We have started the year by taking on three very exciting new projects.
Firstly, a wonderful large garden in the Islington area. The challenge is a classic one – the garden is very long and thin. To break this up, our design will incorporate areas of lovely soft landscaping; a white clover lawn, a fragrant pollinator lawn and a woodland edge. An area of lawn filled with white clover is a wonderful way to create an area of soft landscaping with a difference. Imagine a lawn dotted with white clover with a hint of pink, flowering May onwards. Clover is also a prime nectar source for bees and moths. We will also plant an area of the lawn with fragrant pollinator plants – a mini wildflower meadow. At the back of the garden is a slope filled with rubble and old soil. Our solution is to create a gently undulating slope filled with woodland edge Spring flowers.
Around the garden we are going to plant a delightful array of wildlife friendly herbaceous perennials and evergreens. Plants to inspire through all seasons, colours and light conditions. A scattering of fruit trees and shrubs will complete the lovely bucolic look and feel of this garden.
Our second project in Camden is a front garden. We are particularly happy that our client’s have taken on our recommendation of not just planting a usual ‘box’ standard hedging – but to create a hedge that will also act as a beneficial wildlife border. By adding hedging to provide hibernating sites, climbers with nesting and roosting opportunities and Winter/Autumn berrying shrubs, this front garden will not only have visual appeal, but be of great benefit to wildlife. We are thinking Ligustrum vulgaris (wild privet) to provide nectar for insects, Viburnum opulus (guelder rose) to provide nectar for birds, Crataegus monogyna (hawthorn) for flowers, berries and foliage, Rosa rugosa, a wild rose with magenta Summer flowers which are followed by masses of orange-red hips.
Talking of hedging, we are also very proud that a third new client we are working with are the TMO of another really inspiring Local Authority estate in Brent. We are working with them to transform the large grounds into an oasis of colour and envirnomental benefit. We have encouraged them to apply for the Woodland trust community hedging pack. We are envisaging that long pathways of bland metal fencing in our Council Estates will be replaced by miles of beneficial hedging, forming vital habitats, providing food, shelter and breeding sites. Wildlife hedging will also act as an important wildlife corridor linking urban areas together and acting as wildlife highways! and stop off-points.
Fewer than 1% of Britain’s 22,000 species of insects are garden pests, and many are beneficial pollinators and predators of garden pests.