I was flipping through the Green Flag Awards at the weekend and I came across a couple of our most rewarding projects listed – Gunpowder Park, Lea Valley and Greyfriars Tower gardens in Kings Lynn.
Gunpowder park was a most amazing project – unique in many ways and we were the landscape arm of the team that turned the severly polluted site into the largest earth sculpture park in Europe.
Formally a royal ordinance site where World War 2 armaments were built, the site was covered in one metre of clay which had to be stripped back to sub soil. This created a rather unique planting system whereby all tree and shrub planting was carried out on mounds of pure sub soil with plant roots powdered in mycorrhizal fungi plus some innovative cultivation methods resulting in equally good if not better results than using top soil.
The planting also included 36 hectares of wild flowers and grasses.
I was really pleased to be picked as one of the few that were introduced to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh when he opened the park in 2004 – he remembered flying over the site in the war when it was an armament factory and said now it will be a green asset to the public.
Greyfriars Tower Gardens were a completely different project – after its appearance on BBC2′s Restoration programme, interest in the project soared enabling restoration to begin not only on the tower but on the gardens as well. The landscaping plan was drawn up a century ago this year and adhered to within the new project. The intricate hard landscaping denoted the areas of the Friary that no longer exist and I am told the view from the top of the tower is amazing!
Follow this link for more info on Greyfriars Tower http://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=21822
-Roger
