Nina Mason
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Taking on BBC Gardeners’ World Live for the first time
Katerina Kantalis is set to make her show garden debut this month. The Australian designer is creating a garden for the APL Avenue at this year’s BBC Gardeners’ World Live in Birmingham alongside contractor New Look Landscapes, which will also be making its debut. “New Look have done quite a lot in the commercial space and want to transfer their skills to the domestic area, whereas I’m more domestic. So, we’re bringing in skillsets from both sides,” says Kantalis. ‘The Chic Garden Getaway’ will aim to show visitors how much can be achieved within a small space. At just…
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LI urges members to not attend ‘unofficial’ EGM
An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) called earlier this week to discuss the Landscape Institute’s presidency dispute will not be “official”, says the organisation. A statement issued by the Landscape Institute (LI) is urging members not to attend the EGM at the end of June and has asked “the requisitioners to reconsider their actions.” The EGM was called by Brodie McAllister, who was removed from his position as president-elect last year following multiple allegations. McAllister says 145 members signed the requisition and the three requirements in the LI’s bylaws to proceed with the EGM had been met. However, the LI says…
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Pro Landscaper June 2023
One of the biggest challenges in the industry, we’re often told, is finding the right candidates for the roles available. Why is our sector struggling to attract talent? And what can we do about it? For a start, better value ourselves – at least, that seems to be the suggestion of one of our features this month which looks at whether the grounds maintenance sector is in a race to the bottom. In this issue: On Your Marks, Get Set, Go! It’s a competitive sector, but are grounds maintenance companies tendering with impossibly low prices, and could this be damaging…
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EGM called over Landscape Institute presidency dispute
An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) appears to have been called by more than 100 members of the Landscape Institute to address the ongoing dispute over the removal of the president-elect last year. Brodie McAllister was elected to be the next president in 2021 and was due to take over the position from July 2022 until multiple allegations led to his removal as a trustee and as president-elect. Over the last year, McAllister has been fighting the allegations and demanding an EGM be held. It will now seemingly take place on Tuesday 27 June in London and via Zoom after 145…
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Just Stop Oil protestors target Chelsea
Protestors from environmental campaign group Just Stop Oil have been arrested after throwing orange paint across the RBC Brewin Dolphin Garden this morning. The garden, designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes, was targeted by three protestors around 9am. Hervey-Brookes has called the garden “permanently destroyed”, while contractor Gareth Wilson – who built the garden – wrote on social media that “fuming is an understatement.” Wilson added that “stupidity knows no boundaries, especially as the RHS is pushing sustainability at the very top of its agenda. Gardens that aren’t sustainable simply don’t get accepted by the RHS.” This year is the first year…
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Making the most of the world famous show
We feel that Chelsea is the annual opportunity to learn from our incredible horticulturists on a number of levels; about how plants benefit not only plants and soil but our bodies too. Surely this is as relevant as finding out the latest on cultivating a stunning rose, and there is a place for both. Weeds are taking centre stage at Chelsea this year – and with good reason. Weeds are our pioneer plants and are all healers, in one way or another. They are natural, wild plants. They form the basis of all our human medicines, and now is a…
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Behind the Fauna & Flora Garden
The Fauna & Flora Garden at this year’s Chelsea has been four years in the making. Garden designer Jilyane Rickards was fresh from winning a Gold medal and the People’s Choice Award at the 2019 show when she started designing the next one – one which would have as much gravitas as the last. Whilst her show garden four years ago highlighted the work CAMFED does to support females in rural or poor communities in Africa to receive an education, Rickards’ latest garden – showcased this week at the Royal Hospital Chelsea – will raise awareness of a mountain gorilla…
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Transcendence Garden marks the end of an era for three Chelsea stalwarts
This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is set to be the last for those behind the Memoria & GreenAcres Transcendence Garden. Garden designers Andrew Wilson and Gavin McWilliam, and David Dodd – managing director of prolific contractor The Outdoor Room – have all said they will probably not be returning to the world-famous show as they look to welcome the next generation of designers and landscapers. Whilst The Outdoor Room will continue to build show gardens, Dodd says the Transcendence Garden is “a fantastic one for me to bow out on.” It is the third show garden he was worked…
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7 Highlights from Press Day at Chelsea
