Month: June 2017

How to build the perfect grass amphitheatre

What a fun couple of weeks we have had taking it in turns to go to site to see our grass amphitheatre design come to fruition. In light of this and not in our usual blog style, we thought we would offer some top tips for creating the ideal amphitheatre:

Consider the design. Do you want your grass amphitheatre to grow above ground, dig down below or a bit of both? Remember that you may require planning permission depending on the site and design so it’s always worth seeking advice. Consider also, the use of the amphitheatre. Is it an entertaining or a social space? Will you be using it as an intimate space for an open fire or more of a public area for a theatre/concert? All these aspects will dictate the shape, size and design of the amphitheatre itself.

Know your soil. You need a soil which will retain its shape but also have an element of free drainage. Too sandy and it won’t hold its shape, too much clay and you’ll have issues with drainage. A good loamy soil with some sand content usually works well. Good quality suppliers can help you here.

Layers. Build the mound up in layers, compacting as you go. Usually an amphitheatre starts life as a general mound shape which is compacted and then from there you can cut in your desired shape.

Keep the face slightly damp. Don’t let your mound dry out too much before you apply the turf.

It’s a good idea to let your finished mound shape settle before you apply the turf. We left ours for a week and then did some final finessing of the shape by hand before the turf was applied.

Know your turf. A grassfelt like the one we used from Lindum turf is ideal. It’s a soil-less grass growing in felt which holds the soil in place below whilst the turf establishes. Moreover, because grassfelt is grown for its strength and flexibility, it is easier to lay and retains moisture better.

Water it! Once you’ve finished your mound, just like any newly laid turf, you need to water it. Be cautious though that you aren’t too over zealous because if water gets behind the turf, it will affect the shape of your mound. With the weather so hot, this has been the hardest part of the project for us.

A good contracting team are essential here. We used a digger driver with a lifetime of experience and watching him work was a joy. The digger was an extension of his body and the smoothness with which he carved the design was akin to an artist at work. Some of our team were so inspired, they even chose to get their hands dirty and join in with the finite detail of the build.

It’s not clear whether it’s the client or us who is more overjoyed with the results but it’s been a pretty special project to be a part of all round. The family plan to use the amphitheatre for intimate social gatherings huddled round an open fire and in the summer month’s private parties and performances by their very talented friends and family.

It’s a tricky process to get right and our advice would be if you don’t feel confident to go it alone, getting a professional landscape architect like Studio 31 involved can often be the best route. That way, you can let someone else take care of the planning and logistics and be confident that the end result will live up to all your expectations.

How trees are co-operators not competitors

 

Suzanne Simard is an ecologist who has conducted 30 years research into Canadian forests and last year she made an exciting discovery that trees communicate in ways that are not dissimilar from human interaction. In her illuminating Tedtalk she discussed her theory that trees do in fact talk.

Her theory was that forests can behave as single organisms and her results showed that far from being the fierce competitors for light and resources that we previously thought, trees are actually some of the best co-operators of all organisms.

Trees are connected with mycelium (put simply threads of fungus) that grows through the soil and coats the soil particles. There can be many hundreds of kilometres of mycelium under every footstep and it is this dense web which facilitates lively conversation between trees.

Suzanne’s research found that not only do trees help their own species through providing carbon, nitrogen, hormones and other information but they also help other species of tree. For example Douglas Fir and Paper Birch seem to have a symbiotic relationship whereby the fir transmits carbon to the birch in the summer months when it has an excess and the birch back to the fir in the winter when it has lost its leaves and needs less for itself.

Not only this but Suzanne discovered that there are hub or mother trees in the network who are responsible for nurturing the young saplings as they grow. The research found that mother trees can recognise their own kin and will send them more carbon, create bigger mycelial networks and even reduce their own root competition to make space for their young. Not only this but when hub trees die, they send both carbon and important defence compounds to their seedlings to help increase the resilience of the forest as a whole. Mother trees increase seedling survival by up to 4 times.

So what does this mean?

