Gardens & Landscapes

Posts about urban or rural landscaping

Coppice as an Urban Landscape (Eco)System

To create more vibrant, ecologically oriented urban landscapes, we need to change our perception of what landscapes are and how we manage them. Usually, maintenance is seen as a burden, when it should be appreciated as an asset, providing social and environment health and ecosystem services. A landscape ecosystem should not be a static thing,

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Summer Pruning the Woodland Garden

It’s August and the woodland edge garden has become a bit shady and dense; time for a bit of summer pruning. Multi-stem small trees like Corylus, Euonymus and Viburnum all throw up epicormic shoots and get congested, especially the hazel, whilst the understory plantings have finished flowering and look tall, bedraggled and invaded by the

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Deadwood Art as Ecological Expression

I find that more and more I want to connect to the essence of a place and express that through generating adaptive ecosystems, creating vibrant, healthy places full of life, with natural resilience and adaptability. A large part of the cycle of life is death and in an ecosystem that meads deadwood. If we want

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The Woodland Edge Garden

Of all the ecosystems out there, forests and woodland are possibly the most abundant and diverse. Think about it; we have a thin layer of soil on the surface of this planet and without foliage, nothing between us and the stars. Plants and especially trees, add layers in-between, build microclimates and nurture life. We should

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A look back at Trees in 2022

On this last day of the year, it’s wet and dull outside, so I thought I’d look back at some of the amazing trees I’ve had the privilege to encounter this year whilst visiting and working in the UAE. Some of these I have worked directly with, surveying them as part of a project or

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Adaptive and Regenerative Landscapes

What is an adaptive landscape, how is it different from other forms of landscape? Is a regenerative landscape also different? Simply put, they are landscapes, either natural, man-made or modified, that demonstrate an ability to adapt, survive and thrive under current and future conditions. Adaptive and regenerative are both expressions of this statement, with some

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Time to change how we live – and garden

For the first time ever, this summer the UK recorded temperatures in excess of 40°C. Parts of Wennington, a village in East London were consumed by fire. If ever there was a moment to wake up and change how we live, it is now. If we don’t we are individually and collectively committing, in the

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Seeds of Change

The world is changing, I think we all know that now. In terms of climate and ecology, we probably don’t realise how much and how fast. Climate zones are shifting North and Southwards from the equatorial regions with the most extreme change seen near the poles (4 times the rate of elsewhere). For us in

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Focus on Garden Design

2021 has been extraordinary, for a whole range of reasons. Covid and climate have dominated our lives, each bringing flux and change. It’s been a time of personal transformation for me too, with our final shutting of our greenhouse based living wall and plant supply company, Vertology/Coastal Plants. With these changes I feel new focus

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