How do you see garden landscapes evolving ?

Many years ago, we often introduced new ideas and products into our designs on a fairly regular basis. Some were because we developed our own ideas, products and subsequently ‘different’ offerings, we then ‘sold’ them to our customers.

Natural brisk drive hand pointed

When we started offering irrigation systems, we had to find a way to sell them to our more affluent customers, without making the costs too high, but most importantly by not disrupting or destroying the landscapes we had put in only a few years earlier.

Hydraulically installed irrigation
Hydraulically installed irrigation

We achieved this by finding a rather interesting hydraulic mole from Germany that used compressed air, it worked really well at a depth of 900mm and was pumped a distance of around 5m , which when reversed pulled the water pipe back through the drilled hole. This simple tool saved huge amounts of time and reinstatement costs – more importantly it amazed our clients who were thrilled that we could install such sophisticated systems without a huge amount of disruption.

Next came low voltage lighting systems, which made landscape lighting safe and easy to instal, the picture below isn’t our work  it’s a Park in Paris, but it serves it’s purpose quite well.

Park  in Paris
Park in Paris

Today we seem to have slowed down on major changes or have we?

Commercially vertical walled gardens are becoming quite popular and are definitely a recent development.

A Green Wall

Whilst in Gardens we have built for over 30 years eco friendly  ‘Green Retaining Walls’ such as this one

Treated Structural Green Wall
Treated Structural Green Wall

Roof Gardens have been around for years, we were designing and building them back in the distant 1980’s

Wooden pathway on Roof Garden
Wooden pathway on Roof Garden

Home owners are developing a taste for their own food production.

An example from a Chelsea Flower Show exhibit
An example from a Chelsea Flower Show exhibit

Herb & Vegetable gardening is becoming very popular today.

Weekend Garden Kit from Picagardi

I’m seeing a huge demand for food production, but currently the solutions are traditional cold frames, cloches or greenhouses, all very time consuming and with varying degrees of cost.

Today with all the concerns over GMO crops, with apparent excessive use of pesticides, more and more people are either buying from local organic farmers or starting out on the incredibly satisfying journey of producing their own fruit and vegetables.

We’ve been developing an easy to use kit that makes selection, planting and growing much easier and for a much longer time frame.

We call it ‘Hort Cuisine’ our way of saying it’s fun, friendly and offers tasty treats when you gather your crops.

Hort Cuisine Grid
Hort Cuisine Grid

The patented system enables almost limitless combinations of plants to be selected, enabling designs for any climate region.

Creating those beautiful ‘Knot’ gardens just became a simple process.

Potager 1

So here are a few questions……

What new ideas have you seen recently?

What would you like to see developed?

In the last 5 years what is the best landscape invention you’ve seen?

What would your customers like to add to their garden landscape?

Drop us a line with your replies we will  have a follow up blog shortly.

or follow our internet radio show at www.grotrends.com

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Chris Coope

Author: Chris Coope

Born in Great Britain, Chris Dyson-Coope followed his training and passion in the field of horticulture for decades. This path led him to multiple awards for landscape design and many prestigious projects in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Chris has received 19 national awards for projects as varied as city parks, urban regeneration, playgrounds, office parks and streetscapes. He pioneered the use of designer drives in the 1980s utilizing Permacrib to create structural green walls and award-winning green roofs in London. Most recently, Dyson-Coope has nurtured his interest as an educational innovator to produce an Internet radio show (GrowingTrends.com), books on landscaping, and a series of fictional children's books that explore non-fictional themes such as sustainable agriculture, geography, and history. Convinced that the younger generation can (and must) learn from the older generation, as well as blazing new paths toward a sustainable future for a planet in deep distress from climate change and unsustainable practices, Dyson-Coope presents workable solutions in multiple formats, from books to inventions, podcasts and educational media. With several horticultural patents to his credit, the noted horticulturalist looks to the future with hope that the younger generation will grab the "torch" of innovation to develop and maintain a more sustainable world for us all. Dyson-Coope is a member of The Chartered Institute of Horticulture and serves as Director of Children's Sustainable Education for Energime University. Chris lives in Weston, Missouri, with his lovely wife, Cindi.

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