sCotsCape WorKinG
With professor
niGel dunnett
Scotscape are working with the highly acclaimed Nigel
Dunnett to install a vertical meadow at this year’s Royal
Hampton Court Flower Show in The Community Street
Feature which champions the RHS campaign ‘Greening
Grey Britain’, using cutting-edge science to show how
plants can combat urban pollution. Vertical meadows
are a natural progression for Scotscape, further adding
to the extensive portfolio of vertical greening options
available from the company, Angus Cunningham says
‘For some time now, I have relished the opportunity to
demonstrate how wonderful vertical meadows can look
and the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show offers us the
perfect showcase platform. There is so little ground level
space left in which to plant in the centre of Cities. What
a wonderful thought it would be to introduce a vertical
meadow into the centre of a city. Vertical greening is the
way forward not only offering beautiful aesthetics and
air quality benefits, but also as a viable vehicle for the reintroduction of birds, bugs and bees into built up areas’.
The garden’s aim is to raise awareness of air pollution,
being a significant risk factor for a number of health
conditions including respiratory infections, heart disease,
strokes and lung cancer, as well as being absorbed by
urban crops and food in gardens. As up-to-date research
dictates, plants can absorb gaseous air pollutants and,
in particular, broad-leaved trees are the most effective at
this, because of their size and leaf shape.
It is effectively a showcase of environmentally-aware but
beautiful, dense planting . Multi-layered shrubs are good
for absorbing vehicle pollution, a mix of evergreens and
broad-leaved deciduous trees, as well as hedges and
living walls can be effective additions to otherwise sterile
gardens.
Professor Nigel Dunnett says: ‘Now, more than ever, it
is essential that we champion the role of horticulture,
gardens and plants as being in the vanguard of how we
address the multiple challenges of climate change in our
built environments. We need to fill our cities with plants,
and to be radical and innovative in how we do it. We
need to start a revolution! With the RHS Hampton Court
garden we aim to show how this can be done in even
the smallest of places, in community spaces, in private
gardens, and in the wider public realm.’
This opportunity has arisen at the time when Scotscape
are also trialling specialist vertical planting schemes
with the registered charity ‘Buglife’ to encourage a ‘bee
highway’ into London using our Living Walls as staging
posts into City Centres.
www.scotscapelivingwalls.net
0208 254 5000
[email protected]