Maintenance Matters

Published in the Lansdcape Institute journal:

Anecdotal observations of poor landscape maintenance are commonplace, and indeed the deterioration over time of our beloved parks and communal landscapes has been well-researched*. This situation has come about despite the fact that the myriad benefits of green infrastructure have also been well-researched and proven*. This uncomfortable disparity suggests that we are recognising the importance of our green spaces, whilst often failing to look after them properly in the long-term. Wood* and Calvert* both reference the fact that the quality of our green spaces directly correlates with the range and degree of benefits received - poorly maintained landscapes provide less benefit than well-maintained ones.

As a former landscape maintenance contractor, for many years I experienced this glaring incongruence first-hand. My experience of the network of relationships between landscape architects, property managers, implementation contractors and maintenance contractors was one where, on an individual level, people were striving to provide the best service, but the end results often left the wellbeing of the plants neglected. This experience motivated me to investigate the issue for my Master of Horticulture (RHS) dissertation, which included interviewing contractors and property managers, as well as conducting an extensive literature review and drawing from my own experience.

My research concentrated on areas such as open spaces within private housing estates, car park planting, and landscapes within business and retail parks; these areas are generally managed by property or facilities management companies and maintained by private maintenance contractors. The distinction between the types of green space that I researched, as distinct from the likes of municipal parks, is important. Not only are the key stakeholders different, but they are also spaces which the majority of the population interact with (often unconsciously) on a daily basis, unlike parks where users are making an active decision to interact with nature. Earlier research has shown a disproportionate use of parks by white people*, revealing an important dialogue around equality, diversity and inclusion – by failing to adequately maintain our landscapes in more utilitarian locations, we are depriving much of the population of the benefits of green infrastructure.

One of the key initial aims of my research was to identify the common quality issues, and then to investigate how these came about, and why they persist. Interviews with property managers revealed a deceptively straightforward list of complaints - poorly pruned shrubs, badly maintained flowerbeds, poor edging, unevenly cut grass, and plant failures. Across all the interviews, I spoke with contractors and property managers all endeavouring to do the right thing by their clients. The contractors I spoke with complained of taking on sites with poor soil conditions, excessive plant failures, poor client relationships, and exhausted budgets. An interesting point raised by one highly experienced contractor was the lack of leadership coming from parks departments – where once they set an aspirational standard for private contractors, it was felt that this was no more. Another observation resonated with my own experience – I was told that, in some instances, plants that have failed are simply replaced at the end of a defects period by the implementation contractor, rather than absorbing the cost of watering and additional weeding during the establishment period. If this practice is widespread, it would mean that management companies and maintenance contractors are unwittingly taking on areas of new planting that do not receive correct care during their critical early weeks. In the past, implementation contractors would be tied to a maintenance contract for three years, and in general it seems this is no longer the case, drastically reducing the motivation for ensuring the plants get properly established.

At the heart of the stakeholder relationships are landscape maintenance specifications, and I sourced a number of these to review. These included documents created by property managers and in industry guidance manuals; I also reviewed relevant British Standards* documents and landscape architect specifications. Generic maintenance specifications are an inevitable product of businesses (both property managers and contractors) requiring predictability, stability, and benchmarking in their operations. However, my appraisal revealed that whilst some of these documents held up reasonably well in terms of day-to-day maintenance, they instilled an inflexibility, making jobs such as gap planting, mulching, and more sympathetic pruning of shrubs in lower visibility areas difficult to incorporate.

The combination of interviews and the literature review carried out for my research led me to an interesting insight – who is actually defining the quality of our landscapes? A troubling situation appears to have developed whereby the original vision of the landscape architects is lost, and the welfare of the plants is no longer of primary concern. A picture emerged of residents, tenants and property managers telling contractors what they want, and as contractors compete for contracts in an unforgiving business environment*, a breakdown in the dialogue around what is actually best for the plants has occurred. Quality judgements are being made by and on behalf of non-horticulturists, and a technical profession has been gradually devalued and de-skilled. It is plausible that decades of this situation have helped to de-skill the landscape maintenance industry – indeed, the skills gap is an issue that any contractor in the industry will complain of and is regularly covered in the industry press.*

The British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) define quality as to “consistently and systematically deliver what the client can reasonably expect”* – this then potentially leaves the husbandry of the plants down to what the property managers ask of their contractors. The interviews revealed that the property managers – themselves trying to keep their many tenants and residents happy – ask for uniformity, neatness, and tidiness. Even if the property managers are then looking to contractors for additional feedback, it is entirely foreseeable that, in a misguided desire to achieve neat and tidy green spaces, practices such as block pruning and excessive use of weedkillers on flowerbeds become commonplace.

