Sustainable Landscaping in France and the UK

Part I: An explanation of the need for ‘transfer of knowledge’ between these neighbouring countriesThe French country and garden landscape has for many people been defined due to its sustainability. The reasons for the continuation of traditional and ecologically friendly methods are principally the result of one huge factor – the lack of financial resource in the management of such a large country landscape, (particularly in comparison with the UK, which has a similar sized population but double the land mass).The consequence sees many techniques regularly used which could or would be considered innovative in the UK and elsewhere but remain in use across rural France for the simple fact that they cost little or nothing but are highly effective. However these techniques are under massive threat. As per a conversation with Philip Voice, the French appear to be at least 30 years behind the UK in terms of the gardening and landscaping industry; and as such many of the larger ‘interested’ French and multinational companies are starting to effect massive unsustainable changes on the French garden landscape, with a potential threat to the French country landscape also. In comparison now in the UK larger companies are starting to spearhead sustainability (‘Marshalls plc’* are a good example of this.) ahead of government both local, central and the myriad of recently established quangos who have failed to really get a foothold into getting sustainable issues into the overall psyche of both the professionals and more importantly their clients despite ratification of the ELC and the issues have been left to the masses who appear to have embraced the sustainable and well being attributes of gardening.The training of French landscapers, who enjoy a much higher status than their UK counterparts, includes studies into sustainability, ecology and traditional techniques, but this does little to prevent a standardisation of the landscape, resulting in the similar commercial landscapes seen from Calais to Perpignan.Perhaps this standardisation is the normal evolution of landscaping for urban and commercial areas when the landscaping proposals proceed through the paper trail via the desks of the local authorities and the industrial / commercial giants who dominate this ‘progress’.The traditional view that the French use their gardens for production and the British for ornamental purposes has been slowly turning around. With nationwide garden centres being built across France in proliferation and an increasing amount of standardised products which don’t reflect regional identity, a pending ‘groundforcesque’ suburban landscape is not only looming but apparent in the banlieue. Which after what has happened in the UK would be catastrophic, with the loss of habitats and heritage to an extend where the work required to amend things would be outwith the budget of the majority of people.This year Hedgehogs have been placed on the red list for endangered species, together with a massive decline in thrushes and slow worms most of the predators of slugs and snails are non-existent in vast swaths of the UK, (this without even mentioning the plight of the beneficial insects). Non native invasive weeds run rampant and bacterial infections to our greatest living species such as Oaks are seemingly encouraged by threatening budget cuts. The problems the UK landscape faces are huge.As such there has never been a time where the transfer of knowledge and skills of the traditional practitioner / craftsman / landscaper has been so needed. And some skills have already vanished. Often mistaken knowledge has taken precedent over the truly beneficial in its attractiveness to the new age gardener – lunar gardening for example; there is little doubt that planting to lunar schedules works and was used by the majority of growers in days gone by, this is because clocks and watches were often outside the price range of the average grower and using the moon as a guide was a very effective timepiece for an annual programme.If the extolling of such practices as; small scale beekeeping, (small hives placed into modern day bee boles – instead of using taxpayers money to introduce this, get the planners to insist on such minor alterations to new builds); the encouragement of planting very close cropped native trees and shrubs as a percentage of a garden – allowing a habitat congenial to birds and other potential predators of pests; under decking or hard landscaping installations of habitats, using dry wood or rough native stone. And many other simple techniques we would see the suburban landscape continue to rise as a popular landscape for threatened wildlife.Part II; will be a further list of techniques to save and protect native fauna, which in turn can assist the sustainable gardener / landscaper in the management of their land.paysage durable.com

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