Chelsea had a renewed buzz today, and it wasn’t just from all the biodiverse gardens. Hundreds of visitors flocked to press day to immerse themselves in the variety of show gardens on display, and what a variety – designers this year have tackled everything from mental health and grief, from diversity to a colony in Korea, and from community gardens to insects. Sustainability was also an overriding focus this year, with some designers and contractors going above and beyond to make their garden as environmentally friendly as possible. This was the real return of Chelsea post-pandemic, and it’s seemingly stepping…
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A Good Samaritan
Over the last 70 years, the Samaritans has answered 134 million calls – that’s millions of people in need of its free services over the last seven decades. Last year, volunteers spent nearly one million hours responding to these calls, and so it’s thanks to these 23,000 volunteers that the support provided by the Samaritans is even possible. And one of these volunteers has designed a show garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year. Garden designer Darren Hawkes has lost friends to suicide and so he wanted to help the charity which could make a difference by offering…
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Bringing Jiri Mountain to Chelsea
Tell us about the concept behind the garden. The garden is an evocation of Mount Jiri in South Korea, a primeval forest (the last remaining) rich in medicinal plants. It is a rare and beautiful place that has been protected from humans. I began thinking about the positive balance between humans and nature through the Jiri Mountain National Park, where unnamed valleys and mountain peaks exist, and where medicinal plants thrive in abundance. In the east of Jiri Mountain, about 1,500 kinds of medicinal herbs grow naturally and the environment serves as a gigantic seedbank. The restoration of the primitiveness…
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House of Lords told horticulture needs a “rebrand” to attract younger generation
Horticulture needs to be rebranded and needs to be introduced into the curriculum, said witnesses today to the Horticultural Sector Committee. In the latest of a series of evidence sessions so far into the challenges, opportunities and risks faced by the horticultural sector, the committee was told that horticulture “needs a rebrand throughout the entire education system.” Lilidh Matthews, treasurer of the Young People in Horticulture Association, said that there are “a lot of perceptions around horticulture as a career that aren’t valid and that needs to be changed throughout the education system, all the way up to the point…
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Entries open for 30th Landscape Institute Awards
Submissions are now open for the Landscape Institute Awards 2023, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Members and non-members of the Landscape Institute have until 4 July to enter their projects into one or more of the 17 categories. There are five open categories, nine professional categories, two for students and the President’s Award for the best overall landscape project. The Building with Nature category is open to recipients of a Building with Nature Accreditation for their residential, commercial, or community infrastructure scheme. Finalists will be announced in September, with the winners being revealed at a ceremony on…
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Harrogate Flower Show garden border donated to charity
A garden border designed by Jo Manfredi-Hamer for the recent Harrogate Flower Show is to be donated to charity Leeds Mind. The plants used are being donated by Yorkshire nursery Johnsons of Whixley to the Leeds Mind garden at Clarence House in Horsforth. Worth more than £1,500, the plant varieties include Taxus, Prunus lusitanica, Malus ‘Evereste’, Viburnum tinus, Hebe ‘Green Globe’, heathers, Choisya ‘Sundance’, Heuchera and Tiarella. Manfredi-Hamer’s design also included a red willow-waved fox and a wired hedgehog by sculptor Emma Stothard. The border was designed to encourage visitors to reduce pollution and support biodiversity in urban areas, as…
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Show-stopping solutions
Every year, there is a garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show that gets people talking. It could be an unexpected planting scheme, a wild take on a theme – or, in the case of Sarah Eberle’s garden last year, an extraordinary material used in dramatic ways. At the show last year, Eberle – Chelsea’s most decorated designer – created the MEDITE SMARTPLY Building the Future Garden, with an impressive waterfall cascading over a building down into a pool below. Not only did it earn Eberle her 20th Gold medal, but it also scooped the Best Construction Award, having been…
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Greenfingers opens new garden at hospice
National charity Greenfingers has opened a new ‘reflective garden’ at a hospice in Essex. Created by award-winning garden designer Thomas Hoblyn and landscaping company Stewart Landscapes, the new 300m2 garden at Haven House in Children’s Hospice replaces a disused woodland and will provide a secluded space for children, visitors and staff. Hoblyn officiated the opening, alongside Aasam and Mariam Ali whose late child Aiza was diagnosed with a rare metabolic condition and was cared for by Haven House over 14 years. The parents were part of the initial conversations with Hoblyn regarding the space. Aasam Ali said it now “offers…
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Young People in Horticulture Association reaches 500 members