Looking further into how we are managing quality in the landscape industry, I looked at the shortfalls of various award schemes. An analysis of recent BALI grounds maintenance awards showed an almost complete sweep made by national (or multi-national) companies; could these prizes be awarded according to membership turnover bands rather than individual contract values? Additionally, I proposed ideas for making improvements to the Green Flag Awards, including by extending their remit into hitherto under-represented (or excluded) types of outdoor space such as commercial sites.

Based on my research, I proposed the following key recommendations:

·        A proactive effort by the landscape industry to assist residential and commercial property managers with creating improved and realistic maintenance specifications – this could be made through a combined effort of the Royal Horticultural Society, BALI, and the Landscape Institute, for example. This could include a web or mobile application that would allow generic specifications to be customised, helping to introduce a degree of flexibility that would allow for ad hoc tasks such as regular mulching and gap planting.

·        Specifying composted bark mulch for the majority of planting jobs, and ongoing topdressing with mulch at regular intervals as part of standard maintenance specifications. Mulch helps to minimise water loss, increase biodiversity, improve the appearance of flowerbeds, and minimise the requirement for soil cultivation.

·        Improvements to the BALI awards scheme to give awards based on membership turnover bands rather than contract value.

·        Improvements to the Green Flag Awards to encompass a broader range of green spaces.

·        Recognise that if we want horticulture, we have to accept that plants must be watered during their establishment period. This may involve difficult conversations about the requirement for irrigation in the first three months of new planting. Even the most resilient and drought-tolerant schemes need this: if we can’t water our man-made landscapes to get them established, we should not be planting them. Establishment irrigation can be as simple as temporary sprinklers and tree watering bags.

·        Extended maintenance obligations should be placed on implementation contractors once again, such as historically has been the case, to ensure a vested interest in establishing new planting effectively.

·        A redoubled effort to tackle poor tree survival rates: by contractors to enforce best practice planting methodology, especially around correct planting depth; and by landscape architects to ensure correct tree pit design.

At the heart of my recommendations is a call for improved communication through the design, implementation, and maintenance stages of landscape projects. We must recognise that different sectors of the landscape and property industries need each other – from the landscape architects to the property managers and contractors – but that fundamentally it is the plants, landscapes and wider society that will suffer if we allow the current situation to persist.

References

1.      Jin-Vo, N. & Nam-Choon, K., 2019. An understanding of green space policies and evaluation tools in the UK: A focus on the Green Flag Award. Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology, 22(1), pp. 13-31.

2.      Soga, M., Gaston, K. J. & Yamaurac, Y., 2017. Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis. Science Direct, Volume 5, pp. 92-99

3.      Wood, E. et al., 2018. Not All Green Space Is Created Equal: Biodiversity Predicts Psychological Restorative Benefits From Urban Green Space. Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 9, p. 2320.

4.      Calvert, T. et al., 2018. Setting the Standard for Green Infrastructure: The Need for, and Features of, a Benchmark in England. Planning Practice & Research, 33(5), pp. 558-573.

5.      Snaith, Dr B., 2015. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: Whose Values, Whose Benefits?

6.      British Standard codes of practice and recommendations: BS4428:1989 and BS7370-4:1993

7.      Beroe Advantage Procurement, 2022. Ground Maintenance Services UK Category Intelligence. https://www.beroeinc.com/category-intelligence/ground-maintenance-services-uk-market/ [Online]

8.      Landscape Institute (2022). Skills for Greener Places: A review of the UK’s landscape workforce.

9.      BALI, n/d. British Association of Landscape Industries - Quality Standard. [Online]

Profile:

Tom Angel is a Chartered Horticulturist, Master of Horticulture (RHS), former branch chairman of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture, and worked previously as a landscape maintenance contractor. For a copy of the full dissertation please email tom@tomangel.co.uk.

To discuss any aspect of landscape management consultancy or biodiversity-focused planting design, give Tom a call on 0141 432 1141 or email on tom@tomangel.co.uk