Environmental issues – global warming etc
On my most recent trip to Dubai, I enjoyed walking through some of the new landscapes that emerge as projects are completed. The UAE, along with most regions of the Middle-east has a rather limited palette of plants to work with (although that is growing as new plants are tried). What struck me, however, was how poor the quality
UPDATE September 2022: Given the increasing urgency of climate change and the overwhelming stresses this will place on our civilisation for the near, medium and long-term future, I now doubt this scenario will ever come about. A glimpse of what might have been, maybe, had we taken climate seriously and managed to move through that
This article first appeared in Pro Landscaper Gulf – a .PDF copy can be seen here on page 12. It is based on tree consultancy work I have undertaken in Abu Dhabi in recent years. Irrigation is taken as a necessity when landscaping in arid climates. It is a view that I wouldn’t like to completely
This review first appeared in Thinking Gardens in February 2016. This book represents a new wave of thinking about “natural” planting that has been emerging in recent years; actually it has been developing for the last thirty or more years but like all new things, they tend to follow an exponential growth curve. I’d say
In my previous post I talked about a regenerative planting methodology for urban landscapes, in which I suggested you would manage, rather than maintain your planting areas. So how exactly do you you do this? Both involve work and the difference is a subtle but important one, in both attitude and application. Think urban forester
Almost all urban landscapes are contrived and designed, due to their artificial nature and short timescales of development and use. We see increasing use of mature rootballed trees and extensive hard landscape and this is normal for intense inner urban areas; I do get concerned that the increasing complexity of urban planting systems divorce trees particularly
We are now a decade into the explosion of living or green walls. There have been many successes and some notable failures along the way, some of of which may be system-induced and some caused by inadequate or inappropriate maintenance regimes. Assuming we now have systems that work at least reasonably well, what is required by
I have been lucky enough to have designed and built a lot of water gardens in my time; I’ve been looking back over some of my pictures, and thought I’d share them here. Working with water is like nothing else; it is enigmatic, frustrating, contrary, exciting and absolutely rewarding in a way that few other
Last winter I did some interesting work in Abu Dhabi, concerning the care of trees. I can’t name one of the projects (a royal palace), but one was Mushrif Central Park undergoing a major redevelopment (and now reopened – March 2015). In both places I undertook a survey of 100+ broadleaf trees (as opposed to palms),
I am working as a consulting arborist in the UAE for a couple of large projects. Whilst there, I have been observing the broad state of the art and there is a long way to go in bringing across current best practice to the Middle-East, and I suspect that is so for many parts of
