L-R: Adam Frost (BBC), Mick Mellard, Justin Paxman, Ian Lewis (Paxmans), Raoul Curtis-Machin (APL/HTA)

Nothing says “well done” more than an industry award, judged by the top dogs in landscaping, nationwide.  So when three of our projects were shortlisted in six categories and then one of them only went and WON AN AWARD, we were understandably CHUFFED TO BITS!

In the hope that we might scoop one of these highly-acclaimed APL Awards in the 2017 event, the Paxman team, represented admirably by Justin Paxman, Mick Mellard, Ben Myring and Ian Lewis, donned their smart-casuals and some comfy shoes and attended the ceremony last Friday.

Taking place at The Brewery in London, the venue was bursting with the best of the best in landscaping, their clients, their suppliers and the heads of industry.

Sky Garden, Manchester

The winning landscaped project was the Sky Roof Garden, atop the Hat Box Milliners Wharf residential apartments in the heart of the City of Manchester.  Completed in April last year for GMI Construction, the scheme included paving, resin bound gravel, turfed mounds, hedging and decking with tree planting and turfing on the ground level.   The garden was spot-on to brief with the landscaping reflecting the high quality specification of the surrounding apartments.

The community area encourages residents to catch up with neighbours in sleek comfort, sitting and relaxing after the day’s toils and provides precious open air views across the area.

The judges said:

This complicated scheme creates a fantastic community space for all to enjoy.

The scheme also received High Commendation in the Commercial Garden category.

Speaking after accepting the award from Adam Frost (BBC) and the CEO of the APL, Raoul Curtis-Machin, Justin said:

Simply being shortlisted for an award is a blessing.  When you’re shortlisted in 6 categories for 3 projects and selected as a winner by your industry peers, it’s an absolute honour.  I’m immensely proud of the whole team – a real credit to hard work and landscaping determination.

It didn’t just stop there….the other categories where we earned either recognition, commendation or high commendation were:

• Overall Design & Build: Wakefield Road Lepton – Certificate of Recognition
• Garden Feature: Wakefield Road Lepton – Certificate of Recognition
• Project Value £20,000-£35,000:  Brighouse – Commended
• Project value under £20,000: Wakefield Road Lepton – Certificate of Recognition

Remember our gold award-winning Sky Roof Garden?

It’s back and it’s REAL

Skyline Yorkshire Roof Garden – Gold Award at Harrogate Spring Flower Show in 2015

We are now on site just beyond the York city walls, translating our gold-award winning Harrogate Show Garden into the real thing for Helen and Tony Plowman.  Working on their redevelopment project in York since 2014, Helen tells us a little about the project:

This project is a development of our new home, adjacent to the York City wall, with a garage and a flat above and an additional house to complete the streetscape.  The design follows the footpath re-establishing a street pattern lost when the existing terrace was demolished and replace with a commercial garage back in the 1950s.  The building is set back from the retaining walls that support the abutment to the City Walls.  This opens up new vistas and created the opportunity to landscape adjacent to the walls.  We unearthed a stone wall lost behind the garages which has been repointed and restored in conjunction with York City Council and English Heritage.  Planning restrictions limited the height of the development to lower than the city walls and space limitations meant our roof garden idea was ideal.  It lifts the garden away from the street and enjoys better views and more sun than a garden at ground level.

The views down from the City walls were an important consideration in the garden’s design.  With the extensive roof garden and additional ground floor landscaping, 70% of the site is given to garden, where there was none before.

With special lightweight top soil, gravel paving and steps down, the garden now includes standard amelanchier trees and a purple beech hedge to divide the properties.  All of the elements of the original planting, all fully irrigated,  will start to develop over the Spring and Summer, with the bluey-purple borders of lavender and juniper partnering the pastel borders of hydrangea and campanula.

The bespoke stainless steel planters maintain their continuity with the show materials that now form the backbone of the new garden: The galvanised bench, stone paving and water feature.  For lush contrast, we have added Rolawn Gold Medallion turf.

