Olympic Park Gold

It’s not just our Olympic and Paralympic athletes who have done us proud at London 2012 - the team behind the creation of the Olympic Park should also be congratulated on their achievement.

As a local resident, I have been longing to see the planting at the Park before it closes to the public again after the Games - and I finally got a ticket to visit on a glorious sunny September morning.

With over 4000 trees, 150,000 perennials, 300,000 wetland plants, and 50,000 square metres of turf, the scale of the park and planting is enormous - and it really is impressive and inspiring.

Congratulations to everyone involved - from the masterplanners and landscape architects LDA Design, to the planting design team led by Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough (Sheffield University) and Sarah Price, through to all the contractors and suppliers involved. I know that my main plant supplier, Palmstead, grew and supplied thousands of plants.

The Sheffield University duo have been researching and developing techniques for creating wildflower meadows for over 10 years and here they have masterminded 30 hectares of meadows some using wildflowers and others with native and exotic perennials. For more info see Tom Stuart Smith’s article.

For further info, there are some more links to articles about the Olypmic Park planting below.

Guardian article

Telegraph article

Olympic Park Planting Strategy

As part of the Legacy, the park will reopen (in part) from July 2013 with the whole area open to the public from Easter 2014. If you didn’t get to see it this year, be sure to visit in the future.

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Comments

T & S Plants September 7, 2012 at 8:21pm

Nice post Jenny.

Of course the Oympics were not just London based, they also happened in Dorset.

77 new houses were built at Osprey Quay, Portland, Dorset to house the Athletes.

The contract to plant Osprey Quay was not won by a multi-national company, but was won by a local, Dorchester based Designer.

The contract to supply all of the plants Osprey Quay was not won by a multi-national company. It was won by T&S Plants, Tina & Steve, of Piddletrenthide, Dorset.

London was always going to be a bun-fight.

In Dorset, local Designers and local suppliers won the day.