THE LANDSCAPING SOLUTIONS BLOG


Welcome to our Blog. Inspiration, updates and industry trends from the team at Landscaping Solutions.

​LANDSCAPING SOLUTIONS - WHAT WE’RE DOING FOR YOU AND OUR STAFF DURING THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

Coronavirus

At Landscaping Solutions we’d like to assure you of the measures we have put in place to protect our clients and our staff during the Covid-19 outbreak.

“Landscaping and building work is still permitted, and obviously staff are unable to work from home, so our policy is to continue with business as usual but working closely to the following guidelines,” says Ben West.

  • We are avoiding all close contact with our clients and their property.
  • Our staff are working no closer than 2 metres from their fellow workmates.
  • Staff travel to work independently and by their own means, such as by private vehicle or bicycle.
  • Staff displaying flu/cold symptoms are asked to self-isolate for a minimum of 14 days.
  • We will respectfully not be accepting drinks or refreshments at this time.
  • We will not be entering a client’s home to use any facilities.
  • Staff carry hand-sanitising wipes and gels to use when in contact with shared tools or public surfaces.
  • Meetings are held outside, keeping the recommended distance of 2 metres apart, or via telephone or an online service, such as Skype, of your choice.
  • All correspondence, photographs, information, health and safety forms created electronically and emailed to clients.
  • We encourage payment by electronic means

Garden Maintenance

If you’re one of our regular maintenance clients, you’ll already have received an email outlining the procedures we have in place to protect you and our staff. If you’re worried about any aspect at all, please give us a ring or email us and we’ll talk it through with you. We will, in any case, be in contact before our arrival at your home.

Garden Landscaping

We work with a number of award-winning garden designers in Surrey and South West London and now is an excellent time for your clients to think about what changes would allow them to enjoy their garden all the more.

If you’re a homeowner, this period of enforced staying at home is an opportunity to really appreciate the garden and consider those changes you’ve wanted to make for so long.

We’re happy to advise over the phone or on a site visit (adhering to our new modus operandi outlined above), whether you would prefer to defer work to a later date or get a beautiful new garden to enjoy before the arrival of full summer.

Contact Ben to discuss.

HOW TO FIND THE BEST GARDEN MAINTENANCE COMPANY

A properly maintained garden brings new joy in being outdoors, gives new life to your property, and removes the worry at not keeping on top of things.

Garden Maintenance in Surrey and South West London.

Garden built and maintained by Landscaping Solutions

Finding a garden maintenance company to suit you, though, can create its own headache. Based in Surrey and South West London, we at Landscaping Solutions have come to understand what our clients value most. With this knowledge, we’ve put together a list of questions for you to ask garden services providers, so that you can more easily find the one that matches your needs.

How experienced are you?

The best garden maintenance, which lets you relax in the knowledge that every aspect of your outside space is being cared for, is not about “mowing and blowing” or just providing weeding services.

Too often home-owners find their shrubs trimmed into an amorphous blob, or an array of identical lollipops. Neat, but hardly allowing the personality of your garden to shine.

It’s an approach which often betrays a lack of experience. To bring out the best in a garden requires people who have built up a bank of knowledge and have plenty of experience at the sharp end of garden maintenance.

Extensive knowledge of perennials, shrubs, trees and annuals, an understanding of clever underplanting, layering and seasonal colour ensure that over the year your garden gains in character and interest, becoming the best fit for your lifestyle and how you want to enjoy it.

Landscaping Solutions Garden Services.

Garden built and maintained by Landscaping Solutions

Are you based locally?

This might seem an odd question to throw in, but the more engaged a company is in your locality and the longer they’ve been in operation, the more they’ve come to understand local conditions - what grows well in one area compared with another, how soil conditions vary, slight differences in weather patterns. Employ a company based at some distance from your location and it could make the wrong sort of difference to the success of your garden maintenance programme.

How can I trust that you’re as good as you say you are?

Some people can talk up a storm, but it helps to have proof.

Membership of a professional organisation is an indicator of a company with high standards. There are a number of organisations to look out for; the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) is one which only permits members who maintain necessary standards, carries out inspections, and demands members carry public liability insurance.

You can’t beat an actual example, though.

So, now is a good time to ask if your prospective garden services company can point you to any gardens locally that they look after.

Can you work the way I want you to?

This is an interesting one, and it’s worth thinking about what you want from a garden maintenance company before beginning your search. You are, after all, looking for a long-term relationship with someone who’s happy to work with you in the way that suits you.

This might mean that you just want to come home to an attractive garden in good condition where you can entertain and relax without ever having to think about details. You might have planting plans that you’d like to implement but can’t do yourself, or want to increase the wildlife-friendly elements of your garden. You might like to be fully involved, with regular updates on work being carried out, and regular discussions about the garden’s development and the particular plants we recommend incorporating and features you’d like added.

The response and degree of enthusiasm from a prospective company to an explanation of your preferred methods will help you gauge how suited it is to your way of life.

