Les Ballard

Do you know about paths folk make on their own across land?  Too much meander they make more to achieve a beeline.  You may have to make departing from the path impossible with other features (and see below).
Do you know police categorise roads and paths for reports cos they are made a certain width to allow for traffic?  In the event of a cr…[Read more]

it is always a good idea to go to a large broker and ask them to get you a quote from the market to suit your own circumstances.  You may fancy asking insurers direct then find you actually dont save money even paying a brokers commission.  The answer is awlays a lemon though, u got to suck it to see how sweet it is.  Another thing is that the br…[Read more]

I think I have a few beefs and try to not be to florid (no pun intened) in posting this.
1.  My main angst is not planting native wild species but favouring park and garden varieties with increased cost because they have a different colour or upswept branches or whatever.  In the UK the only wild variety of tree planted on steets since Victoria w…[Read more]

It is a disgusting suggestion that supposedly nature-oriented LAs might bulk buy Prozac when St. John’s Wort is a more natural product, associated with midsummer and has always been considered suitable even for mums-to-be lol. 

Isn’t permaculture and any other knowledge you can assimilate another tool in the box that should be kept sharp?  Knowing coppicing, or the theories behind the five senses unicorn tapestries and the meanings of the flowers and animals, or how to sharpen a pencil properly, or arrange flowers in the Japanese fashion and seeing a few Zen gardens, ar…[Read more]

im sure some of the recent fonts mentioned were designed by ibm for the golfball typewriter – point is, i see nothing i like lol

I have empathy with the views expressed but, being ignorant of font matters, wonder why no decent font seems to have been been designed since the war (1940).  Every mall has signs in a font suitable for the credits on a fred astaire movie.  I use arial or take a lead from others but, of course, if you need to transmit anything digitally, you ne…[Read more]

What happened to survival of the fittest?  Nanny state is wrong, smacking gently little children who go near the water is good and zapping with a tazer all polluters is fine – in fact, 10,000 volts in a capacitor activated by a wire mesh on the bottom of the pool would be fine.  You just load the dead winos on a cart each morning and turn the p…[Read more]

It occurrs to me that you do not need to see Victorian photographs just around Edwardian, as folk had old fences, lol.  Many had simple spike top bars let in and location is important.  Shiplap pine was common as a whole fence or set above a low wall.  Gates were made of this too.  (Like a clinker built boat – and you nailed them when they cam…[Read more]

Hang on, don’t the town planners, local authorities, architects and even folk like retirement village and gated community owners each do more LA than LAs?

After the ’87 Great Storm when southern England lost millions of trees, a woman said to me at the bus stop “Oh it’s probably a good thing, they do make such a mess don’t they!”.  Well, I suspect the designer thought the trees in the picture sufficient and may have heard that it is hard to find salt tolerant trees, they cost money to tend,…[Read more]

I guess it is a case of what floats your boat.  In Mile End, London, near the tube station, there is a footbridge that is also a park with trees right over the road system.  Also, in Battersea, is the new American Embassy.  It has been designed to be unapproachable and bombable even by a truck.  Antiterrorist kit has now to be included in may bui…[Read more]

With acknowledgements to the Ting Tings:
They call me an intuitive environmentalist like it all comes from space
they call me a tree wizard like knowledge is from heaven or hell
and a landscape consultant cos I try to help anyone, even (ssshh) LAs apace
but I’ve done what I do for 48 years now and it’s clear as a bell
if I do it for free they c…[Read more]

If someone hasn’t done tests, they should do.  So, results please – what is right? 
Trees get water and nutrients from fungi in the soil in layers and turning a double spit before planting will disturb these.  Also, the job of replanting after felling is not conducive to digging.  For veggies etc., folk want the max. possible growth medium and the…[Read more]

Study the Alhambra in Spain and the mathematical / non human designs in it.  Many books have been written on this and similar Moorish architecture and will offend no party.  From the arrangement of buildings to a screen piercing the Muslim based design ideas can inspire you, hopefully.  As chaos can lead to order, in modern physics, so chaos can…[Read more]

Well of course people do generate electricity but, making trees glow is only good to not bump into the trees, it isn’t illumination and glowing people similarly fail.  We also have the problem of wireless transfer.
 
There is currently a device you plug in and is a vibrating pad.  You stand your device on the pad and it works as it vibrates at th…[Read more]

you can easily build the bioluminescence into a lichen that is spread on the slabs as of course noone will want to walk the streets and you need to repress the growth of grasses and weeds. As for light pollution, I feel sure I once read in a paper (so it must be true) the growing electric light pollution of our cities is what attracted the UFO…[Read more]

Here in the Uk you could ring the local agricultural college or even the Royal Horticultural Society and ask their advice. I assume you have something similar. A lot of the courses have students making a garden area but it always seems to me it starts with a list of about 200 plants’ latin names you learn by heart and this stands you in good stead…[Read more]

yes u doctor tree rna to produce hi energy bioluminescence like a squid but then tree may grab passing pedestrains with branches like the giant peach lol

Use what was there before the concrete. Keep it natural. Reduce outside or foreign species to below 10%. Remember there are prone species as with juniper. As for maintenance, keep tidy, Other than that, give me the job!