The Viridis team were invited to East Cheshire Hospice Last week alongside Creative Gardens & Driveways owner David Hadley to meet the hospice team after donating £1,000 worth of plants for use throughout the hospices public areas including courtyards.
Plants were carefully selected for each area including welcoming shrubs for the entrance driveway, edible herbs for the kitchen garden, and sweet-scented blooms for the sensory garden. The courtyards offer a space for patients, families, and staff to relax and get closer to nature, with some of the wards backing onto the courtyards enjoying the view through open doors and allowing the scent of the floral display to come into the wards on the breeze.
The Hospice that actively encourages environmental responsibility amongst its staff, volunteers, supply chain and trustees offer a warm and welcoming space for adults facing life limiting illnesses, serving the communities of Macclesfield, Buxton, Congleton, High Legh, High Peak, Knutsford, Poynton, Wilmslow and the surrounding areas. Providing care, comfort and support to patients and their families.
Michelle Brown of East Cheshire Hospice, Ryan Simpson of Viridis Plants and David Hadley of Creative Gardens & Driveways pictured, were delighted to be asked to support the hospice with the courtyard makeover which they will be entering into this year’s Britan in Bloom Competition.
We wish them luck and thank them for the great support and work they do.
Viridis Plants part of the Boningale Limited group are pleased to announce the sale of the business has now been completed, with Plant Market taking full control and ownership of Boningale Limited, its brands and five production sites.
Phil Newman, Viridis Plants Director said, “It’s all very exciting, we will be able to offer an unrivalled plant supply solution, tailored to our customer’s needs.”
This change of ownership brings with it new investment, along with opportunities to offer an extended plant range and improve the way we service our clients. Work has already started across our five growing sites to improve production, logistics and facilities with more exciting developments to follow shortly after, as a result of combined horticulture and industry knowledge.
So, what does this mean for Viridis Customers?
Plant Market is an online marketplace for over 400 UK and European growers offering over 40,000 product lines across all plant groups. The Viridis Plants sales team now benefit from an unrivalled overview of stock availability within this broad marketplace. Combined with the planned increase in production we have market leading availability to satisfy customers and the needs of all project types.
Plant Market can see the immense potential of the domestic landscaping market and understands the industry challenges of fulfilling stock requirements. Working with Viridis Plants and the Boningale group the immediate strategy is to invest in the growing and logistic facilities in addition to providing improved technology advancements and online functionality to existing systems further developing a unique and superior UK plant supply solution for garden designers and domestic landscapers.
A rain garden is a planted area designed to reduce the amount of water running off into drainage systems. It works by slowing down the flow of water giving the soil and plants time to absorb as much as possible, by slowing the water down it minimises the impact of high rain fall giving the wider water distribution system time to cope and reducing the risk of flash flooding.
The construction of a rain garden varies hugely in its complexity, with the absolute basic being the redirecting of a water down pipe into an adjacent border, to a sophisticated SuDS scheme with carefully calibrated water flow rates and control valves.
Within the domestic landscape, rain gardens can be used to manage the surface water which is created by rain falling onto roofs, patios and paths thus reducing the need to install often costly, underground drainage systems. This has the effect of also reducing the amount of water entering the sewerage network which often becomes overwhelmed during storm events and directly contributes towards the pollution of rivers and streams.
If the garden is expected to receive a high volume of water and is not expected to be able to soak away the full volume then a drainage system will still be required to remove the excess water.