’s the only thing we’re not making more of and as such useful, particularly near residential areas for the development of more housing. Housebuilders can repurpose an acre of land for around eight houses comfortably and I have read up to 18! The relative value of an acre of land with planning permission for residential properties anywhere in the UK is an appealing sale when compared to years of unpredictable plant production and sales. I understand why the families of established nursery owners would consider this as the very best plan for them to make money even if you can only sell the land once. I think it highly likely that many of the specialist nurseries out there are only a generation away from closure, drawing to an end the longestablished culture of smaller, often back garden specialist nurseries and, with that, the range available to UK designers, gardeners and domestic enthusiasts. It’s a great shame to lose these and we can only hope that some future horticulturists are caught by the same bug that has attracted many generations into this part of the industry. A second and perhaps more worrying comment I heard recently was from a well-established figure in UK horticulture who felt that he could not in all good conscience recommend horticulture (within the UK) as a sensible career path for an entrant. On the face of it, it is a shocking statement, but it was measured and thought through. He continued by saying that 20+ years ago, salaries for those setting out in horticulture were just about enough to survive on. A flat or house could be rented and

maybe even purchased by a couple working in the industry. With work and a fair wind, they would likely make money on that property and move up to a larger house and be able to afford it and a family. Obviously, that is not necessarily applicable to all who enter the industry, but it would apply to many. He felt that the disparity in salary to living costs was now too high in most of the UK to be able to live on a salary, especially an entry level one and I think he has a point here. I have seen any number of jobs for full time gardeners and nursery employees well below the 2023 National Average of £27,756, which apparently has risen by 6.8% since 2021. As we know, cost of living has increased by more than 11% for part of 2023 and has been over 6% for all of 2022 and 2023. I have also seen management jobs running garden centres with multi-million-pound turnovers advertised at £30k to £40k. Our issue has long been low wages making a career in the industry unappealing. It is no different now and for the 25+ years I have been observing people talking about it, no working solutions have ever been applied nationally. All power to the businesses that pay a fair wage that employees cannot just survive on but thrive on. I am lucky to work for a company that values its staff and pays a fair wage as a result. This should, however, be the norm across the industry, if indeed there is to be an industry left in the next 10 or so years.

We can only hope that some future horticulturists are caught by the same bug that has attracted many generations into this part of the industry

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LEWIS NORMAND Lewis has worked in a wide variety of roles within horticulture over a 20-year career. He has lectured on garden design and horticulture, and designed gardens in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Since 2011, Lewis has focused on nursery sales, now working as sales manager at Bernhard’s Nurseries, and has helped to launch a number of new plants into the UK plant market. He is a specialist supplier to show gardens, supplying more than 100 gardens at major shows.

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OBITUARY

LAST WORDS Tony Brophy reflects on the life of a legend in the landscaping industry, Jeffrey Bernhard OBE, who passed away this summer

t feels like an ancient, great oak has fallen. Jeffrey Bernhard OBE passed away in his sleep on 24 August 2023, barely a fortnight after his 100th birthday. He has left us a worthy legacy of many acorns that are growing into a mighty forest. Jeffrey lived a full life, and was thinking, scheming, and planning to the very end. He is resting peacefully at last. I was honoured to deliver a tribute at the ‘Jeffrey Bernhard reaches 100 not out’ 100th birthday celebrations at his family home in Rugby. It was almost 50 years previously when I first met him in his capacity as the first chairman of the British Association of Landscape Industries. I was still in college then, writing my thesis on ‘The Sociological Importance of Landscaping’, but I immediately recognised Jeffrey as the consummate visionary and politician that he was. I quickly tied myself to his BALI shirt-tails. I was Jeffrey’s wing-man for over a decade on the Joint Council of Landscape Industries. Notable in our endeavours to promote the landscape and ornamental horticulture industries was the series of National Garden Festivals commencing with the UK’s first International Garden Festival in Liverpool in 1984 where I was a grand juror on behalf of BALI. It takes a true visionary, like our Jeffrey, to realise the proverb that ‘mighty oaks from little acorns grow!’ evidenced today by the ‘landscape Oscars’. In 1978 there were just 10 entries for the first BALI Awards and Jeffrey presented the Grand Award in a Primary School Hall in Kidderminster with refreshments provided by the dinner ladies. Today, they are held annually in the Great Room in the Grosvenor Hotel with a capacity of 2,000 guests. The seedbed for the British landscape industry was created by the Luftwaffe’s Blitz of London in 1940. Following World War II, an opportunity presented itself to amend the haphazard development of the Industrial Revolution. The creation of the new town development corporations triggered large-scale planting schemes, birthing the modern landscape industry. The growth has been astounding. By 2030, the

