If you’re motivated to make a difference to biodiversity or simply wish to while away the day watching wildlife then you need a pond in your garden. A professional garden or landscape designer will know where best to place a pond in your garden. Here’s how to make it happen; Take time to select an experienced professional to work with. A garden or landscape designer with a passion for creating naturalistic spaces will know how to attract wildlife to the garden and have an instinctive understanding of where best place to place the pond. This might be a natural dip in the lay of the land or an ..read more

There are better ways to improve a company’s carbon footprint than carbon offsetting and mass tree planting schemes, says Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West. Large companies will often offset their carbon footprint through mass tree planting schemes. It’s wonderful to see once marginalised environmental issues becoming mainstream concerns, but we must ensure that action in these areas is both genuine and focused in the right direction. We must beware of ‘greenwashing’. Unscrupulous marketing departments have latched on to the fact that environment and sustainability issues are making headlines ..read more

How damaging is artificial lighting to the environment? Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West considers the impact. Artificial light can adversely impact the behaviour of birds. We don’t have lighting in our garden. The generosity of the local borough council is such that all the light we need, and pools more, is gathered from an adjacent lamp post. Indeed ‘light trespass’ from this single luminaire infuses evening al fresco dining with all the charm of a Gestapo interrogation. The offending street lamp has recently been limited to operation from dusk until midnight, presumably as a cost cutting ..read more

Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West details the ‘rewilding’ of his own garden, from which he, his family and the local wildlife have already reaped rewards. Rewilding your garden greatly benefits local wildlife. Last month, we explored the concept of rewilding as an antidote to biodiversity loss and mitigation against the most damaging effects of climate change. I promised to share a snapshot of my garden’s ‘rewilding’ journey, which has so far consisted mainly of adopting a more relaxed attitude to maintenance practices and allowing ‘weed’ species to establish alongside ornamentals. This appro ..read more

Rewilding is fortunately gaining traction, says Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West, and we all need to embrace it. Embracing the concept of rewilding will help reduce biodiversity loss. Of all the global-scale predicaments we currently face, I find biodiversity loss to be the most pernicious. The systematic, often wilful degradation of the source of our being and the accompanying depletion of the myriad wonders with which it is bejewelled, represent a deep source of personal pain and sorrow. Furthermore, it’s an embedded phenomena. In 1987, I joined the Young Ornithologists’ Club and from the ..read more

Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West reminds us of the beneficial impact we can have on a garden’s biodiversity with thoughtful intervention. An example of a biodiverse garden by Landscaping Solutions. Hypericum perforatum, or ‘St John’s Wort’, is a common wildflower used traditionally as a wound herb and more recently as a treatment for depression or a general tonic for lifting the spirits. The plant is named after John the Baptist who is said to have been born six months before Jesus of Nazareth on 24 June and is venerated in the Christian faith as the one who prepared the way for Christ the R ..read more

Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West explains why only using native plants is not necessarily the best option. Diverse late Summer herbaceous perennials in a garden built and maintained by Landscaping Solutions in Twickenham, South West London. In one of our recent blog articles, I extolled the virtues of garden ‘weeds’ in light of their potential to re-connect us with nature; I proposed a move away from our entrenched revulsion toward a position of reverence. As much as I love native wildflowers and have learned much about myself and the wider world from a close relationship with them (not to m ..read more

In late 2019 we collaborated with Jilayne Rickards on a small urban garden she designed for a great client in North London. Jilayne christened the scheme ‘The Urban Retreat’. The Urban Retreat in North London, designed by Jilayne Rickards and built by Landscaping Solutions. Jilayne’s vision was for the garden to be both beautiful and sustainable. In December last year we discovered the garden had picked up four British Association of Landscape Industries awards. The most satisfying of these for us was the award for best use of recycled and reclaimed materials. The recognition this garden rece ..read more

Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West explains what permaculture is and its sustainability benefits. An example of permaculture garden design, built and maintained by Landscaping Solutions. Last month I started to consider steps we might take, in lieu of top down leadership, to fashion solutions to the ‘sustainability problem’. Those in the industry looking to cut a path toward adopting fully regenerative practices have a ready sharpened tool in the form of ‘permaculture’, a system that can be applied to garden design as well as every other aspect of our lives. Permaculture design offers guidelin ..read more

Landscaping Solutions MD Ben West explains why we need to get back in touch with nature and that compromise is key. In last months article I focused mainly on the theoretical and practical problems we face in our relationship with the environment. If we are to continue to pursue the goal of ‘economic growth’, this term must come to mean something very different than hitherto. Going forward, all our actions must be scrutinised through the lens of sustainability or regeneration. Our current nescience in this area stems from our conceptual disconnect from nature. I stress ‘conceptual’ be ..read more