Pictorial Meadows
P
ictorial Meadows,
the world leader in
naturalistic planting,
has helped eight
roundabouts across
the UK burst into
bloom with a profusion
of meadow flowers, bulbs
and hardy perennials as
part of a two year project
conceived and funded
by Enterprise Rent-A-Car
and its philanthropic arm,
the Enterprise Holdings
Foundation.
The £130,000 programme is
the culmination of a long-term
project to celebrate Enterprise
Rent-A-Car’s 20 years in
the UK. The transformation
of roundabouts across the
country with beautiful and
sustainable urban meadows
is the result of two years of
careful planning, preparation,
planting and tending.
Enterprise engaged with
leading experts in meadow
technology to bring the
project to life and approached
the renowned Professor Nigel
Dunnett of the Landscape
Department at the University
of Sheffield to design each
24 Landscape & Urban Design
location. Dunnett is one of
the world’s leading experts
in planting design and
technology and his work
came to national prominence
when he created the much
talked about meadows for the
Olympic Park in 2012.
In partnership with local
authorities in Glasgow,
Sheffield, Leeds,
Liverpool, Birmingham,
Swindon and Woking, councils
identified suitable roadside
locations for the gardens.
The roundabouts were then
planted by Pictorial Meadows,
pioneers in the commercial
development of hardy seed
mixes and turfs that create
the naturalistic planting styles
developed by the University
of Sheffield’s research.
In all, two acres of meadow
were planted in the autumn
and winter of 2015,
together with a range of
bulbs, shrubs and flowering
species carefully selected
for the climate and growing
conditions prevalent in each
location. Developed by the
University of Sheffield and
implemented by Pictorial
Meadows, a special innovation
is the cultivation of assorted
‘pre-grown’ meadow mats at a
site in Lincolnshire to provide
sufficient meadow for the
Enterprise project. The
mats were grown off-site to
allow for intensive irrigation
essential to ensuring the
young plants establish a
strong root base.
In addition to providing longlasting displays of colour over
several months, the designs
and seed mixes used on
the roundabouts have been
developed to flower year on
year with the minimum of
care. In fact, the flowering
technologies developed by
Nigel Dunnett and Pictorial
Meadows have been shown to
reduce maintenance costs for
local authorities, as well
as lowering the disruption
to traffic required when
gardening equipment is taken
on site at roundabouts and
roadside locations.
The mix of plants at each site
also fosters biodiversity and
wildlife. They are especially
appealing to local bee and
butterfly communities, which
thrive when the carefully
selected plants are in bloom.
The Department of Landscape
at the University of Sheffield is
a world leader in the science
behind sustainable public
planting schemes. Professor
Dunnett has spent two
decades developing designs,
techniques and processes
to achieve consistently
reliable and long-flowering
performance from new
urban landscape planting.
He founded the company,
Pictorial Meadows, to
bring this technology to
sites around the UK at an
affordable cost, through a
range of meadow seed mixes.
Originally a company of
the University of Sheffield,
Pictorial Meadows is now the
UK’s leading urban meadows
specialist, with a reputation
for innovation in delivering
projects on the ground.
pictorialmeadows.co.uk