Lesson Structure:Managing Notable Gardens BHT340

There are 9 lessons:

1.    Role and Formulation of Conservation Management Plans

• Introduction: types of notable landscapes
• The role of conservation management plans
• Why research is important
• National registers
• Other sources of information
• Gathering and organising the documentary information
• The site survey
• Reporting the research
• Formulating conservation management plans
• Writing the plan

 2.   Consult Public and Interested Parties, Statutory and Non-Statutory Consultees.

• The consultation process
• Stakeholders
• Community participation strategy
• Collecting and analyzing data
• Primary data research
• Secondary data research
• Steps for collection and analysis of data
• Planning a formal survey
• Designing a questionnaire
• Common problems
• PBL project to formulate criteria required for the successful consultation with all relevant stakeholders, in the implementation of a maintenance program for a notable garden.

3. Role of Public and other Sources of Funding

• Funding restoration and conservation
• Examples of funding objectives
• Large funding bodies
• Other funding bodies
• Grant aid criteria
• Funding applications
• Other sources of funds
• Other cost considerations for sites open to the public
• Plant sales, garden shop, tea rooms, etc

4. Planning for Renewal of Plant Features

• Plant surveys
• Current plantings
• Other considerations
• Using experts
• Trees
• When not to retain a tree
• Sourcing plant material
• Collecting seed
• Selecting a parent plant
• Timing
• Method of seed collecting
• Removing seeds
• Replanting strategies

5. Developing New Features within Existing Landscapes

• Type of actions: preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, reconstruction
• Principles to follow
• Car parks
• Surfacing
• Pebble and cobble paving
• Fencing
• Dry stone walls
• Steps
• Ramps
• Railings
• Retaining walls
• Brick
• Drainage
• Timber
• Stone
• Rockeries

 6.   Programming Repair of New and Existing Hard Landscape Features.

• Introduction
• Action plans: preparing maintenance management schedules
• Managing and storing records
• Hard copy information
• Classifying information
• Active and inactive records
• Data protection
• Fundamental maintenance tasks: drainage, paving
• Maintaining stone and brick walls
• Maintaining ponds
• PBL Project to formulate a Maintenance Schedule for the repair of new and existing hard landscape features.

7. Creating New Gardens and Landscapes.

• Principles of landscape design
• Design elements
• Gathering site information
• The base plan
• Basic surveying
• Design drawing
• Completed designs and plans
• Park design

 8.   Identifying Required Staff Skills

• Staff management, training and associated issues
• Skill set required for workers in historic parks and gardens
• The skills crisis
• Training schemes
• Volunteer labour
• Skills audits and training plans
• Identifying skills chortages
• Conducting a skills audit
• Training programs
• Workplace health and safety
• Identifying hazards
• Risk control methods
• Conducting a safety audit
• Assessing risks

9. Adapt Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes for Modern Use

• Presenting historic gardens and designed landscapes
• Visitor interpretation
• Marketing and PR
• Visitor facilities
• Equal access
• Access strategy
• Managing wear and tear, vanalism, theft
• Managing legislative requirements (eg. health and safety, equal access).
• PBL project to adapt a historic garden or designed landscape for modern use.

Please Note:   Your Tutor grades each assignment, and returns with feedback including any suggestions or comments, along with additional reading, you may need if necessary.

• Examine how conservation management plans for designed landscapes are formulated and how the information gathered is evaluated and verified
• Examine and explain the role of public and interested parties, statutory and non-statutory consultees.
• Examine the role of public funding; evaluate other sources of funding; discuss the implications of grant aid criteria
• Explain issues and procedures associated with the renewal of plant features.
• Develop and outline strategies for creating new features within existing landscapes.
• Describe the processes involved in creating new gardens or landscapes.
• Manage wear and tear on historic gardens and designed landscapes
• Determine appropriate work programs for repair and maintenance of hard landscape features.
• Identify and outline staffing management and training issues, determine labour skill sets requirements.

PLANT SURVEYS – AN ESSENTIAL TOOL WHEN RESTORING ORIGINAL OLD GARDENS

When you are faced with the task of restoring an old garden, it may be a significant challenge to discover and recreate plantings as close to the original design as possible; original planting design of any garden will commonly change over time.

First, you must as far as possible determine what was previously planted, and how it was arranged. Look for any old records, such as plant lists or plans. For some gardens, these may be relatively easy to find. If the design was created by a designer of merit, the materials may be archived in a private collection or library.

If the company that created the garden is still in existence, records may be available through that company. Sometimes photographs can be found in private or public records. If people who used the property along time ago are still alive, they may remember details.

If no documentary evidence is found, there are still other things that can be investigated – look for evidence of original or past plantings on the site. Some old trees or shrubs may still exist from the original plantings. Many tree species can survive for hundreds of years, and even a dead or almost dead tree can sometimes be identified as part of the original design.

Look for plants that have invaded parts of the garden (or park) or nearby properties that match the time of the original garden (e.g. if ivy has become invasive in a neighbouring property, it may have been part of the original planting of the garden and may have spread to the neighbour’s property.

Identify indicators of types of planting in the original garden; for example: the remains of a pergola (even just foundations), may be an indicator of a climber in that location; mounded rows of earth may indicate a former area for row crops (e.g. vegetables), and a raised bed containing better quality soil than the natural earth may indicate an area of more intensive cultivation: perhaps annuals or perennials.

In some gardens aerial surveys have located planting holes left after trees were removed (some up to 400 years old!).

Research local records: period nursery catalogues can indicate the varieties of plants commonly used at the time of the garden’s establishment. Photographs, plans or even articles in publications of the period can indicate likely planting combinations and styles.

Critical aspects of garden planting restoration are to:

• Determine what existing plants and features to retain.
• What new plants to introduce.

To make these decisions, you need to conduct a plant survey and consider:

• What plants are growing on the site.
• Which of the current plants were in the original design and whether any were not intended to be in the garden i.e. planted later or self-sown from neighbouring properties.
• What did the original planting design intend and is that intent still valid and viable.

‎Current Plantings
Existing plantings may or may not need replacing. You should consider:

• Are plants healthy?
• Are they safe? (Trees may be original, but may be dropping branches, causing damage to structures or have some other negative attributes).
• Are they in character?
• Are they creating other problems (e.g. harbouring pests or disease, costly to maintain, invasive, etc.

Other Considerations

• If possible, a photo should be taken of each plant.
• Maps of the property should be used to locate and record plant features (in some cases GPS grid reference may be recorded using digital technology).
• Each plant should be identified by experts this enables them to identify which plants, trees or heritage vegetables need to be propagated for a renewal program. This may also uncover rare species that which may have been bred by plant collectors or gathered by plant hunters on expeditions – some of these species may be up to 400 years old.
• Working kitchen gardens should also be part of the survey to provide information on rare and threatened heritage varieties of vegetables and fruits which may be found in the garden – it may be also possible to collect seeds or cuttings for propagation purposes if plants are still in existence and require renewal.
• It may take a year to audit and map a site – this is to ensure that all species are included i.e. bulbs, herbaceous perennials that may be dormant at the initial time of audit.

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