Landscape Juice

Garden Bridge team begins tree selection process

This week the Garden Bridge planting team visited nurseries in the UK and northern Europe to select some of the plants and trees that will feature on the Bridge, set to open in 2018. The Bridge will link the tree lined South Bank to the Victoria Embankment Gardens and Temple Gardens on the North Bank providing an ecological corridor which connects green spaces on either sides of the river. The garden will provide an ever-changing seasonal landscape incorporating a 2500m2 planting area for wildlife-friendly tree and plant species fostering biodiversity in the heart of the capital. The Garden Bridge’s landscape... Read more →

Russia burns Dutch flowers amid infection concerns

A week after angering many in Russia by burning illegally imported Western food, authorities have started feeding Dutch flowers to the flames. Officials say blooms from the Netherlands, which supplies much of Russia's $2.5 billion flower market, pose safety risks because they may be infected. Critics say the "flower war" marks a new low in relations with the West and is Moscow's retaliation for a Dutch investigation into the downing of a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held east Ukraine in July last year. Whatever the reason, ordinary Russians, already struggling with unemployment and inflation, can expect higher flower prices in the... Read more →

Gardener designer Andrew Wilson knocked off motorbike

Knocked off my motorbike this evening within sight of home. Not a happy bunny to say the least but me & bike are in one piece. #someswearing— Andrew Wilson (@AndrewWilsonii) January 6, 2014 Former Chelsea judge and garden designer, Andrew Wilson, was knocked off his motorbike yesterday, within 100 yards of his home. Wilson revealed to his Twitter followers "Knocked off my motorbike this evening within sight of home. Not a happy bunny to say the least but me & bike are in one piece." He called the incident a 'crap start to 2014' and said the 'driver behind- foot... Read more →

Garden design ideas searches up 500%

In April this year I highlighted that Google trends - search result trends on the Google search engine - were showing that more people were researching topics relating to landscaping and gardening. Whilst these results aren't evidence that landscaping and horticulture is picking up. it is at least evidence that people are indeed thinking more about garden landscape ideas. Looking at the above graphic, one can see that the long-term trend for key landscaping and gardening searches from the beginning of 2004 remains firmly in the downward direction. However it does appear that the trend is flattening out with forecasts... Read more →

Landscape francise company Lime Orchard puts itself up for sale

Lime Orchard, the national garden design and landscaping franchise company founded by Judy Behl, has put itself up for sale. The company says it "has cut though recessionary times with a zing" and is looking for a full or partial sale, or a suitable trading partner to push the business forward. Judy Behl – managing director of Lime Orchard says “ Since we started trading in 2009, we have grown the business, profitably, year on year and at the same time we have invested in all the necessary legal and trading framework to develop the business as a national franchise... Read more →

Alastair McCapra to leave the Landscape Institute for new job

The CEO of the Landscape Institute LI, Alastair McCapra, is to leave after five years of what could easily be described as one of the toughest and most controversial periods of the organisation's history. Five years ago the LI faced-up huge cuts and job losses laying off nearly one third of its workforce and committing to savings of £750,000 on its annual budget just to survive. In late 2009 the LI was forced into a u-turn after a group of its members forced the LI to retain its library and archive. The LI had threatened to give away or sell-off... Read more →

A winter of content and anticipation at Marshalls?

I don't know about you but I'm getting a feeling that things are starting to improve a bit? Without getting too carried away - remember, the world has taken on a lot of debt baling out the banks - we can now begin to look forward to a little stability and less uncertainty. Factory order books and output are growing at their fastest pace in almost two decades as British manufacturing emerges from the recession. The purchasing managers index (PMI) showed a rise from 54.8 in July to 57.2 last month – taking it to highs it hasn't seen in... Read more →

Mayfield Lavender starts its harvest

Just a stones throw from London lies one of Britain's best kept cosmetic secrets - Mayfield Lavender. Brendan Maye had convinced cosmetics firm Wella UK - for whom he was working as managing director of their fine fragrance division - that for the consumer to take English lavender seriously it had to be grown there. Wella were initially reluctant but eventually agreed and, in 2002, the Mayfield site was planted with 70,000 Folgate lavender plugs (read the full history). When Wella was sold to Proctor and Gamble, Brendan Maye decided to take the project on as a personal investment and... Read more →

Batten down the hatches...things could get messy again

The Japanese stock market has dropped over 7% overnight sparking a wide-ranging sell-off across Europe. It's not surprising really because the recent bubble in European indices had no relationship with the underlying asset and fundamental value of the companies behind them. Trading in the last couple of years has been led purely by market sentiment and technical trading - in other words greed and fear. As stock markets moved higher they fuelled a greedy rush by speculative traders to ride the rise. Short sellers dared not enter the market. The bubble in stock markets must not be confused with economies... Read more →

Price fixing scandal hits the cement industry

Only last week we heard news that fuel companies have been colluding to fix fuel prices and now we hear that the cartel that is the cement industry has been fixing cement prices. Fuel and cement are two commodities the landscape industry just cannot operate without. Just five providers account for ninety percent of the UK's cement market, seventy-five percent of aggregates and sixty-eight percent of ready-mix concrete. Back in 2011 the Office of Fair Trading asked the Competition Commission to investigate the cement industry over concerns for the lack of competition. The industry is worth some £4 billion each... Read more →