Landscape Juice

Jo Thompson to celebrate touring at Chelsea this year

When it comes to Chelsea I bet you thought you'd seen it all?

Well Jo Thompson's Celebration of Touring garden for the caravan club certainly adds yet another dimension to the world famous show.

Online Landscape Magazine says:

The ‘Celebration of Caravanning’ garden combines the latest colours and planting trends with a practical and useable space. It takes inspiration from a bygone era, of nostalgic family caravanning holidays, a very British past time.

This is the first time that a caravan has appeared at the Chelsea Flower show, and The Caravan Club want people to see caravans and caravanning in a different light.

Wouldn't it be exciting to roll up Jo's garden into a trailer and unroll it again when you've parked the caravan for the night whilst touring?

It's certainly stimulated some thoughts!

Would a return artificial football pitches boost domestic fake grass sales?

If, like me, you grew up watching football on the television during the sixties, seventies and eighties you'll do doubt remember - perhaps fondly? - football league and FA Cup matches being slugged out on football pitches that were more bare soil and mud patches, than grass?

I've embedded a YouTube clip of Ronnie Radford scoring the equaliser for Hereford with an amazing 30 yard strike against Newcastle in the FA Cup.

There are two things that have always stood out for me in the clip. One, it's an amazing goal and one any player would be proud of if scored on a perfect pitch and the other is the muddy surface.

Drought declared in parts of the UK

The Environment Agency have issued an update regarding drought conditions in the UK.

Parts of East Anglia and now the South East are officially in drought status with parts of Midlands continuing to experience drought conditions.

Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, parts of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, and west Norfolk are still in drought. Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Surrey, London, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and the east of Gloucestershire are now officially in drought.

Shropshire and Nottinghamshire in the Midlands region are still affected by dry weather.

There is not a standard charge when employing a garden contractor

The question

One of the top searches on Landscape Juice is 'what does a gardener charge' (or variations thereof i.e. what does a gardener/gardening cost?).

Another top search is 'what does landscaping cost' or 'what does a landscaper charge?

The answer

There isn't a definitive answer. Every gardener or landscaper comes with their own special set of skills, experience and approach to the job.

Many people will be self taught and worked in their respective niche for a lifetime and some may have taken a fast-track route via a trade education. Every single person, bar none, will be at a totally different stage of professional development so it is therefore, impossible to set any kind of national standard for pricing.

Yell shares drop 25% as digital fails to stem its paper losses

Debt stricken Yell Group disappointed the market yet again as it reveals figures well short of analysts' expectations.

Yell, once the darling of printed media with its famous yellow directories, made just £16.6 million after tax on turnover of £382.8 million: it's massive debt remains £2.57 billion.

Weakness in its digital and print directory services saw numbers fall way short of what the market was expecting leading Yell to fall over 25% on stock markets.

Reuters reports: "(Yell) is primarily exposed to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in markets like Spain, UK and U.S., where the SME environment has been pretty tough for a while now," analyst Alex DeGroote of Panmure Gordon told Reuters.

The company's good digital business is too small to make any real difference at the topline level because the legacy business is so large, DeGroote added.

The company derived 8 percent of its total revenue from digital services as of its half-year ended September.

"We remain concerned that an accelerated decline in the group's predominantly print revenues could undermine required investment in digital," brokerage Numis Securities said.

Read Yell's full interim management statement for the quarter ended 31 December 2011 – 14 February 2012

Senior Gardener required for Woolbeding House, West Sussex

The National Trust is looking for a senior gardener to assists the head gardener at Woolbeding Gardens, near Midhurst West Sussex.

As a Senior Gardener you'll need to be green fingered and hands-on, making sure that all gardens and grounds are beautifully presented and kept in accordance with the RHS's high horticultural and aesthetic standards.

As Senior Gardener you’ll also be required to deputise for the Head Gardener and manage the gardening team and volunteers during their absence. You’ll also be required to work weekends and Bank Holidays as part of a 7 day rota.

The salary is £17,031 - £18200 per annum.

The APL isn't well marketed says its members

In a recent poll on the APL LinkedIn group only 33% of those polled thought that the Association of Professional Landscapers is doing a good job of marketing the organisation.

One of the biggest problems, according to members, is that the general public don't know what the APL is or what it stands for.

APL member, Matthew Miller said: " I agree the APL does represent the highest quality members within the industry, is pushing up professional standards and does have all the checks and balances within its structure to ensure that the consumer can be assured of this.

"However it does not, in my view, making this know to the wider public well enough; these things are the KEY difference between the APL and other trading bodies out there.

John Foley is BBC young gardener of the year

Bolton-by-Bowland nursery owner John Foley aged 24 has become the first winner of the BBC Young Gardener of the Year award.

John beat 700 other hopefuls to land the title but John's knowledge of plants and first hand experience of running his own nursery gave him a distinct advantage over his competitors.

The programme set several varied tasks relating to almost importantly, in the final challenge, how in practical terms to use his knowledge and ability to produce a garden for the modern day busy family.

John impressed the judges with his in-depth knowledge for someone of such a young age on such a variety of subjects, his overall knowledge being judged far superior to the other contestants who had backgrounds in Garden Design and Garden maintenance.

