Tree Planting Day in National Tree Week

Alison, Caroline and Steve from the BCTV

HSBC and the Rev Jerry who turned up for lunch and then worked very hard afterwards

Gorilla Gardening with Anna Doeser of the BCTV

Natasha from HSBC with the pupils of HWINS being photographed by Niall O'Mara from the Richmond and Twickenham Times.

Will we, won't we? That was the question of the moment as soon as the snow was forecast at the weekend. I spent many minutes looking at the weather and trying to work out what to do. The Tree Council (who gave us the grant to buy the trees), wanted us to plant in National Tree Week but not to the detriment of the plants and the English Woodlands Nursery (Thanks Jo!) was delivering the trees the day before the big dig so if we didn't plant them, who would and when? Before Christmas or in Jan/Feb when the ground would most likely be more frozen!! What should we do??!!

So this morning it was snowing and it was cold. But did that stop us from planting 15 new trees?? No Siree!!

Most of the HSBC staff from the Kingston Bridge branch volunteered to plant up the new trees for the wilderness. Thank you to Richard Gimblett for letting his team of Matt Wilshaw, Paul Jaggers, Natasha Munro, Fedele Dechiara, Ross Qualters, Sheetal Verma, Rasher Zaater, Jenny Montgomery, Mark Steedman, Mark Poole and Sarah Leech come along for the day and plant up the wilderness. We would not have been able to do it without them. Thanks Peter for organising with HSBC again.

The Parents from both Hampton Wick (Abid Ikram, Alison McNaughton, Zhen and Leiske) and St Johns (Caroline Sayer) also came and the Rev Jerry just came for lunch but we still enjoyed having him too. (No really ... he worked hard all afternoon.)

And the Gorilla Gardeners from the BCTV Anna Doeser and Steve. Who brought all their tools and knowledge.

It was a great, if cold day and I hope all the trees appreciate that we planted them with care, manure, bonemeal and give us a good display in the spring.

Trees planted were:

2 Wild Cherries (Prunus avium)

3 Comman Alders (Alnus glutinosa)

2 Field Maples (Acer campestre)

1 Pedunculate Oak (Quercus rober) In the future in my mind I see this as a huge tree with a tree house around it.

2 Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia)

1 Disease Resistant Elm (Ulmus lutece)

3 Hornbeams (Carpinus betulus)

1 Aspen (Populus tremula)

Next projects will be hedging the perimeter and then planting up the pond. Dates to follow. See you then?

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Logs, Logs Glorious Logs (and Mud)

Designed with nature in mind

Beautiful detailing, well done KEN!!!!

Look at that curve!!

Half made logstack

Now I know I am a wilderness bore but the logstacks are going to look so amazing once completed. The first one is in and thanks to Matthew Morey and his team at Aerzen who put together the frames for the stacks to sit in and also to our lovely regular landscape artist, Ken Daly. Andy Goldsworthy has nothing on him!! Well... apart from the millions of pounds.

Ken has worked so hard and did an extra two days over his allotted time to get the first stack finished. I cannot thanks him enough for bringing my plans to life so successfully.

He will be doing a demonstration session on the 1st of December when we have our big tree planting day in the wilderness, so if you want to have a go, please come along.

As well as the logstacks coming along, we had another brush with fame when the Richmond and Twickenham Times came in again to see the kids planting bluebells and pond dipping, even though there was nothing in the pond to dip at the moment (minor details!).

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Community Bluebell Planting and yes it was the whole community!!!

BCTV Volunteers

HSBC Volunteers

Keep Digging Reverend!!

First injury of the Day, Katie with a nettle sting

There are so many people in our school that have the ability and the drive to make things happen. Peter Greenwood is one of them. He is a dad who happens to work at HSBC and because of him the richmond HSBC managers came on a team building day (so much better than the SPA day they had intended to go on!) in the wilderness to help us to prepare the area for planting of bluebells (English Bluebells, Hyacinthoidies non-scripta of course).

BUT not only did we have 11 of the best of the HSBC (Peter, Mick, Ali, Mark, Catherine, Andy, Harpreet, Katie, Liz, Joy and Simon) , but we also had another 14 of the BCTV (British Conservation Trust Volunteers: Dan, Laura, Steve, Simon, Anna, Iain, Heather, John, Kevin, Aneel, Nick, Dans, Richard and Keith.) who not only volunteered but we had 3 of them leading the exercise with myself and also making available all their tools.

