When you think of Tuscany what do you picture? Rolling hills draped with vineyards, neat rows of gnarled olive trees, pretty stone villas glimpsed through lines of sculptural pines and pointed cypress trees, oak laden hilltops where khaki clad locals hunt for boar, ridges with dusty jagged open mines bitten into their sides? 

Olive and vine growing in the Tuscan hills

Vegetables, fruits and herbs cling to walls, rest on window ledges and form loose higgledy –piggledy boundary treatments.

Herbs on window sills in a Tuscan town

Vines used as top of a wall boundary in a Tuscan town

 Vines hang from pergolas in front gardens, over car ports and outside cafes and bars. 

Vines climbing over a pergola to form a sheltered seating area at the front of a small bar – any one for a glass of wine!

Olive orchards are not just found in the surround agricultural fields but also on terraced central town gardens. 

Olives growing on terraces in a Tuscan town centre

You can tell there is no ‘what will the neighbours think if I turn my front garden into a veg-patch’ here! I guess the only resentment may occur if your courgettes are better than theirs.

Well I am inspired! So far most of my food growing is confined to my allotment and back garden, but I have a nice little patch of grass at the front of my house going spare so watch this space…

Pomegranate tree in pot and in a front garden

 

I’m a fan of etymology If you’re wondering what that means, it means the meaning of words. Or more accurately, it studies the route of words. If you know where a word has come from, you might have a better understanding of what it represents. For instance the etymology of ‘Landscape Architecture’ can tell us a lot about Landscape Architects.

The word ‘Landscape’ has extremely ancient origins, from the word ‘lendh’ (from the 5,500 year-old proto Indo-European language), and the Old English word ‘sciepe’ (which also evolved from the proto Indo-European language).

The meaning of ‘Lendh’ is along the lines of ‘a division of the earth’s surface to which somebody claims ownership’. ‘Sciepe’ means ‘a condition of being’, with its root (derived from earlier Germanic words) in the sentiment of ‘creating something’.

‘Architecture’ is broken down to the Greek word ‘Arkhon’, meaning ‘chief’ (as in Arch-bishop, or arch-enemy), and the second part being the Greek word ‘Tekton’, which in simple terms means ‘carpenter’, from proto Indo-European origins meaning ‘to make’. An equivalent word in Old English means ‘to craft’.

So, if you put all that together it means that Landscape Architects are the chiefs in crafting the parcels of our planet that mankind has created ownership of. The Landscape Institute’s Royal Charter says much the same thing (but in a long-winded kind of way). 

This illustratration by my former mentor, the late Ken Fieldhouse shows his understanding of the breadth of Landscape Architecture

A lot of people don’t really know what a Landscape Architect does. In-fact, there are quite a few Landscape Architects who have different ideas about what Landscape Architects do. It’s easy to get lost in the detail of what day-to-day tasks we undertake. For me, it’s great to remember the fundamental principles of how we are, as defined by the words which make our name. Whilst Landscape Architecture covers a multitude of specialities executed in a multitude of different ways, we’re unified in our common purpose of turning a plot into a place. 

I’ve heard Landscape Architects described as ‘jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none’. Considering the Etymology of our name, it’d be more accurate to say ‘master-of-all-trades’, as far as the landscape is concerned at least!

 Every man’s home is his castle and every man’s lawn is his bowling green/golf course/football pitch/nemesis (depending on your choice of sport, or lack of it). By now many gardens up and down the country will be buzzing to the desperate sound of lawn mowers and cursing of lawn mower owners as they drag an ageing rusty, blunt contraption out from the back of the shed where its chief role over the winter period has been to gather dust and an interesting spider collection.

For those that have the pleasure of a petrol mower comes the additional nice surprise of finding a fuel spillage to rival the Torrey Canyon disaster, and the touch and go stuntman operation of mixing and spilling a combination of various highly volatile substances over your shoes.