We will return in the summer to catch the garden in its final glory.  Thanks to the Plowmans and Nick Fryer for design and construction.

Commercial Garden and Community Garden Categories | APL Awards 2017 Shortlist

Our third project successfully hitting the APL Awards 2017 shortlist is a stunning courtyard roof garden in the heart of a Manchester skyline community.

Favoured in the Commercial and Community Garden categories, its success follows the pathway of our other two shortlisted projects in 4 other categories.

The Client Brief

Completed in April 2016, this city-based residential apartment scheme features top-notch soft and hard landscaping from Paxman Landscapes. These prestigious homes are flanked by semi-mature trees and turf around the parking spaces and forecourts but the star of the show is the elevated Sky Garden. This community roof garden landscape encompasses paving, resin-bound gravel, turfed mounds and decking for residents to maximise the open aspect and an elevated vista alongside their living space.

The resulting residential garden demonstrates clean, crisp lines, contrasting colour and form with a blend of shrubs, specimen shrubs, hedging, turf, paving and decking.

The Garden

The Hat Box development houses 144 apartments and is situated in New Islington, East Manchester, adjacent to Milliners Wharf.  The client expected the landscaping scheme to reflect the high specification of the apartments and provide a private raised residents garden entitled The Sky Garden.  The community area should encourage residents to catch up with neighbours, sit and relax after the day’s toils and provide precious open air views across the area.

Maximising open space at the first floor level atop the parking area, the outlying forecourts and parking should benefit from semi-mature trees, low level planting and turf. This demonstrates a practical and innovated approach to providing maximum community benefit where space is at a premium.

The blend and mix of shrubs, specimen shrubs and 30-35cm trees bordered by hedging around the parking areas provide interest, boundary, height, form and foliage throughout the year.

You can see the complete shortlist of nominated landscaping projects and companies here.  Winners will be announced at the APL Awards Dinner on March 17 2017 at The Brewery in London.

Project Value between £20K and £35K | APL Awards 2017 Contender

In the second of our focus pieces on Paxman projects in the APL Awards 2017 shortlist, we turn our attention to a private rear garden in Brighouse, West Yorkshire.

Following our post on our first shortlisted scheme earlier this month, our next contender is vying for gold in the Project Value between £20K and £35K category.

The Client Brief

Blessed with a large open aspect garden, the client yearned for a garden with both character, form and function. Above all else they wanted to make the most of every outdoor living experience.  Within the final masterplan, we agreed a blend of seating and dining areas, paths and planting, linear and circular designs.  The design also strove to keep maintenance to a minimum.   All planting and turfed areas needed to work effortlessly with the hard landscaped elements.  This would ensure mowing, plant care and weeding would be straightforward.  We also considered the wish to incorporate home composting solutions and capture rainfall run-off from the existing garden outbuildings.

The creation of a breakfast terrace would be perfect for lazy mornings, with a backdrop of water and Mediterranean colour and form.  The circular patio and ensuing pathways would meander to the relaxed but formal decking area at the rear of the garden.  A perfect setting to take in the late afternoon and evening rays, with a timber pergola providing a shady respite en route.

The Garden

The clean, crisp breakfast terrace, its curved backdrop, waterfall and drop pool came to life in 2015.  With waterproof rendering, a circular patio and matching coping and pathways, every second of outdoor time is maximised.   Every element leads from sunspot to sunspot, through a timber walkway to a decking, flanked by timber panels, renewing boundaries.  Terraces are linked by a mulched step-stone walkway, enjoying recessed navigation lighting for late summer evenings.  Retained soil borders are refreshed. Paving matches throughout with linear and curved border details continuing the themes.

You can see the complete shortlist of nominated landscaping projects and companies here.  Winners will be announced at the APL Awards Dinner on March 17 2017 at The Brewery in London.

Overall Design and Build, Project Value under £20K AND Garden Feature

The APL Awards 2017 ceremony is now less than a month away and with the excitement building both here in the Paxman Landscapes office and out on site – nothing beats a little industry applause for the whole team – we thought we would share the lowdown on each of the shortlisted projects.

