Author Archives: Tom Turner

Sustainable management of grass in Islamic gardens

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Sustainable management of grass in Islamic gardens This lovely photograph was taken by Michael Lancaster c1968. My first thought, on finding it this morning, was that is showed a sustainable approach to cutting grass. But do the water buffalos emit more C02 than the small amount of hydrocarbon a motor mower would use? Perhaps. But the buffalo C02 would be endlessly re-cycled and the fossil hydrocarbon would be transferred from the earth’s crust to the earth’s atmosphere. Another point evident from Michael’s photograph is that this is not how the greenspace should be managed. It ought to be a lush area of fruit and flowers.

The Landscape Man: Matthew Wilson at Chevington

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I was about to give up on the Landscape Man series with the remark that if it had achieved nothing else it had at least proved that you are very unlikely to get a good design if you do not employ an experienced designer. It was therefore a relief to find that ‘property developers Clive and Debbie’ were employing a garden designer, Thomas Hoblyn, to help spend £250,000 on a garden for their old rectory in Suffolk. Tom’s training is actually in horticulture, but this need not be a hindrance – and if the individual has design in his or her blood, the knowledge of plants can be useful.
Clive seemed a pretty hard nut but I had to agree with his scepticism about the use of decking in a cold wet climate. Why do it? Tom Hoblyn seemed to be proposing it on the grounds that it had helped him win a Silver Medal at Chelsea in 2009. Part of the design concept was in fact to bring the Chelsea Garden to Chevington and there is a long tradition of re-cycling Chelsea gardens. I sometimes wonder if it should be a requirement for all Chelsea gardens. So was the design a success? Not really – but it was the best garden design in the series so far. The problem is that it was merely a blown up Chelsea garden – slick-ish but conceptually vacant. You can’t just pile in features and expect to have a whole which is more than a collection of parts ‘Rose garden’, ‘Formal lawn’, ‘Hornbeam Hedge’ etc. Clive seemed to think that perfection of execution would do the trick. Its a good thing to have but, like the assembly of features is not enough. One also needs imagination, creativity and taste.
PS a curious feature of this series is that Matthew Wilson has managed to pick up so many of Kevin McLeod’s speech mannreisms. Is Kevin doing a voice over?

The Landscape Man: Matthew Wilson at Hedingham Castle

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Hedingham Castle in Essex was the subject of the second Landscape Man series.The owner’s wife, Demetra Lindsay, a garden designer, thought ‘something a little more formal would be a bit of contrast’. So they converted the swimming pool into ‘formal pond’ and put in a semi-Islamic water channel edged with granite cadged from a sponsor. Granite is of course a traditional material – for tomb stones. Matthew Wilson made the un-profound remark that the grounds were being ‘restored to their former glory’. The owners’ design objective was to generate dosh by letting the place as weddings venue. The estate also contains a really fine Norman keep (dating from 1140) as well as a decent eighteenth century mansion. What should they have done? Something better: less costly, more imaginative, more beautiful, more romantic, more appropriate – and designed to create amazing opportunities for wedding photographers. [See note on wedding photography in heritage gardens]

Bad garden design in America

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James van Sweden told Monty Don that ‘Americans just don’t get gardening. Americans don’t go outside. They are frightened of it. Frightened of bugs and wildlife. Frightened of the heat and the cold. They don’t want the work of a garden. Maintenance companies come in and cut and fertilise the grass. That’s it.’ (Around the world in 80 gardens, 2008 p.244) He sounds like a grumpy old man, and seems to have forgotten about California and the Pacific North West, but there are some significant points to be made about gardening in the United States:

  • when it is not too hot and too humid to work in a garden, it is often far too cold
  • though called ‘yards’ much of of the green space around houses is not fenced or otherwise enclosed, partly because a fence would be considered an unfriendly gesture
  • American’s move house more often than Europeans – and pay a higher percentage of the house price to the realtor (leaving less money for the garden)
  • American houses are larger than European houses – so why go out when indoors is so comfortable?
  • Americans have shorter vacations and tend to work longer hours
  • Food is cheaper in the US
  • the American landscape architecture profession continues to regard garden design as an inferior activity

Please correct me if I am wrong – or add other explanations. I am not saying bad garden design is an exclusively US phenomenon, but they do seem rather good at it! The above illustation is from our eBook The Principles of Garden Design. We are of course aware that America has many great public gardens to visit and has long enjoyed a leadership role in world landscape architecture.

Towards a greener London – with help from sheep

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London green roofs with flock of sheep to calm bankers

London green roofscape with flock of sheep to calm bankers

In 1992 I wrote a report, Towards a green strategy for London. Many of the proposals are being implemented, but too slowly and with too little drama or imagination. With this in mind, and as my contribution to solving the City of London’s banking problems, I propose keeping a flock of sheep over and above London. They would make a more useful contribution to the sustainablity of the City than any works now in progress but the primary objective would be to restore calm to London’s market traders. With their minds on higher, greener and better things, I believe they would be less frenzied and that we taxpayers would be able to devote more of our savings to our families and a lower proportion to baling out frenzied bankers.

Note: the curvey-roofed building just north of the rooftop meadow, No 54 Lombard Street, is on the site of London’s Roman Forum. So the proposed meadow would be outside the Forum and on an appropriate site.

The Landscape Man: Matthew Wilson on Channel 4

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The Landscape Man launched on Channel 4 today with Matthew Wilson as host and Keith and Ros Wiley as his subjects. Matthew has a pleasant manner but, judged only from this episode, lacks a feeling for design. His talk was all about operations and quantities (of land, soil, money, water, plants etc). One feature was described as a ‘sort of canyon’ and another as a ‘sort of Mexican parterre with a wooden cloister and hot plants’. They call it the Wildside Garden. I would call it a display garden for a plant centre. Before that Keith was the manager for the Garden House, which is admired. The style of the Wildside planting was described ‘naturalistic’. But why make a Mexican parterre in Devon? – and when were parterres a characteristic garden form in Mexico? And what is ‘wild’ about pond liners? Matthew did not ask. Keith did not say. His main aim is to make money, since losing his previous job. Matthew has adopted many of Kevin McLeod‘s speech mannerisms and it would not be surprising to learn that the same production team is involved. But to catch-up with Kevin he must sharpen up his design judgement. The programme was sponsored by B&Q and I wondered if they had helped with the garden design.