A fact of life is that however much you choose to ignore it the grass has to be cut, many people now will be faced with the ankle high grass growing in their gardens which due to the recent downpours, and lack of cutting opportunities, is rapidly getting out of control. The excuse of ‘it’s a wildlife garden’ is no defence for laziness, or claiming it’s a sanctuary for slowworms, which are much happier hiding under your paving or in the compost bin.

And anyway what do you do with the weed-ridden cuttings?  Generally they are left to fester in a far corner of the garden to be dug over several years later to reveal a dry silver mass of ballistic resistant material in the middle.

So who can we blame for this? And what use is a lawn?

Well for starters you can blame the weather and our position in the northern hemisphere, just right for a bit of grass growing. Mild winters, warm summers (mostly) and generally a respectable amount of rainfall (2012 excluded).

Then there are kids. Grass is great for running about in and doesn’t cause falls requiring trips to A&E, and you can stage your own picnic or lido in the comfort of your own back garden. You will also be able to admire and remember the happy times by the dying sun-starved bit of grass looking forlorn at the end of the day when you remove the picnic blanket or paddling pool filled with dead flies. But the space you have is never big enough and the ball will at some point end up lost in the next door neighbour’s garden anyway.

So, sunbathing. Patios are good for that too and you don’t end up with a wonky sun lounger.

For aesthetics, go on be honest, are you really proud of your lawn? Or can you come to love the moss covered, patchy weed ridden green (& brown) bit of little England in your garden. And let’s face it, what is the point of a front lawn, unless you are an exhibitionist, or like to park your car in mud.

Not to mention their raging thirst for water. 

So why do we have this obsession and love-hate relationship with the lawn?  Well you can blame the aristocrats of the 17^th century when the lawn was seen as a status symbol, and due to the necessity of having to cut it required you to employ a sizeable workforce. Or more to the point have the means to of paying someone else to do the dirty work for you.

But, the real culprit is a Mr Edwin Beard Budding who on August 31 1830 patented the first lawn mower and opened up the tidal wave for lawns everywhere regardless of social standing. Shortly after this the first ‘Ye Olde B&Q Superstore’ was opened and a new rush on Sunday trading began.

So it is time to face facts: the lawn is just a hangover from a bygone age and an outdated status symbol which has become a Sisyphean task to keep under control, and which has sounded the death knell for peaceful Sundays everywhere. 

Is it time to liberate the shed and do away with the lawn mower and free your garden from this albatross. Can plastic grass really be the way ahead?

But then again you can’t beat lying back and watching the clouds with a drink in your hand, with the smell of a freshly cut lawn drifting on the breeze.  You don’t get that with a patio.

Arboriculturist Bernie Harverson who works independently from our offices (but is a frequent Terra Firma sub-consultant) has offered some useful insights into the latest BS on trees; these are inevitably important considerations for landscape architects:

Without much prior warning or pre-issue seminars on 30^th April 2012 we in the ‘Arb World’ had British Standard 5837:2012 thrust upon us and for a while there was a mad panic to get our heads around it. Luckily this applied to both public and private sector arboriculturists and thankfully it seems Local Authority tree officers have had the same situation to cope with and most have agreed to a ‘Honeymoon Period’ whilst we all get used to using it.

The primary changes are headlined below:-

• As well as a Topographical Plan of the development site showing all the trees with levels at the tree bases and contours shown to highlight any proposed changes in levels close to trees the BS now recommends that a Soil Assessment is carried out to enable the arb expert to advise on foundation design relative to the soils potential for shrinkage or heave – plus advise on the appropriate choice of tree species for new planting on the site.
• Multi-stemmed trees are to have their Root Protection Areas (RPA’s) calculated in a new way – with all stems at 1.5m measured out on site and the data applied to a complicated mathematical equation in order to derive the RPA.
• The old R grading with a presumption for removal has been replaced by a U for unsuitable for retention – thus opening up debate on whether these trees should be automatically removed.
• With the old C grading there was a presumption to remove if the tree imposed a significant constraint on development – now these trees are to be presumed retained unless there is a very good reason put forward that justifies their removal.
• The previous dangerous and often abused statement that ‘For individual open grown trees only, it may be acceptable to offset the distance by up to 20% in one direction[2005]’ has been removed and no longer applies. This has however been replaced by – ‘..where there is an overriding justification for construction within the RPA, technical solutions might be available that prevent damage to trees.[2012]’

