An 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. The contemporary country garden, located on the edge of Fontwell, West...
As the House of Lords’ Horticultural sector have recently opened an inquiry and subsequent report into the future of horticulture, just one of the many questions being investigated by the twelve committee members explores the affiliation between horticulture and...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
Noemi Mercurelli has joined PC Landscapes as an associate designer to head up the expansion of its design branch. Mercurelli will also be supporting PC Landscapes in its ambitions to be carbon neutral. The Surrey-based design and build company already has a strong focus on sustainability and Noemi will be applying her passion for the environment...
The decline of nature is continuing apace, with the UK in a particularly worrying condition, having just 53% of its biodiversity left, according to research by the Natural History Museum. Significantly below the global average of 75%, the need to boost biodiversity across both built and natural environments is a national imperative. It is to this...
Professional horticulture might be exempt for now, but a ban on using peat is looking ever more likely by 2030. The government announced last August that sales of peat to amateur gardeners in England will be banned from 2024, and it pledged to help the professional horticulture sector speed up its transition to peat-free alternatives, recognising...
The TV programmes of Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham and the like have informed us that our future world must be greener and that we ought to be the technologists to affect this. So, we want to do the right things to journey ourselves, our clients and the public down this road. But do we know what the right things are, or are we just...
Time for a dirty secret. Years ago, when I was coming into the grounds maintenance business, I was told, “you make your money doing the work you don’t do”. You price the work into your contract and then work your hardest to avoid delivering it. From an ethical perspective, this never sat well with me or for many of us in the profession that work...
From Brexit to COVID-19 to the cost-of-living crisis, businesses worldwide have had to adapt to a host of unpredictable, evolving economic conditions. For instance, as lockdowns came to a close, over eight in ten employees who had been working from home said they planned to adopt a hybrid model. Pro Landscaper looks at which changes are here to...
For International Woman’s Day, Pro Landscaper has compiled a list of its Top 10 Most Influential Women in the industry. All 10 women below were shortlisted for Pro Landscaper’s Most Influential Awards 2022. In no particular order: Sarah Eberle – Garden designer: Eberle is a decorated garden designer across RHS shows, with 20 Gold medals to her...
Mollie Higginson, co-founder of the Young People in Horticulture Association, sits down with Pro Landscaper as she reflects on building a community, redefining the perception of horticulture and being a woman in the industry. Mollie Higginson is fast becoming a household name within horticulture. Having been named among Pro Landscaper’s 30 Under...
For International Woman’s Day, Johnstone Landscapes’ director sits down with Pro Landscaper to talk diversity, education and authentic changes. What has been the most exciting change for Johnstone Landscapes and/or the British Association of Landscape Industries in recent years? Johnstone Landscapes’ ability to work on projects we choose...
The results are in for the UK’s Four-Day Week Pilot. The results were positive overall with many companies keeping the four-day week, staff reporting an increase in work-life balance and less fatigue, and revenue seeing a small increase. Of the 61 companies that participated, 56 are continuing with the four-day week (92%) with 18% confirming the...
Do you know what a river should look like? Really look like, that is. Over hundreds of years, the shape and flow of our rivers and marshland has been dramatically altered to drain land for farming, housing and commercial development. Instead of allowing our rivers to naturally meander and, during heavy rainfall, to slowly flood and gently deposit...
John O’Conner has offered apprenticeships since 2011. The grounds maintenance company has utilised them not only to develop skills within the business and attract new talent, but also to help train managers already at the company. As with most good things, the apprenticeships have adapted over time. Speaking to Pro Landscaper, managing director...
GoLandscape is an initiative that seeks to encourage school leavers to consider a career in landscaping, challenge false perceptions and demonstrate the broad range of skills that are used within the industry. A career in the landscaping industry can be incredibly exciting and rewarding, just the fact that you are working outdoors could be...
BALI is committed to supporting the landscape industry in addressing the skills gaps and shortages, to this end we have produced a brief report to support employers who are considering taking on an apprentice to show the options that are available. What is an apprenticeship? It’s a work - based training programme that combines on the job...
One of the silver linings to the many lockdowns is the pause on life it has given, to evaluate what really matters. For me it is my family and pursuing my love for gardening. During the first lockdown our garden became our oasis of calm, a sanctuary to retreat to and nurture. To accommodate the bees, butterflies and moths that were visiting our...
Rishi Sunak’s Government has rejected Liz Truss’s deeply misguided opinions on biodiversity enhancements and green energy and instead approved plans for a number of nature reserves to give people access to green spaces and water within a 15 minute walk from their home. The newly announced Environment Improvement Plan would also see the creation...
Leading companies within the sector share how they are supporting their employees The phrase ‘new year, new me’ is thrown around a lot in the month of January but there are some things the new year did not wash away, one of those being the cost-of-living crisis. Companies all over the UK have been working hard on finding ways to manage this...
Celebrate Houseplant Appreciation week with Ian Drummond as he shares his top plant predictions for 2023. Ian says: Plants that are nostalgic, with a throwback to the 1980s will be the theme for indoor plants this year. With greenery - like the ever popular spider plant and the much loved hanging plants, but also with colour - the more vibrant,...
As we know, biodiversity and biodiversity net gain (BNG) are both hot topics at the moment. December’s COP15 ended with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature through to 2030. While it will be a big challenge, BNG delivered in the right way, offers a genuine opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to nature’s recovery. Here...
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