Les Ballard

My edit didn’t work.  Added features may have an overflow and so should the planting base some inches up maybe being led to a drain with the 2 small tubes initially put in a single piece of hose.  Both may be pricked with wire back up them occasionally to remove any clogging.    
The planting base can be shielded from the sun by a bent raked lip…[Read more]

there are many varieties of hedera – maybe a normal, a yellow and a variegated ivy with a honeysuckle or 2 for winter berries and summer aroma – i would let these climb up a false screen and keep off the wall as much as possible.  Ivy changes to an evergreen leaf from the top down, when it reaches the top, then having flowers and berries (which…[Read more]

Oh you couldnt do it any more too many health and safety issues you would need armed guards to protect folk from committing suicide by eating the seeds lol,

right, you cant desalinate the salt lake and melt water reduction in many years may dry that out anyway – recycling what you have is king unless you convince residents to bath with a friend a few times per fill and not shower lol.  The stat on irrigation is obviously key in that so much h2o is lost to evaporation and better ways of irrigation, eg…[Read more]

I am obliged for your responses.  I agree with the attitude of needing nothing and noone to continue to live in some areas – whereas we should know our place more and be called upon to work together – and as for the barrier, it needs to be finished before the next surge, not after all returns to normal or it may never get the chance.  Just build i…[Read more]

yes grey water tanks are fine as are 3 pond filtration systems to get back to drinking water and underground reservoirs but planning new areas from an underground cistern upwards carrying all services seems best.  For donkey’s years people have said we should save the rain, at least and recycled water from sewers but I see it done nowhere really…[Read more]

Laburnum in the local park with wisteria and ash on a metal framework.  This was a walled garden to a cluniac priory.  Because a few children suffered and the public became newly aware – for their generation – of the poisonous nature especially of the seeds, which little children might think were peas or sweets, many were cut from suburban g…[Read more]

There are disparate groups but also groups of groups and they advise members on various issues.  There are likely groups wherever folk think of “green” protests and so-called tree-huggers.  For you that may mean those who try to save the redwoods in Ca. and those working in the Seattle area.  Wherever there are permaculture (which google) pr…[Read more]

I am sorry but have to ask, without really expecting a reply, why your firm has been asked to do this apparently with no adequate brief.
I have read the other replies and can only add these points:
     It could be good to plan 4 phases – street trees, others say in parks, both using paving and other aspects that may take some time, money and ef…[Read more]

If you do not know much about an area’s environment or a subject yourself it may be an idea to pencil your idea into a sketch then seek help from someone who does know stuff. A gardener would say you can remove whole trees if you have storage, leave them out in all weathers if roots are protected from frost and you can protect foliage with fleece…[Read more]

htt://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing
http://www.wildlandscpr.org/evaluation-wildlife-crossing-structures-their-use-and-effectiveness
http://www.badgerland.co.uk/help/helpbadgers/tunnels.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi-9ycF45YE
http://uktv.co.uk/blighty/stepbystep/aid/600114
I hope these links assist and it will be seen that…[Read more]

I think we have said before, in effect, what we have read and learned makes us the individuals we are and different sources will shape different people different ways.  Listening to Kate Bush go on about Cathy and Heathcliff on the Yorkshire moors. or alternatively reading the novel Wuthering Heights, may give different people a similar…[Read more]

There certainly are problems around the world with this.  No-one really wants to provide a green space for any reason save making it more conducive to dropping your wallet and leaving as soon as possible.  It only needs a little thought, however, to actually attract shoppers with planting, even if they do not start out that way.
What I mean is a m…[Read more]

will you not be interested in desert living and the drylands competition mentioned on here?  I realise insulation is the other way around, you want to keep heat in but, like everyone, you want cheap power.  Surely there are many correlations.  You may, however, want to think about reducing snow to water before the spring melt and, in a virgin ar…[Read more]

Parents are saved from walking their little kids to school here by walking buses.  Different adults each day, though maybe the same collection as you always get inactive folk in any group, collect the children from their doors and they are walked to school in company.  How the adults are qualified to do this I don’t know, some adults seem unable t…[Read more]

A yard with a draft pipe and depth of a fireplace.
Several thousand years ago folk decided that it was a good idea to put a hole in the roof of their roundhouse to let the smoke out but, fireplaces as such did not really get going until a thousand years ago.  Quickly then, however, they found that one of the most important things to put in a…[Read more]

People really want seats but they do not want to get wet, their rear shredded like on a mandolin by metal blades, piles (the myth persists though cold is an issue) or accosted / mugged.  The UK – in my part at least – used to have bus shelters made of wood and thatched like a little shed but, instead of modernising these, they have become a metal…[Read more]

Yes, even for remaining smokers there are now so few brands of cigarettes with nice white shiny trays you can flatten, you have to waste a whole recycled envelope back on a sketch.  I think some folk contributed to a thread a while back saying the magic and evidence of genius associated with drawing an idea for a client on a napkin over lunch, or…[Read more]

we tend to call these city farms here and many can be found on google so i thought i’d just give the link for a bunch city farms are helped by and/or belong to = http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/

Ivy changes leaves from the top down once it tops out and so proceeds from maiden to mother as it flowers and, in ivy month very often, crone – most of October – then hag as the berries rot on the vine in the late winter/spring.  Of course it never goes back to the maiden stage and leaf shape we like, we have to wait for new shoots.  Cutting an i…[Read more]