BALI South Thames' 'Maintenance' event hailed a success
BALI South Thames recently held an event ‘Designing with Maintenance in Mind’ by Provender Nurseries on 18 October 2018.
The evening included a panel of six industry experts, who each gave presentations on how they thought best to tackle garden design with maintenance/aftercare in mind. After the presentations, the floor was opened up to questions.
The panel had a mix of domestic, commercial and estate garden designers all with different and individual approaches to the topic. After each presentation, there was a variety of questions being asked by the audience which consisted of a mix of designers, contractors and gardeners who engaged in several lively debates.
Main topics raised during the event were that collaboration and communication were key between designers, clients and gardeners. When handing over a garden that has been designed and built before being handed over for maintenance/ aftercare.
One of the key questions raised was ‘Is the process different if the designers are not maintaining the garden after completion?’ and the response from one designer was to ask the client ‘How much your budget was for aftercare?’ this is thought to be an excellent approach as it plants the idea of true importance of gardening and the skills needed to maintain gardens to a high standard.
Many examples were revealed by the panellists that clients are now looking for ‘cheaper’ mow and blow. Furthermore, substandard maintenance by unskilled maintenance companies were given and in many instances, clients only realised the value of true maintenance and good gardeners after completion. This leads to the client looking for more skilled gardeners to maintain all aspects of a garden.
Membership of various trade bodies that represent gardeners was bought up and discussed. However, it was felt that there were too many different options and that collaboration between the differing trade bodies would be beneficial.
Overall the evening brought up some really interesting industry topics and debates which were exhausted fully with the help of BALI South Thames committee and contributing companies that made the event possible: Mandy Buckland, founder of Greencube Garden Design & Maintenance, Catherine Clancy of Inspired Gardens by Catherine Clancy, Ali Dempster, founder of Sandstone Design Solutions Ltd, John Wyer, Chief Executive of Bowles and Wyer, Angela Palmerton, Director, Lady Penelope Gardens and Richard Gardiner: Former MD of grounds maintenance contractor Norris & Gardiner Ltd.
There were a fair few social media follow up and feedback furthering on the from the event;
BALI South Thames @BALISouthThames
FollowingFollowing @BALISouthThames
BALI South Thames Retweeted Provender Nurseries
Just to echo the words of @ProvenderTweets and say a huge thank you to you all, for all your input into the evening. Also, a HUGE thank you to all at Provender, for the time and hard work they invested in the event. It really is much appreciated. #Thankyou
Pete Jones @LandDesignPete 15h15 hours ago
Shout out to speakers and sponsors! Thanks for all your contributions to a great evening of discussion at the @BALISouthThames event. Huge thanks to @ProvenderTweets for all their hard work bringing it to fruition. #SouthThames #Collaboration
Provender Nurseries @ProvenderTweets
A great event and debate. Huge thank you to @WyerJohn @greencube_uk @caclancy @SandstoneDesign @RCGardiner @LadyPGardens @Gardener_jamie @_LONDONSTONE @starkgreensmith @ImMandyFlyMe @PlatipusAnchors could not have done it without you @BALISouthThames #collaboration …