There are three nominated projects, shortlisted in six different categories, showing the diversity and breadth of our landscaping remits.

Our first project, shortlisted in the Project Value under £20K, Overall Design and Build and Garden Feature categories is a multi-level, multi-disciplined, multi-impressive domestic landscape garden in Lepton, Huddersfield.

The Client Brief

Justin Paxman met with the homeowners back in May 2015.  The couple and their small family were looking to develop a piece of land in the middle of their garden.  The proposed area had a mound for the team to contend with and the access was not the easiest for the heavy machinery they would need to sculpt the ground.   The team had already carried out a number of smaller projects across the garden for the small family to enjoy but the couple outlined their hopes for an area of water and a patio to maximise their view of the outlying garden areas.

Justin talked them through their options, the timescale and the potential budget for their plans.  He then briefed the Paxman team who set to designing and planning how the garden would take shape.  The scaled drawings took in the slope and gradients and paid careful consideration to the client’s brief, the ultimate aim of the new garden and the use of the best quality materials for the hard landscaped elements.

The Garden

A multi-level excavation and build, with visual impact, interest, water features and locally-sourced stone: the focus of this domestic rear garden landscapes in West Yorkshire.  Careful consideration was afforded to access, drainage and solid foundations to ensure the slope and gradients of the garden were successfully managed.

Materials were sourced from a local quarry in Crosland Moor.  Combined with Marshall’s silver birch copings, a striking partition for the garden was created, giving structure and contrast to the garden views.

Completed over 4 weeks in Winter 2015, the garden encompasses multiple levels, a stunning waterfall, paving, walls, planted beds and seating.

Step by Step

Like the waterfall follows the garden, we followed the garden build, step-by-step:

1. First Steps
2. The Big Dig
3. Let the build commence
4. The End Game

You can see the complete shortlist of nominated landscaping projects and companies here.  Winners will be announced at the APL Awards Dinner on March 17 2017 at The Brewery in London.

As our showroom landscaping work at the Jaguar Land Rover Cambridge site comes to a close, we can take a step back and reflect on our work on site.  It was only a few days ago that we shared a news update when the birch trees were nestled, ready for the off, in our landscaping yard back in Huddersfield.

This commercial landscaping scheme has been completed on behalf of BDB Design Build Limited, complete with 23 semi mature trees, turfing and low level box hedging.

The blend of turf, tree supply and planting and ornamental shrub lines has resulted in a slick, streamlined approach to the showroom and its outlying forecourt.   Another job well done!

The Paxman Landscapes UK Ltd team have been flying the flag for landscaping and promoting the career path to potential apprentices at the C&K Careers Kirklees Apprenticeship Event this month.

Attended by over 1100 young career-seekers, there was a genuinely encouraging level of interest, both in joining the landscaping industry and starting ahead of the game with Paxman Landscapes.  We manage our own in-house landscaping apprenticeship programme and are always looking for the right people to step up to the landscaping mark with us.

Ben and Emily talk landscaping

The event, organised by C&K Careers, took place at the John Smith Stadium Football Ground.  We regularly attend similar events, making the most of opportunities to promote landscaping apprenticeships to the widest local audience.

“The feedback from the young people looks very positive and we had some lovely comments on the night.  Without the support of employers and providers the event wouldn’t be the success it has become.” – Michelle Morson | Employment & Training Adviser

Flagship Forecourt and Commercial Landscaping

Jaguar Land Rover Showroom, Cambridge

As part of the soft landscaping scheme at the prestigious Jaguar Land Rover showroom in Cambridge, the trees stand in readiness for their supply, delivery and planting.  This forms an integral part of this commercial landscaping scheme for our client BDB Design Build Limited.

The sixteen car showroom and workshop will soon boast 23 semi mature trees, a blend of birch and whitebeam, complemented by low level box hedging to form and define the landscape boundaries.  The trees will be planted in the next few days and we’re poised with our cameras to take some shots of the finished scheme.