News

 
Our featured partner this month is Steve Williams of Steve Williams Landscapes (www.stevewilliamslandscapes.com). Originally from Derby, but now residing in Bristol, Steve originally studied Photographic Art at degree level before moving into horticulture and landscaping.
Drawing on his creative arts studies, Steve has developed a successful horticultural design style that integrates his passion for form, the abstract and the innovative with an over-riding interest in ecology and biodiversity.
Steve describes his style as “versatile and contemporary, using innovative techniques and soft, natural plantings with the aim of breaking down the divide between the natural environment and the human landscape.”
Steve completed a one-year garden design diploma course at the Cotswold Gardening School, Gossington, and was shortlisted for two prestigious garden design awards within months of graduating.
Competing against a record 64 other entries in the annual competition run by the Society of Garden Designers (SGD), Steve is now a finalist in both the commercial and domestic student categories, with the winners to be announced in February 2018.
One of Steve’s competition entries was for a new area at Slimbridge Wetland Centre – see below.

Sustainable Urban Drainage systems (SUDs) have really come to the fore in recent years due to the increased occurrence of significantly damaging flood events in the UK and around the world.  The need to find a better planning solution to deal with increased surface water, particularly in urban areas, that also dovetails with the all- important green infrastructure agenda, has never been greater.
New build developments and expanding transport infrastructure tend to interrupt rainfall and the natural movement of water.  With greater surface areas of non-permeable materials, a fast influx of rainfall will inevitably lead to flooding and an increased potential for erosive damage downstream and pollution by contaminated water.
Janine Robinson from Portsmouth University wanted to gain a greater understanding of how grasses and wildflowers could play a role in slowing the water flow, therefore reducing erosion and giving the vegetation and soil an opportunity to absorb and ‘lock in’ water borne pollutants.

Water borne pollutants tend to be grouped into either: Metals (which have been extensively studied) or PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons). Janine wanted to focus on the impact and journey of man-made PAHs often created by vehicle…

Background:
Formally an airfield, the site of Alconbury Weald was acquired by property company Urban & Civic in 2009. Currently in development, and with a 20-year timescale, the site will boast a 3 million sq. foot Enterprise Zone, 5,000 new homes, 3 primary schools, community facilities and 700 acres of open spaces and sporting amenities when completed.
The work:
The principal Landscape Architects, Bradley Murphy Design (BMD), met with Wildflower Turf in Hampshire in the autumn of 2014, to request tailored advice as to the most appropriate products to specify as part of the initial development designs for a very discerning client, Urban & Civic.
Urban & Civic have very high standards of delivery and wanted to ensure that everyone involved in their supply chain completed as much due diligence as possible to ensure that the results on site were exactly as they envisioned. This resulted in BMD requesting a series of small pilot sites of a wide range of Wildflower Turf products (Wildflower Turf® and Wildflower Earth, both ‘off-the-shelf’ mixes and bespoke mixes) a full year in advance of installation, to assess the results before choosing the final specification and products to be installed as part of the development.

In the spring of 2012 we were approached by a Belgian Landscape Architect, Frank Adriaenssens, who was interested in introducing an increased wildlife and biodiverse landscape into his landscaping projects in Belgium. Frank has a client list that takes him all over the world designing and project managing some impressive garden and landscaping projects. In recent years he developed an interest in wildflowers and he started to introduce them into his projects to soften some of the edges of some of the more formal designs found in the gardens of Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.
However, in order to do this, he knew he lacked a reliable method of delivering the wildflower areas. In the spring of 2012 he used his own garden as a guinea pig and installed 200m² of our WFT34 Landscape Turf to test the product.

Frank was delighted with the results:


Frank joined our Accredited Partner program in 2014. At the same time we agreed that he would become our sole distributor…

Wildflower Turf Ltd expands with a new production site in Yorkshire.
In 2015 Wildflower Turf Ltd were finalists for the annual Farmers Weekly magazine awards. This national competition looks at all things farming and we entered the farm diversification category. The magazine has the biggest circulation of all the farming press and the resulting publicity from being shortlisted was widespread.
This generated interest from a number of farmers who asked about growing Wildflower Turf. One of those was a family farming business in Yorkshire, Tom and Joss Spilman, who farm in partnership with their parents near Helperby. Theirs is an already well diversified farming business that includes growing asparagus and strawberries amongst other things. With two sons in the business they were keen to look for ways of expanding further and we are now very pleased to say that this interest has become reality. The first Wildflower Turf was lifted by Joss at Lodge Farm, Helperby in July, having started setting up the production system at the start of this year.
In January Mike, our Farm Manager, went up to Yorkshire to set up the irrigation system on a block of free draining land that was otherwise set to grow carrots.
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We recently had some very interesting feedback from a landscape contractor who used our Wildflower Earth™ for the first time this year.
Jim Staveley MD of Greener Places Ltd based near Worksop in Nottinghamshire ordered 300m² of our Border mix Wildflower Earth for Herringthorpe Junior School, near Rotherham. This was installed on the 16th March 2017 and this project provides an interesting and informative case study.
Jim told us that in the autumn prior to installation, he did a comprehensive job of clearing the site of weeds using Glyphosate. The area, on a 45 degree bank, had been sown in 2014 with a colourful mix of native and non-native flowers but due to the weed seed burden in the soil, the bank soon developed a profusion of thistles and docks which the head teacher was very unhappy about.
Jim was asked to resolve the situation and looked at Wildflower Turf™ and Wildflower Earth as a solution. He chose Wildflower Earth as a way of lowering the cost, ensuring a good chance of success and to reduce his risk of the weeds taking over the area again.
Jim was very pleasantly surprised with the ease of installation. He set aside two…

