Landscape Juice

The Scraptors world beyond the garden gate

If you go down to the woods you might be in for a surprise as metal dragonflies, giant owls, and even a tadpole man greet you on a new sculpture trail at Stourhead National Trust Estate.

The Scraptors are a group of four sculptors whose brief from the National Trust was 'to work with the landscape and encourage visitors to venture Beyond the Garden Gate'.

Monty Don, why we need worked woodlands

coppicing n. The Oxford Dictionary: An area of woodland in which the trees or shrubs are periodically cut back to ground level to stimulate growth and provide firewood or timber.

Monty Don, soon to be presenting Gardeners' World, gave a powerful interview to the Guardian where he explained why a coppiced and worked woodland is a vital and precious cultural habitat. That said, he added, who owns it is secondary.

Future food supplies boosted by wild plants

Chives, mint and borage can be found whilst walking around the local woodlands.

However other plants like sea beet, wild cabbage and turnip or particular wild grasses are harder to find. These are the ancient relatives of modern food crops such as sugar beet, oil seed rape, and forage crops and they are very important.

According to Natural England these ancient plants are essential for future food supplies.

Calls to change the hedgerow regulations

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) is calling for changes to the current hedgerow regulations.

The CPRE would like local authorities to be given more power to protect hedgerows by a broadening of the categories and a simplification of process.

This follows survey results that reveal a six per cent fall in the length of England's managed hedgerows, a drop of 26,000 km or 16,150 miles between 1998 and 2007.

Elm disease in Britain's forests overwhelms them

There were stories in the early 1970s about the changing British landscape, saying that it would not be the same again, that an epidemic was sweeping the country.

That epidemic was Dutch elm disease which killed 25 million trees.

Only a few pockets survived, one around the Brighton and Hove area, relatively protected by the English Channel and South Downs.

Today a new battle is taking place to save the British elm tree that requires 'an emergency sanitation programme of tree-felling' according to journalist Mark Seddon in the Telegraph, who's been tracking the current state of the elm tree in recent reports, Carol Miers writes:

Rural Coalition, saving the countryside communities

With many eyes focused upon the actions being taken by the government, keeping the British landscape and way of life as it is will require more than simply sitting back according to a recent report titled The Rural Challenge by the Rural Coalition.

The report makes no less than 38 recommendations, and includes useful case studies, saying 'sustainability cannot be achieved by how we currently live our lives'.

According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) this report calls for fundamental change in order to prevent the loss of village life as we know it.

Deer collision hazard warnings - a matter of life and death?

Colliding with a deer is not something anyone wants to do, and it's far from ones thoughts when driving through beautiful countryside. The warning triangular sign of a deer with red outline, can seem overcautious when no deer are to be seen. But the danger's always there.

At certain times of the day, such as at dusk or dawn, animals come out into the open to cross the roads. Vegetation camouflages animals as they approach the road leaving little or no time to avoid them, by Carol Miers.

Deer are shy creatures and we aren't used to their habits. Although they move quickly, it is not always fast enough.

What can be done to reduce the risks of accidents?

Ornamental oak garden mushrooms

About two years after arriving in France, I forged a new friendship with another English chap who lives about five miles away; our wives met at the local horse stables and by pure coincidence, Mark Rogers and I share so many interests - mainly woodwork and football - we met up and have become great friends ever since.

Both Mark and I intended to work with wood but life's taken a different route than anticipated; whilst I'm to be found (for longer than I should) sitting in front of my computer, Mark is putting the last seven years of French building experience to good use and has set up a small building enterprise - sometimes that involves woodwork, other times it might be putting up plasterboard or paving around a swimming pool.

Woodland Trust walk and wood finder

I bet you are itching to get out and about this weekend: another minute closed in with dogs and kids is enough to drive anyone to distraction.

If it's fresh air and exercise you are looking for then why not devise a long walk - before or after a hearty Sunday roast - at one of the Woodland Trust's hundreds of woodlands across the United Kingdom?

There are over a thousand sites to choose from - from rich ancient woodlands with gnarled tree roots to brand new plantations.

Rammed Earth is a sustainable landscaping method

'Sustainable' is becoming a very cheap word. It is now so overused that I am finding it hard to distinguish between reality and marketing hype.

There really are too many materials, production methods, packaging and foods that are called sustainable but are clearly costly in terms of resources consumed to get them to market, that their sustainability 'label' is devalued by a lack of carbon neutrality.

I am always on the lookout for methods of landscape construction that would allow the consumption of materials without a high cost or heavy impact on the environment.