Jeffrey’s generation looked back on the fear, suffering, and loss of war, while looking forward with optimism. They built a new world of excitement, growth, and opportunity

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Jeffrey Bernhard OBE (1923–2023) ornamental horticulture and landscaping industry is set to contribute nearly £42bn to the UK economy and support more than 760,000 jobs. The Climate Change Act’s Net Zero target by 2050 provides the greatest opportunity, since the Luftwaffe’s Blitz of London in 1940, for the industry too. Carbon sequestration is the key to putting carbon back in the ground where it belongs. Unlocking the power of grassland and planting more trees is the answer. Jeffrey’s generation looked back on the fear, suffering, and loss of war, while looking forward with optimism. They built a new world of excitement, growth, and opportunity. We are the ones fortunate to have benefited from their vision, drive and energy. Now our children have today's challenges to contend with, but they can reflect with inspiration on Jeffrey's legacy and be grateful for what they have inherited.

Pro Landscaper | November 2023

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LAST WORD

Little INTERVIEWS Pro Landscaper asks quick-fire questions to gain a small insight into the people who make up our industry. To take part, email content@eljays44.com

CHRIS D’AGORNE

GRANT WATERS

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Founder, Buy Native/ How to Rewild

Co-founder and director, Tranquil City

Owner, In-Synq Solutions Ltd

What is your definition of rewilding? Rewilding is a system for restoring landscape health that creates opportunities for people and nature. In Europe, the practice is based on optimising diversity, dispersal, and disturbance. We can create diversity of height in vegetation, disturb the soil, grass and uniformity, and allow dispersal by connecting your garden to neighbours with hedges, gaps in fences, etc.

What is your definition of rewilding? When discussing larger scale or micro scale, it’s allowing and trusting nature to do its thing and realising the things that we've taken away from nature. Researching on behalf of Natural England, looking at what makes a green space attractive, and what increases people to interact with nature in the city, one of the things around people's perceptions about rewilding spaces is there's miscommunication and it is unclear about what it means. For some people, wild means unkept, unsafe and messy, whereas on the other hand, you could say, wild spaces are full of biodiversity where you can see nature thriving. What we need is a clear definition – rewilding and increasing biodiversity, verses uncapped, unmanaged, and left to its own devices.

What is your definition of rewilding? Ecological restoration is more appropriate terminology. Restoring ecological processes, thinking about what would be there if it wasn't for the fact that humans have interfered with nature. It's about reconnecting with nature, on a personal level, and then looking at the spaces that we have control over and recreating natural habitats that allow biodiversity to flourish.

What is your definition of wild flowering? Wildflowers and trees are native plants which have arrived on our island without human assistance since the last Ice Age. Increasing distribution of these species helps to build back biodiversity from the ground-up in food webs. However, it can also bring in cultivated plants which can reduce or change the genetic diversity of local plant populations. Wildflowers work best in degraded landscapes, where these food webs have deteriorated and should be used with an eye on environmental conditions, native plant range and suitability of habitat. They can also improve an ecosystem’s resilience to environmental impacts, such as climate change, by strengthening the integrity of soil health as well as benefit pollinators which have evolved alongside our native plants.

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Tips for garden rewilding? Think about connectivity. It's all well and good promoting wildflowers and wildlife, but if it's not connected to other areas, you’re potentially limiting the benefit. The main thing is to consider how can you connect to neighbouring wildlife. On your street, for example, introduce wildflowers along the gardens, connecting to the local park. Those connections are really important. It goes beyond your little plot and increases the impact of what you can actually do.

How do you plan on encouraging people to learn about biodiversity? Just by giving people access to information will encourage their curiosity. Think of a dandelion for example; just by showing people how it can help make the soils. Being drought tolerant, dandelion also bring nutrients from lower down, that can help other plants; but in addition to that, it can give you salad which has vitamins in abundance. The roots can be used to make coffee, and every part of the dandelion is edible. Not only does it provide food, but it looks pretty, with the beautiful yellow flower, before turning into seed form, which children love to play with and allows them to connect with nature. Plus, it attracts pollinators; the dandelion is pretty much the only plant that is entirely self-sufficient.

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