It means we need to take greater interest in our local forests. We need to take responsibility for helping them cope with climate change and we need individually tailored forestry programmes delivered locally rather than a one size fits all approach. We need better management of our logging and felling processes to ensure that mother trees are preserved and allowed to pass on their vital resources and information to their young.

We need to save our older forests as these are the ones full to bursting with mycelial networks, genes and hub trees and it means we need to consider how we plant our forests so that they have the diversity of species that will allow the forests to naturally regenerate and subsequently utilise their extraordinary power to self heal. This research has the power to shape a whole new approach to forestry and in the year that has passed since Suzanne’s tedtalk, has already begun to do so.

We think of forests as just collections of trees but what this research has found, is that they are complex systems of hubs and networks that communicate, cooperate and care for each other in ways that are much more like people than plant.

 

Photo by Abigail Keenan

Ambitious plans to manage and protect our Natural Capital

With the Natural Capital Committee (NCC) having published its 4^th Annual Report in January this year and with the general election just days away, we thought now might be the right moment to touch once again on the very important topic of England’s Natural Capital and how to protect it.

For those who don’t know what Natural Capital is, it can be defined as the world’s stocks of natural assets which include soil, geology, water, air and all living things. From this capital, we derive a wide range of services (often called ecosystem services) which essentially make human life possible. With that in mind, Natural Capital is a pretty important topic.

The NCC was re-established in 2016 in order to advise the government on the development and delivery of its 25 year environmental plan and earlier this year they released a new report detailing their recommendations of the somewhat radical changes the government needs to make to manage and make best use of our Natural Capital.

 

So, why can’t we just take what we need from the environment?

It could be likened to the financial market, where if we borrow money and spend more than we have, we are left with debts we are unable to pay back. The natural world is the same, if we take too much from the environment, the short answer is, it could lead to global ecosystem collapse. A straightforward example of this would be trees. If we cut down all the trees in an area (perhaps for fuel, product production, to clear space to build houses or a whole range of other reasons) but we don’t plant new trees, the simple fact is that we will eventually run out of trees. The impact of this being perhaps obviously no fuel and no product production but more significantly no clean air or water, greater risk of flooding or drought, loss of habitat therefore loss of certain flora and fauna and eventually long term damage to or loss of local and wider ecosystems.

Essentially, if we do not manage our natural capital effectively, we run the risk of putting ourselves at ecological, social and economic risk. Even if you aren’t a believer in protecting the environment and your motives are purely economic, the value of our natural capital in financial terms is priceless. Don’t believe me? A 2014 study published in the Journal of Global Environmental Change revealed that the total value of the World’s ecosystem services amounted to in excess of $124 trillion per year. That’s twice the global aggregate GDP.

 

So what can the government do?

This new report is pushing the government to make bigger and braver changes faster. It’s recommending that instead of the, until now, fairly ambiguous targets, the government begins to make itself accountable. The paper recommends “quantifiable and measurable” outcomes which are put to scrutiny under an independent body,

The NCC wants a new white paper to map out future legislation and for natural capital to be financially valued and for these valuations to guide budgetary decisions and future investments.

Importantly, the paper recommends integrated legislation. It wants the protection and management of Natural Capital incorporated into the climate change committee’s latest budget and post-brexit policy creation.

It advises that Natural Capital should no longer be a stand alone agenda item but be an integral part of government legislation and decision making across the board. Essentially it’s saying policy needs to be joined up at its very inception rather than added as an appendage to existing legislation. The NCC report has even set out how a range of public bodies should increase their engagement with the concept of Natural Capital including National Parks, The Office for National Statistics and The National Infrastructure Commission.

As a landscape professional, it’s heartening to see that finally the value and protection of our natural world is beginning to creep into core policy making processes at a national and even international level. That doesn’t make it any less important for each one of us to get involved and do our bit but the government is being called to order on its objective to be “the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than that in which we found it” because this new report finally challenges the government to produce a similarly ambitious plan in relation to Natural Capital. Let’s hope the next occupant of 10 Downing Street is up to the job.

 

 

Photo by Matthew Walsh