About Landscaping Solutions’ Garden Maintenance Service

Ben West established Landscaping Solutions in 2005, with sixteen years’ experience of landscaping and horticulture under his belt. With our staff of experienced landscapers, Landscaping Solutions contains a deep well of knowledge and skills which will breathe new life into your garden.

Landscaping Solutions Award Winning Garden Designs.

Garden built and maintained by Landscaping Solutions in Barnes, South West London

We are also full members of the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) and, in addition to our garden maintenance work, collaborate with leading garden designers to build award-winning garden designs.

Working with you

We’re happy to work in the way that suits you best, from having the most general instruction to keep the garden looking good (we’ll make sure we know exactly what this means to you first) through to having a regular meeting with you to discuss what you’d like done next.

We take enormous pleasure in working with garden owners to maintain their garden to the highest standard and, if desired, to help develop it. With extensive knowledge of perennials, annuals, shrubs, trees and annuals, we’ll plant and prune with an eye to the coming seasons as well making your garden look its best in the immediate present.

We can help you develop your garden over time with your children or grandchildren in mind, adding age-appropriate features as they grow, helping you to connect them to Nature.

Seasonal tasks are not restricted to plants and lawns, unless you want them to be. We will also carry out ongoing garden maintenance on hard landscaping, decking and fences, including repairs and painting.

We’re upfront about what we can’t do, so if you ever need a large tree cut down, for example, we’ll direct you to a qualified tree surgeon.

Working with Nature

With Nature much in the spotlight these days, and climate change, pesticides, diminishing insect populations and habitat destruction frequently in the news, it’s reassuring to know that small differences can make a difference. At Landscaping Solutions we have the knowledge to help you make your garden as Nature-Friendly as possible while suiting your lifestyle and garden layout.

Garden Maintenance Service.

Garden built and maintained by Landscaping Solutions

What Landscaping Solutions offers

What we offer is a custom garden maintenance service, tailored to your garden, your pocket and the way you want us to work. We seek to enjoy a good long-term relationship every bit as much as you want to find someone you’re happy with for a long time to come.

All we ask is that you have a garden with enough work to occupy at least one gardener for one full day. That could be a medium-sized but intensively planted garden with several features, or a large, simple spread with lots of ground to cover. We’re happy to come and advise.

Where to find us

Landscaping Solutions offers garden services in Surrey and South West London, particularly the TW, SW, GU and KT postcodes. Our radius includes Molesey, Esher, East Horsley, Cobham, Weybridge, Kingswood, Kingston and Richmond.

For more information and an informal chat about our garden maintenance service, contact Ben West on 0208 241 2402, or email info@landscapingsolutionsltd.co.uk to ask us to give you a call.

A GRAVEL FRONT GARDEN - THE ECONOMICAL, LOW-MAINTENANCE ANSWER TO A SURREY GARDEN OF DISTINCTION

If you’re thinking of putting gravel down in your front garden or driveway, there’s a good chance that you’re attracted by the idea of low maintenance, ease of installation and economy of materials.

Drought Tolerant Garden, Designed by David Ward. RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden.

Beth Chatto: The Drought Tolerant Garden. Designed by David Ward. RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2019. (Stand no. 200) Copyright © RHS. Credit: RHS/Joanna Kossak. See below why this was the perfect inspiration growing under gravel.

Installed correctly, it’s an ideal material for fulfilling all those criteria, but what’s less recognised is that it can be used to create unique and attractive garden that will, not only incorporate all the practical necessities of a front garden, but will also welcome you home at the end of the day.

Designing a front garden to be both practical and attractive, and maybe look just a little different, can be a challenge. You need enough space for parking, easy access to the road for bins, a surface that works well in all weathers, that’s easy for all types of footwear and wheels to traverse, and that complies with required SUDS regulations, removing the potential need for planning permission. Low maintenance requirements are also usually a priority for this area.

Understandably, the practicalities generally take precedence, even to the extent of the whole frontage being given over to hard landscaping. But there are alternatives.

In this article we’ll look at one of the most unusual and one of the most economical to create - the gravel front garden.

A Gravel Garden, not just a Gravel Driveway

Of course, we’re all used to gravel driveways - plenty of which give gravel a bad name. Badly installed, they leak stones onto the pavement, grow weeds with enthusiasm and settle into ridges under the car wheels while, in a worst-case scenario, being extremely hard work to walk on.

By contrast, a well-designed and expertly installed gravel garden will be low maintenance, solid underfoot where it needs to be, won’t migrate, and will offer a lower-cost option that grows a diversity of planting, therefore giving your house a frontage that has all you need and is welcoming and attractive.

Making Gravel Driveways Work

So, how are the gravel driveway problems listed above solved? By using a stabilisation system in combination with the right type of gravel. Here at Landscaping Solutions, we are registered installers of CEDAdrive, the invisible gravel stabilisation system that creates a surface that is very easy to walk on, even in high heels, and is wheelchair- and pushchair-friendly.

It also solves practical issues relating to SUDS and planning permission.

A Quick Word about SUDS

SUDS - Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems - replicate natural drainage, diverting water away from sewers, with the intention of taking pressure off the sewerage system and reducing surface flooding. The system is a requirement in all front garden developments, with more than five square metres of hard landscaping permitted only where the surface is permeable or there is a permeable area for the water to drain into.