We also had The Rev Graham and Jerry and their friend Jane and the many parents that turned up including, Lucy (Great with a wheelbarrow), Alison, Lindsay, Suzy, Liska (hope I have spelt it correctly), Liz, Anne and Kate, as well as all my family including children, husband and not least my mum.

It was a truly community effort and we had the most beautiful November day that actually felt like Spring.

We managed to prepare the ground and plant 1500 bulbs.

Today the job was finished off by the pupils of the school who all came in class by class and managed to plant the rest of the 3000 bulbs we had for our Bluebell carpet.

The Richmond and Twickenham Times came in to document this and to make sure that the rest of the community also know what we are doing and trying to achieve.

Phase 2.1 is complete! Apart from the few bulbs that were left over for the children who were ill today and called in to the school in tears as they were missing their chance to plant bulbs and be part of the wilderness. What a lovely thing that they care so much!

Tree planting day will be Wed Dec 1st!! Keep the day free, Please!

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

The Hiatus is over

Bluebells to be planted here

The Pond with beach and the deck taking shape

Jeff the Carpenter

Phewweee I have managed to get back to blogging. There are too many passwords in my head and for a few days they all eluded me. Anyway now back on track and so is the wilderness.

The wilderness, from a whirlwind of activity, ended up a couple of days ago with no one on site. But our lovely contractors have managed to pull it back a little and will be finished by this weekend. It's on record now so lets see if it happens Ken!

The beach is forming and the deck is going down so my mind has been working on ordering English bluebells for the front of the site. There is a wilderness action day at the beginning of Nov , just after half term, to plant these, so I have to get them ordered for delivery by then.

And we have tree planting week at the beginning of December so I also have to get the trees ordered for that with all the accoutrements and making sure it all fits into the agreement set out by the Tree Council as they had promised us a grant. There is a lot of red tape and a great deal of juggling with money to make sure we come in on budget.

Wish me luck!

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Decks away!

It was a wet, wet wet day at the wilderness today. The rain started and kept coming, as I went down to meet Jeff the carpenter and his uncle Merv. The balustrading oak turned up whilst I was there and we set out the sub structure of the deck on site.

We are onto stage 2 of the build and it is all looking great. The actual recycled deck boards also turned up today after a few phone calls and some shenanigans with the suppliers. So I guess I'll be in tomorrow to make sure it is all good.

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Sunday 19/09/2010 - Is the pond full part 2!!

Is the pond full!! Yes it is. Woohoo! The pond is full of water but we have to finish buildi g the beach for the children to able to walk into the water so that they can pond dip. The first 10cm of water is where most of the fauna are found so hopefully once the pond is all finished and planted the children will be able to find newts and all sorts on their trips into the Wilderness.

www.redscapedesign.com

Saturday 18/09/2010 - Is the pond full yet?

So the Ikram Clan went down with myself to the wilderness on Saturday morning to make sure the pond was filling up and not overflowing. Well I can say that the pond and the wilderness have been a huge hit with my boys and hopefully the rest of the school community will like it as much.

The pond however was not quite full. Can we come back tomorrow, please?

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Friday 17th Sept 2010 - The liner goes in!

The pond was contoured and the first layer of sand went down over old carpets as the ground underneath had revealed many treasures including marble posts and a big mound of concrete foundations. The carpet was laid as an extra measure to make sure that the pond liner does not get a puncture. Next layer sand; then a geotextile layer, then the Firestone EPDM liner, then the next geotextile layer. This was then topped with overturned turf in the centre of the pond and then buckets and buckets and buckets of pea gravel over the rest of the pond. Phewweee the guys have definitely worked their socks off today.

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Wed Am - River Stones At Adrian Hall

River stones were discussed and Ken the contractor thought they might be a good way to differentiate between the shallow beach area and the deeper parts of the pond.

They look Great! They are in.

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Contouring of the pond

Now before I go any further i have to apologise to Ken for making him a Dale instead of a Daly. He is, and has always been a Daly and as a new Numaira (as of this week in the Richmond and Twickenham Times) in the paper i know how annoying it can be to have your identity changed.