June is a great time to spot and identify wildflowers, note where they are and consider collecting their seed at a later date when the plant matures and has developed viable seed.
Sowing the seed you have collected is a great technique to add species and increase diversity, but also as a remedial action to maintain and improve a wildflower space or meadow. Areas of bare ground provide an opportunity to introduce the same, or new species of wild flowers. You can use these techniques to enhance the species diversity you find in your meadow.

If you don’t, nature will fill any spaces with plants. Hopefully she adds what you would like from the seed of nearby flowers, but there may well be undesirables that are blown in from a neighbouring weed patch. So view any bare ground as an opportunity to enhance the species diversity, or alternatively deliberately create some bare ground to achieve the same.
Gently take the seed…

Wildflower Turf has been receiving a great deal of interest from Universities in recent months.  In May our MD James Hewetson-Brown was a key note speaker at the University Horticultural Officers Conference at Heriot Watt University http://bit.ly/2rlGmEd. However prior to this we have this great example…
In December 2015, Paul Evans, Head Gardener at Aberystwyth University placed an order for 476m² of Wildflower Border Non Native Turf http://bit.ly/2pTM0K6 which was delivered and installed in November 2016.
Paul has kindly shared with us images which show the story of his team completing the ground preparation i.e. ground clearance and then installation of bulbs from our bulb supplier, Jub Holland Bulbs http://bit.ly/2rhV3Zj before laying our Wildflower Border Non Native turf on top and giving it a good water in.  Underplanting Wildflower Turf with bulbs can extend the flowering season, creating more colour and interest when the turf is fairly dormant and encouraging with public engagement over the year http://bit.ly/2pU2m5j. The turf typically takes over from the bulbs when it flowers from May to September.
Site Clearance

October 2016 – Shrubs encroaching on path making pathway narrow and preventing light from the building…

THE RECENT PUBLICITY AROUND THE USE OF GLYPHOSATE HAS LED TO CONSIDERABLE PRESS COVERAGE AND DEBATE OVER THE USE OF CHEMICALS AND THEIR PLACE IN OUR TOWNS AND COUNTRYSIDE. OUR MD JAMES HEWETSON-BROWN LOOKS AT GLYPHOSATE WITH WILDFLOWERS, BIODIVERSITY AND WILDLIFE IN MIND.
The Glyphosate question
Glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup (the most common of many brand/trade names) has been in the spotlight for the last few years and is due for ‘reauthorisation’. The reauthorisation process involves reassessment of the safety issues surrounding the use of the chemical by the European Chemicals Agency and their recommendation is taken into account by the European Commission.
In advance of the vote, one recent study by The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that Glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans” and this alarming report has led to a great deal of press coverage about the pros and cons of glyphosate together with the wider use of chemicals in the UK.
Other reports such as those from the World Health Organisation and the European Food Safety Authority say that Glyphosate is safe to use.
Glyphosate – getting the balance right for nature
With a background in farming as well as a profound love for wildflower environments, I…

Urban Wildflowers
Our MD James Hewetson-Brown explains the power of wildflowers when used in urban environments and their importance in green infrastructure design.
Quote – “WILDFLOWERS CAN PHYSICALLY LOCK IN HARMFUL PARTICULATES FROM EXHAUST EMISSIONS”
Wildflower meadows have continued to rise in popularity as more and more people become aware of the state of nature in the UK and the effect habitat loss is having on our wildlife.
There are few better opportunities for introducing a brand new wildflower meadow than in an urban environment.
For a wildflower space to really work it has to benefit people as well as wildlife. And any benefit must earn its keep. Providing pollen and nectar for bees and butterflies in an urban setting is highly laudable, but wildflowers offer many more opportunities than insect food alone. So in no particular order, here are some reasons for a landscape architect to include wildflowers in a design.

Pollution Mitigation
Recent work in the US and more locally at Portsmouth University, has demonstrated the benefit wildflowers can…