Membership of the Young People in Horticulture Association (YPHA) has now hit the 500 mark after just three years. The association has also announced three new additions to its committee. The YPHA was founded in 2020 to bring together those in the industry aged 30 or under. It was founded by Mollie Higginson, Liam Cleary and Natalie Porter. Abigail Stocker, Lilidh Matthews, Kyle Ross and Sarah Want have joined the committee over the years. So far this year, Farplants’ Jeremy Costello has also joined the committee as strategy manager, Walberton Nursery’s Megan Warren-Davis has become the YPHA’s social media manager,…
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RHS Tatton Park designers to “push boundaries”
A variety of topics and issues will be highlighted at this year’s RHS Flower Show Tatton Park in July. Designers will tackle subjects from nocturnal pollinators to technology to suicide at this year’s show, which has seen a large increase in local participants. A blackout tent with close-up projections will celebrate lesser-known pollinators in The RHS Nocturnal Pollinator Experience, designed by immersive technology artist Georgia Tucker and designer Sharon Hockenhull. Last year’s RHS Young Designer of the Year finalist Rachel Platt will explore tech addiction among young adults in ‘J.Parker’s Chained to Tech Garden’. Designers Carolyn Hardern and Jon Jarvis,…
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The Landscape Service wins big at BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair
A Southampton-based company has been awarded Best Showcase Garden at BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair at Beaulieu last week. The Landscape Service received the top award for its Nordic Retreat garden, which also scooped a Platinum Award. Managing director Luke Mills designed the minimalist garden as a temporary respite from the urban environment, with neutral colours, plants to create shade and natural hard landscaping materials. Mills says: “The Nordic Retreat is our first show garden so I couldn’t be happier to have won this award. Inspired by my Nordic heritage, I wanted the garden to have a therapeutic effect, providing calm…
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BALI Chalk Fund launches search for Student of the Year
The BALI Chalk Fund has announced the launch of its annual Student of the Year competition, which has this year been updated to encourage garden design students to enter. Garden design colleges had previously not considered students eligible for the competition. BALI Chalk Fund trustees have now created two categories where colleges can nominate their top students studying either Landscape or Garden Design to better reflect the membership of the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI). Application forms have been sent to colleges as the summer term starts and students studying for a Level 2 or above course are eligible…
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Winners announced for Pro Landscaper Business Awards 2023
Nicholsons Ltd has been unveiled as the Supreme Winner at the Pro Landscaper Business Awards 2023, in association with Caribbean Blinds. The multi-faceted company, which offers numerous landscaping services as well as owning its own nursery, scooped the top prize at the ceremony held at Old Billingsgate, London on Friday 21 April. Judges said Nicholsons had “a clear vision and approach to staff training, CSR, technology use and future growth plans” with “excellent initiatives”. They called it an “impressive company which places much emphasis on sustainability as part of its delivery.” It also won the award for Landscape Company Over £5m Turnover…
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Green-tech official partner for recycling scheme
Yorkshire-based supplier Green-tech has been announced as an official partner for a recently launched recycling scheme by tree guard manufacturer Rainbow Professional. The Rainbow Recycling Scheme for old PVC spiral or PVC vole guards is available to any professional end user. Dean Jackson, head of Green-tech sales, says: “It is not currently feasible to eradicate plastic totally, but we can do the next best thing – we can use recycled plastic. And in partnership with Rainbow Professional, we can collect and recycle old tree spirals and give them a new life rather than leave in the environment or commit to…
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Major restoration of one of Chatsworth’s “most popular features”
Chatsworth House Trust has announced a new £7m restoration project for a Grade I listed feature on the estate, located in the Peak District National Park. It has been awarded £422k of funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to invest in the research and development work for ‘Celebrating the Cascade’, a project to restore the “popular” water feature at Chatsworth. Built more than three centuries ago, the “iconic structure” of a temple with spouts and fountains has 24 steps that water flows over, descending around 60m. The full restoration has been estimated at more than £7m and is “urgently…
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SGD awards fellowship to prolific designer
James Scott has been awarded a fellowship by the Society of Garden Designers (SGD). The association’s council voted unanimously to make the principal designer of The Garden Company a fellow in recognition of his contribution to the profession and the society. Scott founded Hertfordshire-based The Garden Company in 1991, shortly after finishing his studies at Merrist Wood College. Since, the design and build practice has produced numerous award-winning gardens, and last year Scott was named one of Pro Landscaper’s Most Influential people in the industry, as voted by readers. He served on the SGD council for six years, during which…
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