We’ll go into SUDS in more depth in a later article. However, gravel front gardens are completely permeable, allowing rainwater to percolate virtually unimpeded into the soil, and therefore fulfil all the criteria with no need for planning permission.

A Gravel Garden by Design

For an idea of how it could look, this year’s Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in Surrey provided a perfect example.

Beth Chatto Garden, Hampton Court Palace Flower Festival 2019.

The sword-shaped leaves of irises make a bold statement against gravel in the Beth Chatto Garden at Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2019. Picture credit: Ben West.

Beth Chatto, who died in 2018, was one of the most influential gardeners of the twentieth century. In homage, the festival named her its 2019 Horticultural Hero and featured a recreation of her Drought-Tolerant Garden by David Ward, Garden Director of the Beth Chatto Gardens in Elmstead, near Colchester, Essex.

“I loved the Beth Chatto garden,” says Landscaping Solutions’ director Ben West. “It was mainly naturalistic, colourful, vibrant, with lots of different textures and shapes.”

It included a huge number of plants which thrive under gravel and provided a huge variety of plants which make ideal choices for a front garden design. Included in the planting were easy-to-grow herbs like fennel, lavender, thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage and catmint; the edible brassica sea kale; plants like lamb’s ears, whose furry leaves beg to be stroked; colourful flowers like red-hot Helianthemums, misty-blue Perovskias, and the sunshine yellow Verbascums, punctuated by the pure white flowers of such plants as perennial stocks. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as choices are concerned.

They’ll even multiply without your intervention. Self-seeding is only a problem when it happens in the wrong place. A huge advantage of installing CEDAdrive is the inbuilt geomembrane that separates the gravel from the soil below, preventing deep-rooting plants taking hold. If other plants show their heads, they just lift away from the 40mm depth of gravel.

A complete gravel front garden

Use of CEDAdrive means that those parts of your front garden that need to be walked on, parked on, and offer a pathway to the main road for the bins offer exactly those capabilities.

With a gravel mulch used across the rest of the front garden, these necessary areas will then blend seamlessly into the whole, creating a sense of air and space unrestricted by driveway edging or strictly delineated flower beds. This in itself will make the front garden feel bigger.

The Drought Tolerant Garden, Designed by David Ward.

Beth Chatto: The Drought Tolerant Garden. Designed by David Ward. RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2019. (Stand no. 200) Copyright © RHS. Credit: RHS/Joanna Kossak.

Ben loves the natural feel of a carefully curated gravel garden like this year’s feature garden at Hampton Court. “What I like about the Beth Chatto garden is the informality of the planting,” says Ben. “The plants aren’t hemmed in with a hard edge; there is no well-defined border. Instead the planted area weaves in and out, with scalloped edges. It makes it more fluid and interesting.”

If you’d like to discuss the potential of a well-designed gravel front garden for your property, which will bring pleasure for years to come, contact Ben at Landscaping Solutions on the number above or email info@landscapingsolutionsltd.co.uk.


HEDGEROW HERITAGE PROJECT AWARDED GRANT

North Downs, Surrey

Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, the Surrey Wildlife Trust announced recently that their Hedgerow Heritage project has been awarded £56,600 in development funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The initial funding will allow the Surrey Wildlife Trust to further develop their plans for the Hedgerow Heritage project and apply for a full National Lottery grant of nearly half a million pounds in July 2019.

The project itself aims to revive traditional hedge planting and laying skills in the local community. With a focus on young people, ranging from school children to youth groups, the project aims to involve thousands of local people in the restoration of hedgerows, all within the iconic landscape of the North Downs, part of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

With two thirds of England being continuously hedged for over a thousand years, there is a rich tradition of hedgerow management techniques in Surrey and the project aims to pass on these skills from local hedge laying societies to community volunteers, landowners, farm managers and private sector contractors.

The project will see the planting, restoration and protection of more than 80 kilometres of hedgerows in Surrey and is part of a countywide strategy to reverse the fragmentation of the countryside and encourage stewardship of the landscape in the future.

Andrew Jamieson, project development manager at Surrey Wildlife Trust, said: “We’re delighted to win this funding from the National Lottery players. It is an incredible opportunity to engage with local communities, to keep heritage hedgerow skills alive and pass on expertise from one generation to the next.”

There is no denying, this is a significant project and the importance of well maintained hedgerows should not be underestimated.

Hedgerows are not merely field boundaries, they play a vital role in our delicate ecosystem, providing habitat for flora and fauna and enabling species such as dormice, bats, insects and butterflies to travel safely across the landscape. In addition hedgerows prevent soil erosion and provide a natural barrier to reduce pesticides and fertilisers reaching our streams and rivers.

We certainly wish this project every success and as corporate sponsors of the Surrey Wildlife Trust we will be watching this development with enthusiasm.

If you would like more information regarding the Hedgerow Heritage project or any other Surrey Wildlife Trust project please visit the Surrey Wildlife Trust website for further information.

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