Climate adaptive thinking for the UK and Middle-East
This article first appeared in Landscape Middle East magazine, in May 2025, worded slightly differently. There is a new opportunity arising within landscape/urban design, of delivering Nature Based Solutions (NBS or NbS) to both our urban and rural landscapes. The design of urban parks, commercial developments and streetscapes need an uplift to become ‘ecosystem communities’
Urban greening contributes a lot of benefits to the fabric and quality of life in an city environment, and the vertical plane is often the most readily available and underutilised space. Trees are fantastic and as a designer and consulting arborist, I will extol their virtues all day long, but viable root volume is often
First published in Landscape Middle East magazine, September 2024 (with different title). If there is one thing that makes being outdoors bearable in an urban arid environment, it is trees. It can be up to 20°C cooler in the direct shade of a tree, whilst a street with trees planted along it will be several
When we talk of coppicing, we think of traditional woodland management, with acres of an evenly aged monoculture of coppice stools. These would be cut in cyclical coupes, typically on a seven to twenty year rotation, dependant upon species and intended use. There is, however, another way to use the method of coppicing (cutting a
As we are again beset by storms and high winds, which will bring another bout of tree loss, it seems a good time to think about the reaction of trees, once they are wind thrown. We assume that’s it; end game, but the tree knows better and will regenerate if it can – and if
Just down the road from me is my favourite beach, at Pagham, West Sussex. Famous for its harbour and wildfowl, it is the adjacent area of vegetated shingle that captivates me. The area has that slightly run-down British coastal seaside feel, the location not quite right for it to be a major tourist attraction, thankfully.
I’m working through a new approach to creating shrubscapes, shrub-meadows, woody meadows, shrub-prairies, or shrub-steppe (take your pick). This is a natural follow-on from my current work investigating coppiced landscapes (see previous article in menu, or link at bottom) and is a landscape method in its own right, but also a linkage mechanism between coppicescape
This article was published in Landscape Middle East magazine in January 2024. In light of the recent severe storms and floods in the UAE, I thought it would be timely to post this here. How we treat soil and irrigate trees has a big effect on how resilient trees are in resisting damage from such
The UK is blessed with a relative abundance of trees classed as Ancient or Veteran when compared to most other countries and there is a growing awareness of their importance. Currently there is no automatic legal protection in place for them so we must raise awareness and look after these unique and valuable habitats. They
Why Water and Soil are just as Important. The world has become fixated on Carbon; emissions are the problem, so removal is the solution. This is, unfortunately, an over-simplification of the troubles we find ourselves in; we have Carbon-Tunnel Syndrome. We think we have to find a way to ‘fix’ the carbon problem, then all
