An old client of mine based in near Ware in Hertfordshire was stumped for reducing the visual blight of a large carpark on one of his commercial sites. The site has recently had some new offices built and, as is part of planning permissions for these types of developments, requires a certain amount of allocated parking.
Gardens and car parking are two concepts around which both garden designers and environmentalists struggle. The RHS, Friends of the Earth and countless other bodies have lamented the disappearance of acres and acres of front gardens in towns and cities for the provision of parking for our beloved cars. This hasn't been at all helped by the implementation of residential parking schemes.
No it's not just a London thing. Take around the backstreets of my local towns of Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire, or Colchester and Sudbury in Essex and Suffolk. Take a peak at some of the front garden walls and fences and you will get my drift. Block-paved driveways as far as the eye can see. I understand the reasons for this, but it is a shame that a call wasn't made to a local horticulturalist to see how things might have been made a little more aesthetically pleasing.
Well, luckily my client decided to engage my services to improve his new carpark. My garden deign solution was 100 metres of beech hedging, which did not impinge on the parking capacity of the space. Ten choice Rowan trees (Sorbus acuparia) planted in small which are great for migrating bullfinches. All the trees are sited in small borders to be underplanted with a mixture of ground covering perennials that are rich in berries (great for the birds that have had their former ladder covered in tarmac). Who would have thought that creating a wildlife garden in an carpark in Ware would be possible! More blogs on the planting choice and how to plant hedging in future blogs.
Now to go a see a client looking to have her troublesome garden in Dedham (Essex)
turned into something less troublesome.
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