Meadows At Manor Fields
A Case Study By Pictorial
Meadows
bedding. Now in its 12th season, the
scheme continues to improve year on
year providing flowering from early
spring through to very late autumn.
The stunning but robust landscape
is picked out by differential mowing
regimes and managed by one spring
targeted herbicide spray and one
autumn cut and collect a year. However,
the project has not been without
F
its challenges. The sheer scale of
naturalistic planting was highly unusual,
rom abandoned and
Meadow’s longest standing test site for
as was the intention to make this the
abused landscape in ‘the
seed sown landscapes and a long term
primary rather than subsidiary floral
worst estate in Britain’ to a
and continuous ‘Learning Laboratory’
contribution.
stunning Park with a Green
linked with the University of Sheffield’s
Flag award. Here, Pictorial
prestigious Landscape Department.
This was a new park in a neighbourhood
suffering from a high level of antisocial
Meadows explains how,
through its parent company Green
Amongst many differing styles of
behaviour which had seen conventional
Estate, it transformed the 22 hectares
naturalistic planting, the seed sown
planting schemes previously suffer as a
of landscape at Manor Fields Park in
perennial meadows stretching across
result. A very tight maintenance budget
Sheffield using a winning combination
the 4 hectares of gateway and play
required considerable adaptation
of design and ecology.
entrance zone of Stonehirst, exemplify
and experimentation in management
how stunning, high impact meadows
operations to achieve acceptable levels
The team at Pictorial Meadows
can completely replace much higher
between inputs and impact.
comprises expert gardeners,
maintained herbaceous or formal
researchers, horticulturists and
landscape architects and managers –
these meadow makers are world leaders
in naturalistic planting. At Manor
Fields, the team now provides ongoing
meadow care to maintain this award
winning site. The original brief back in
2003 was to create a district park from
an abandoned and abused landscape in
what had been described as ‘the worst
estate in Britain’. Now a Green Flag Site,
Manor Fields Park has become Pictorial
30 Landscape & Urban Design