-  if it is agreed that this is appropriate then it is then the arb experts task to :-

‘ a) demonstrate that the tree(s) can remain viable and that the area lost to encroachment can be compensated for elsewhere, contiguous with its RPA.

b) propose a series of mitigation measures to improve the soil environment that is used by the tree for growth.[2012]’

• The old Arboricultural Implications Assessment has been re-named the Arboricultural Impact Assessment and the list of matters that are to be covered by this document have been increased significantly with emphasis placed on shading issues; privacy & screening; pressure to prune or fell; seasonal nuisance etc etc.
• The old Tree Constraints Plan has been replaced with the requirement for a plan [which I refer to now as the Tree Retentions & Removals Plan] which shows the tree survey data; root protection data; trees selected for retention; tree to be removed; trees to be pruned & areas for landscaping.
• The old Arboricultural Method Statement is no longer an essential requirement at the planning submission stage although the principles of mitigation measures must be clearly highlighted but can be left as ‘Heads of Terms’ only at this juncture and it is then up to the LPA to Condition the submission of a detailed Method Statement at a later stage – thus presumably speeding up the decision making process and not delaying approvals on schemes.
• Protective Fencing Barriers are still required to be ‘fit for the purpose of excluding construction activity and the default position is still for scaffold framework with supports and driven back stays and weldmesh panels firmly secured to them. However, provision has now been made for two alternative forms of back stay where there is existing hard surfacing or underground obstruction OR a high risk of root damage by driving scaffold posts into the ground.
• The old Ground Protection drawing under Figure 3[2005] has been removed and replaced with wording that describes varying levels of ground protection to suit construction activity for – pedestrian only access; pedestrian operated plant up to 2 tonnes and wheeled or tracked vehicles exceeding 2 tonnes.
• Site Monitoring – there is a significant emphasis on the need for an auditable system of arboricultural site monitoring or direct site supervision of activities close to any RPA’s.
• Permanent Hard Surfacing within RPA’s – this is perhaps the most significant change as far as Architects and indeed Landscape Architects are concerned in that the new recommendations are that – ‘New permanent hard surfacing should not exceed 20% of any existing unsurfaced ground within the RPA.[2012]’

Conclusions

In my opinion in trying to strip down and streamline and speed up the decision making process they have actually made it more arduous and costly.

For the arboricultural experts there will be more time spent out on site collecting the additional data and then more time spent addressing all of the issues which now need to be included in the Arboricultural Impact Assessment report.

For the client the bottom line is that time equals money and the cost of undertaking this extra work will inevitably have to be passed on to the clients.

by Alison Galbraith 

May is always my favourite month of the year.  There is my birthday, the FA cup final, the cricket season gets going in earnest, the days are getting longer and the weather is often quite beautiful. 

 But the best thing about May is watching our natural world suddenly come alive.  The trees are now in full leaf, the grass is growing madly, spring flowers are sprinkled everywhere.  There is such hope and promise in the vibrancy, the freshness, the greenness.  

Later when the sun gets hotter, leaves become dry, lose their sheen.  But in May there is a softness, an energy, a vigour. The hawthorn hedges are clothed in stunning white blossom, with cow parsley bubbling along the verges below; beech leaves are bright green and velvety; gentle sunlight filters through the woodland canopy to delicately light the bluebells and wood garlic beneath.    

I took longer than usual to cycle home yesterday as I had to stop every few minutes to snap photos.  They may not be the best quality but I hope they capture the magic of May.

 As a designer it is not difficult to achieve a display in May – there are so many plants looking great!  I like this planting combination inherited in my garden.  It combines the lightness of the London Pride and the deep purple of the aquilegia with the promise of fox gloves and the hosta flowers to follow, while the latter’s foliage creates a bold and fresh foil for the arrangement.

As Edwin Way Teale (US naturalist, photographer and writer) said, ‘All things seem possible in May’