Category Archive: Industry Comment

Feb 20

Save our bees: the detriment of arrogant development and the plants that could halt bee decline.

When I first started landscaping around 10 years ago, it seemed that every client’s mantra was “no maintenance” and this was more often than not transposed into a garden design that, in order to satisfy the client, mostly comprised concrete paving, lots of gravel, a lawn and perhaps a handful of pots. In the years …

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Feb 15

New-Build: Old Problems

Our dumper stuck in the mud (whilst installing drainage!!)

I am always excited by the prospect of these garden designs since the grounds are indeed left as a blank canvas and we, with the clients, can truly indulge on a personalised and bespoke design that will fit well with the client’s lifestyle aspirations and procure the most function possible from their new garden space.

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Feb 15

How To Fit Creative Thinking Into a Busy Schedule

As a designer I have found it difficult to balance the time between the daily MUST-DOs required to keep the business on track and design time, also crucial to the business’ success but never quite as pressing (that is unless deadline day is looming!). In the first few years of GardenImprovements.com I had been doing …

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Feb 15

Landscaping through the recession

Here is an article I wrote for the much celebrated Landscape Juice Network back in February 2009.  I think much of it still holds true currently for the many businesses, established and start-up alike in the landscape and garden design industries. Landscaping through the recession : Landscape and garden expert.

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Feb 15

Landscaping in 2009?

1 and a half stone of beer, wine, meat and cake

Having read some of the many articles on the effects of the credit crunch on small businesses, I wonder how it will affect my small business and how other garden designers and landscapers around Glasgow, and indeed around the UK, will cope with the coming year.

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Feb 15

Guerrilla Gardening in Glasgow

growing fruit and veg and selling them from local shops, markets etc (especially relevant when the lack of available allotment space is at an ebb at the moment), getting youth clubs and schools involved could help with the severe lack of facilities for youngsters in more deprived areas, and in general make the places where you live a more vibrant and exciting place to be

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Feb 15

Garden Design Issues: An Apprentice’s View

Matthew Thomson Apprentice Garden Designer

When Nicky informed me that i would be sending off my own design and presentation I was a tad nervous about the outcome to say the least! It didn’t help that the garden I would be designing for was a very strange shape and quite large. When doing practise designs I found it alot easier to come up with ideas for smaller gardens, so this was the first stumbling block!

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Feb 15

Landscape Gardening and Winter

The winter months are infact the best time to arrange to have a landscaping project scheduled for your garden; ensuring everything is in place for the new season to start and getting a real head start on enjoying your home outdoors!

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Feb 15

The Big Chill

As landscapers and gardeners up and down the country shake off their festive hangovers and head back out – we find that country is frozen solid – but surely we aren’t ALL down in the dumps about 2009?

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Feb 15

“A Garden?! What For?” – I’ll Give You What For!

Nicky's Looney Toons Impression

As a designer I am frequently invited to people’s homes to discuss their requirements in the garden. Many, who have contacted me with landscaping projects in mind, simply want A patio, or A deck or A driveway and it must be THIS shape and must go HERE, THERE and THERE: but if we look at the garden in it’s entirety as part of our property; then it becomes another room – albeit an outdoor room. I wonder; would people upgrade their old and worn out bathroom by simply replacing the bath alone? It might be a whopping great shiny bath but would it not outshine the rest of the bathroom fittings and therefore actually make the room far LESS attractive – surely the opposite from the desired effect?

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