What is good landscape practice? Perhaps more importantly what is bad landscape practice?
As the dust settles after RHS Chelsea we are at yet another point in time left wondering what is the point of our industry? Land management covers a huge spectrum where the values created, both financial and otherwise, are generally obtuse. Each branch of land management indeed each practitioner in each branch is working more and more to one particular value. That value which they believe will net the best results for them.
There is a myriad of values and multiple benefits attached to the work we do - why are we so bad at selling this aspect of our work?
It is all quite daft. Jeremy Barrell writes 'Natural assets must have natural context' hinting towards the importance of the landscape, the complexity of landscapes, all landscapes and the consequences if we get things wrong.
Working to only one value invariably means we will get things wrong. From choosing to follow just an aesthetic value - a 'design' led route - we get things as wrong as if we were to solely concentrate on 'ecosystem services'. Any multiple values that arise are purely coincidental or certainly seen as being so and our industry is disenfranchised a little bit more, which given that good landscaping achieves probably the highest set of values for the most minimum of cost than virtually all other industries is simply wrong.
So what are these values and how can we start to measure them?
The environmental value of a garden is very different to an ecological value or sustainable value. Measuring the CO2 emmissions of a lawnmower is crass in that it hardly even registers against the real environmental value. It is important, as is peat usage, composting measures and pesticide use. And we really shouldnt try to use values as a means to allow 'offsetting'. Of course the aesthetic value and / or amenity value is also important as is the production value. And when you add all these up you will arrive at huge values which although unbelievable are genuine.
All these values and more are contained within any particular landscape, being a suburban garden or a view from atop a mountain. People clearly relate to landscapes in many different ways, often according to their own interests, but one common factor is through 'landscape features' - elements both man-made and natural in the landscape, including (but far from exhaustive): Dry Stone Walls, Hedgerows, Non Woodland Trees, Rivers, Lakes, Ponds, Forest, Gardens, Barns, Sheds and Pergolas - etc.,
If we can set basic values attributable to common landscape features then we can hopefully start to redress the balance towards a better recognition of landscaping and good landscape practice. In this we are considerably assisted by the work of Helliwell and then Neilan and their work in valuing Non Woodland Trees.
Imagine if you can an online map of Europe, where you can hone in on any area at any scale and using a common list of types of landscape features and their values add or remove these features from the map. Not only this, but have full access to all other information resources for that point; soils, geology, history, academic research etc.,
This is what we are working on with the HERCULES project and which we hope the first prototypes will be available soon.
Comments
Yes, what is the point of our industry?. Agriculture and horticulture are there to feed the world. But what about amenity horticulture? It is there obviously for the wildlife (especially pollinators) and what would we do without them ? - die. Everybody should be made to look after this planet and the varied species contained therein. But capitalism does'nt allow for things to survive along side us. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, where is the shotgun