LANDSCAPING SERVICES
FROM BIOSWALES TO
BIODIVERSITY:
PICTORIAL MEADOWS DELIVERING TWO DECADES OF NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
At Pictorial Meadows, we have always been in the business of developing and delivering urban nature-based solutions. Throughout a twenty-year collaboration with the University of Sheffield’ s Department of Landscape Architecture, we have been developing the technical understanding required to deliver urban nature-based solutions alongside a range of products and services to support their widespread implementation.
Flowering Meadows and Local Regeneration The Pictorial Meadows company was first incorporated to create high-impact meadow seed mixes to benefit both people and pollinators, and was used extensively on large areas of cleared housing land in Sheffield. These spectacular, colourful Pictorial Meadows transformed areas associated with dereliction and abandonment from brownfields to flower fields, changing the way that residents felt about their environment, and supporting a narrative shift in what had been some of the most deprived areas in Sheffield. Today, our range of seed mixes and wildflower turf are used by landowners looking for ways to enhance their urban green spaces, such as roadsides, parks, housing areas and visitor attractions.
Managing Urban Grasslands for People and Nature Around two-thirds of green infrastructure in the UK is mown amenity grass, which often provides relatively little benefit to people or nature. By developing alternative meadow management approaches for these areas, we can deliver a wide range of well-researched benefits, including increased plant and animal diversity, a potential reduction in costs and carbon emissions from mowing, and proven wellbeing benefits for people.
Over the past ten years, our team of Landscape Managers have offered a meadows consultancy service helping landowners and managers develop strategies and specifications to create and maintain beautiful and biodiverse meadows in parks, gardens, urban green spaces and new developments.
A Complete Solution for SuDS Pictorial Meadows developed and supplied the specialist substrates and plants used in the Grey to Green scheme in Sheffield – probably the UK’ s most prominent and celebrated SuDS scheme. These substrates are engineered to govern water infiltration and retention to meet civil engineering specifications, whilst providing the perfect conditions for a wide range of ornamental plants. Pictorial Meadows have also worked on SuDS for Severn Trent Water across Mansfield, supplying rain garden substrate, plants, meadow turf, installation and maintenance as an integrated solution.
Green Roofs: Biodiversity in( and on) the Built Environment As part of SuDS, green roofs have been a widely adopted naturebased solution for many years with their ability to slow and reduce the volume of water entering drains, create attractive and biodiverse habitats, and insulate and cool buildings. Pictorial Meadows have been developing, producing and supplying green roof products and services such as project consultancy and our industry-leading‘ Botanical Skyline’ meadow turf to green roofs for over twenty years.
As part of The Green Estate Community Interest Company, Pictorial Meadows have been creating adaptive and resilient urban spaces for over twenty years. Our mission has always been to create more sustainable, resilient and liveable cities by integrating nature into urban planning and design.
www. pictorialmeadows. co. uk
56 www. landud. co. uk Follow us @ ludmagazine