Brett Landscaping appoints Alan Smith as managing director

Brett Landscaping has appointment Alan Smith as Managing Director.

Smith will take up his post on 01 March 2012.

Alan joins Brett Landscaping with a 30 year career in the building materials sector, most recently with Welsh Slate Ltd. Prior to that he spent seven years with Aggregates Industries PLC.

Speaking about the appointment, Bill Brett, Chairman, Brett Group said; “Alan joins at an important and exciting time for Brett Landscaping. The company has spent several years refining its offer and now has a superior product range backed with outstanding customer support, which with our leading ethical and sustainability credentials underpins us as theUK's most innovative and forward looking supplier of hard landscaping.

Marshalls online shop 7% discount code for Landscape Juice readers

Earlier this week the new Marshalls Shop went live and I've managed to secure landscapers a 7% discount when they buy online.

Just add the code LANDSCAPEJUICE at checkout.

This shop will sell a broad range of non core range products including:

· Greenhouses

· Granite garden furniture

· Gwrhyd Welsh Stone flooring

· Gwrhyd Welsh Stone walling

· A limited range of reconstituted walling

There are plans as part of phase 2 to introduce a number of new categories including masonry and monoliths from our Gwrhyd Stone quarries in West Wales.

All orders benefit from free mainland UK delivery and a one year guarantee.

And the code again LANDSCAPEJUICE

Visit the Marshalls Shop now

Level 3 weather alert for much of England and Wales

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for much of the UK with fresh outbreaks of snow. There is currently a level 3 alert in one or more regions of England

The following was issued on Thursday 9 February 2012 at 10.19am.

There is a 100% probability of severe cold weather/icy conditions/heavy snow between 1000 on Thursday and 1000 on Monday in parts of England. This weather could increase the health risks to vulnerable patients and disrupt the delivery of services. Please refer to the national Cold Weather Plan and your Trust's emergency plan for appropriate preventive action.

A cold day with outbreaks of light rain in northern parts leading to icy conditions. During this afternoon and overnight snow, bringing potentially disruptive accumulations, is expected across many central and southern parts. Once this snow has cleared cold or very cold conditions are expected to dominate into the weekend, before turning milder on Sunday. Please refer to the latest Met Office warnings for the most up to date information.

Fire at River Cottage HQ destroys barn

A fire last night has gutted the events barn at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall River Cottage Devon HQ.

No one was hurt in the incident but as yet the cause is unknown.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was not at home at the time. A statement has just been issued from the River Cottage HQ:

A serious fire severely damaged the main barn at Park Farm, River Cottage HQ late last night in Axminster. Thankfully no people, or animals were hurt. The cause is as yet unknown.

The River Cottage team are shocked and upset, and are dealing with the damage today. Hugh is away on a long distance filming trip and will be informed as soon as he can be contacted. We would like to say a big 'thank you' to the Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service, who were on the scene quickly and worked hard to contain the fire.

Our Canteen and Deli, located in the centre of Axminster, is unaffected and remains open today. Cookery School courses will not be running in the short term. Anyone booked on to a course will be contacted by the River Cottage events team as soon as possible. • For more information please contact Dawn Bebe, or Simon Whittam on 0207 873 2316

Keep uptodate with all the latest news about the fire via Twitter: @rivercottage

Kent tree surgeon fined over worker's injuries

A Kent-based tree surgeon has been fined after an employee suffered severe injuries when his trouser leg was caught in a tree stump grinder.

Davyd Dyer, 30, suffered terrible injuries to his right leg when his employer, Richard Curteis, left the machine running without being at the controls. Mr Curteis, trading as Aspen Tree Services, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) over the incident on 29 September 2010.

Maidstone Magistrates Court heard the men were at an address in Bearsted, Maidstone, removing around six tree stumps of old conifers using a stump grinder.

Mr Dyer, from Gravesend, walked in front of the unmanned stump grinder carrying a sheet of corrugated metal. His trousers got caught on the rotating cutting head of the stump grinder and pulled his leg into the moving parts of the machine.

He suffered a broken leg, severe muscle injuries and was hospitalised for several weeks, needing a number of operations to reconstruct his leg. His injuries mean it is uncertain whether he will be able to continue working as a tree surgeon.

The future of online accounting and accountants

There has been a revolution in recent years in the way that that businesses interact remotely with their customers, writes Gerry Sims.

The rise of online fulfilment businesses (e.g. Amazon), virtual products (e.g. digital music) and social networking interaction is pushing the business-customer relationship relentlessly online, with many small businesses at the forefront.

However, the mechanisms for business financial management in many of these organisations tends to be based on bookkeepers visiting site, inputting from paper documents into a standalone accounting package which is located and managed on site then printing reports for the owners.

Listen to Andy Sturgeon's blog but don't expect to comment back

You might have read my little post this week about how Andy Sturgeon had gotten into a flap about last year's Chelsea judging fiasco.

Sturgeon's clearly not happy that the system - i.e. the tried and tested method of judging - has changed and warns that 'designers like me' (now there's an ego) might just 'lose interest' if the RHS keeps meddling.