Also NSP Landscapes have been contracted to work on site but Ken has his own company which goes under the name of Healing Landscapes. So please come to www.redscapedesign.co.uk for me to design your garden and then we can get Ken at Healing Landscapes to build it.

Lovely. So, down to business, today was a big day, as they all seem to be. Kevin our Newts expert came and looked at the contouring of the pond and told us all that the shelves in the pond must not be too steep otherwise the newts spawn will fall down the slopes and never be seen again. So more a little fine tuning took place and an extra pair of hands were found on site in the form of Cameron. The pond liner also turned up this afternoon.

Jeff the Carpenter came down and we discussed at length if I had made the right choice in picking a new recycled decking product. We have had a few miscommunications with the suppliers and well frankly it was all getting a bit much. It is, I think all sorted now and we will have deck boards and carpenter on site at the same time next week.

And lastly I had to make a mad dash to Adrian Hall and Wickes to pick my favourite gravel (I know!?). I had one in mind and had been carrying round a sample from Bushy Park, which one of the gardeners there had let me have. Even the man who works in Adrian Hall looked at me in a funny way as I brought out my nappy sack full of genuine Bushy Park gravel to find a match.

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

The Diggers have been in!!!

Ken and Jimmy, Keep digging!! Timetabling Meeting with Jan Kuhn, Simon Hawkins (BCTV) and Anna Doeser (Hounslow Project Officer BCTV ) and Me, Humaira Ikram.

Well the diggers have been in! The contouring has taken place and is looking good.

Here above are Ken and Jimmy checking the levels of the new pond and making adjustments.

It is looking great, well I thought it was until my child came in and said "Oh mum, you've ruined it!!" Lets hope it looks better soon.

The other thing that happened today was a meeting with the British Conservation Trust Volunteers (BCTV) to discuss a timetable for the future. Which includes; when we will be planting bluebells, planting hedging, the planting up the pond, and the new trees. As well as all the ongoing maintenance and bringing the place back to what it was and more.

It was a great meeting with people who can help us get the most out of the Wilderness.

Shingle has been bought today and hedging has been discussed at length with the hedging company too.

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Newts Moving Day

Kids and Newts

So today was a bit of a rush. Yesterday we had the idea that children from the school should be involved in the newts move and then we thought that maybe the local press would be interested.

So of course, this then had to be co-ordinated and somehow it worked!

all of the above came along at the same time. The kids, newts, toads and journalist from the Richmond and Twickenham Times all were together. The kids had a great time looking at the wildlife and we adults (thank you Lindsay for helping and holding and catching newts) remembered why we were involved in the hours and hours of work that it has taken to get even to this stage.

So the pond has been drained, the newts and toads have been moved to their temporary accomodation. Marking out should happen tomorrow with diggers on site Friday/Mon to contour the pond.

All in all a very successful if hectic day.

www.redscapedesign.co.uk

Newts Ahoy!!!

The newts were supposed to be rehoused today and work has been going ahead with contractors in wellies and waterproofs as the water is still deep and the newts need to be extracted from the remnants of the pond.

Hopefully tomorrow we will have some children in from the school to help rehouse the newts to their new and temporary home. Lets hope there are actually 200 newts in the pond because today only 2 were found and that could be a bit boring for the kids tomorrow.

Lets hope for good weather and and no stumbling by the pond.

Work has Started!!

Contractors readying the site by breaking and removing old concrete around the pond

So the Wilderness is going full steam ahead.

Since the beginning of the summer there have been many meetings with school governor Matt Morey and the contractors, NSP Landscapes, including a 9am meeting to discuss the works on Bank Holiday Monday!!! Yes Really!!

Here is a picture of Ken Dale from NSP Landscapes below.

The deconstruction of the pond started on Tuesday 31st of August and will be going on all this week.

Picture of Ken Dale, the contractor

The newts will be moved to their new temporary home in the next few days and then the new pond will be created next week.

I had a bit of a moral dilemma with the decking to go around the pond. Should we go for hardwood that takes a long time to grow and is taking resources or should we go for new fangled but recycled deck boards made out of plastics and ash from factories (using really unusable waste)?!! Would they look as good?

I liked the recycled boards and so did Ken the contractor and Jeff the Carpenter. It is supposed to be not as slippery as wood and easily maintained. Lets hope it's all true!

The other exciting thing i did today was ride into Bushy Park to look at the pea shingle they have in the streams in the woodland gardens. I spoke to a gardener called Michael Sales who was very interesting. He had worked in the city and given up trading in exotic places like Singapore and Tokyo to become a gardener in Bushy Park. And he managed to tell me where I could source some pea shingle in exactly the right colour.

Do you think I need to get out more?

Spoke to Simon from the BCTV about living hedges, Jeff about deck delivery dates, Matt about what deck to order and Ken about finding a man with a digger.

All in all a very productive day for the wilderness.

Trees

Dave, Ryan, Sean, Shaune and Rick, The Tree Guys

So yesterday as I was coming into school I noticed that the Tree men were in. They are removing some trees to open up the space and also taking ivy and dangerous branches off of the trees around the site.

It already looks amazing. Well not that amazing but it had made a huge difference to the level of light in the Wilderness already.

They will be here all week taking down Ivy and tidying up the trees. This means that we are well on our way to making the wilderness a really great community space.

Oh I forgot that Microsoft also came in on a 2 day Team building trip (this was sooo much better than paintballing or a spa weekend that they usually go on!) They did an amazing job of cleaning the place up. Ooh and BCTV came in and started the living hedges on the perimeters of the site. They look pretty good to me

So much has happened in a short space of time.

May try and make the blogs more interesting or get them ghost written by Mrs. Burridge. Now she is funny.

NEWTS!!!!

Mr Toad on top of Mrs Toad. aahhhh

A smooth newt

Kevin the Newt Man

So we thought there was nothing in the Wilderness. But I went down to meet Kevin the Newt man (I think that actually is his name) It was so exciting!!

We found Newts, Toads and heard Tawny Owl calls and this was between 5 and 7 in the evening.

Even though we found newts the pond still needs work. It is not the right shape for the newts and the liner will disintegrate if it stays out in the sunlight.

It was so exciting being in the wilderness with someone who know what he was looking for. It is something I think all the kids as well parents at the school would love.

The Wilderness

Jan 19 2010 - Glen Harding, Alison Sen, Matthew Morey, Claire Briggs

Woohoo This is my first ever foray into the world of blogging. For a person who doesn't even facebook this is a big deal, but I thought it would be a great way to share with you all just what is happening.

So the Wilderness in Hampton Wick has been there for ages, but for the last 10 years has been neglected, and as a woodland, it needs to be managed.

Heidi came and asked me to produce a plan and have it costed within a week if I remember rightly. I did point out to her that I had 3 children under 8 and that one of them was still with me all the time but anyhoo one week later and a little bit tired from all night stints of drawing and crumpling up paper we had a plan.

Some friends of mine Richard and Graham (Landscape Contractors) kindly came a long and gave us a vague quote and all of this was just to secure the funding for the project from the council. Pheweee!!

Anyway we secured funding and then it really started. We had 8 meetings with various groups and interested parties from the 7th of November and the 8th of December 2009.

These included:

Me - Garden Designer and Mum (Interest - Not destroying the ecosystems and creating something special)

Heidi Johnson-Paul - Head Teacher of HWINS (Interest - making it as safe and educational)

Richard and Graham - Contractors - looking at site and job for quote.

Alison Sen - Richmond Ecology Officer (Main interest - the site as a whole)

Alison Fure - Richmond Ecology Officer (Main Interest - bats and large mammals)

Richard Pain - Architect (Dad at the school and some kind of Govenor)

Glen Harding - Richmond Arboricultural Manager (Main interest trees and loss of habitat)

Simon Rose - BCTV (British Conservation Trust Volunteers)

Alex Robb - London Wildilfe Trust

Claire Briggs - Richmond Council

There were lots of people with lost of agendas and I was finding it difficult to work out where we went from here.

But over Christmas I asked for all the interested parties to get together and let us know what the priorities were for the work to go forward.

Jan 19th 2010 we had a meeting with Glen, Alison Senn, Claire and Matthew Morey (school Govenor and Project Manager) with myself there (Heidi couldn't come as there was an ofsted inspection also happening at the same time.)

We decided that we needed a newts survey in the pond and a date for tree works to start. Woohoo we can move forward!!!