Green Roof Course with Dusty Gedge & John Little

I have had a most wonderful day today! As many of my followers will know, I am having a Wildlife Hub built and I wanted it to have a green roof. Green roofs have interested me for a while and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to learn more about them and what was involved. I searched the Internet and came across Dusty's website. I got in contact and discovered he was running a course in Leicester... only about an hour away. He invited me to go along... it meant we could meet and discuss my project further as well as me having the chance to learn a bit more about what would be involved to create the green roof on my hub.

I come to green roofs as a complete amateur.... I have read lots of bits on various websites and I also bought and downloaded the excellent guide available on the www.livingroofs.org website.

Dusty and John introduced themselves and we then all explained why we had chosen to come on the course. There was a real diverse cross section of people, from architects, to community groups, Trusts and organisations, to individuals wanting to create green roofs on their own homes, on sheds and even on the barge they were living on!

We learnt about the fundamentals of the green roof philosophy and it just all makes so much sense, I began to wonder why green roofs are just not standard on all flat roofs.

We then all had the chance to make up a small section of roof to demonstrate the technique used....
 All the materials we pre-cut and laid out for us...

If possible, we were asked to bring our own drill and started with a square of particle board and two batons representing the internal batons in the building's roof.

Bit, by bit, we added the wooden elements to create a lip  in which to lay the geotextile ( a protective layer on which the liner lays)...

 
We then laid the geotextile on the surface, with the butyl liner on top. ....

... and used wooden batons to hold the liner in place, creating a waterproof 'tray' on the roof

All of this is described in detail in the PDF booklet available on the website.

Then a thicker geotextile is added on top, to ensure that none of the substrate or planting damages the butyl membrane layer.

Phil, who is building my hub, has already looked at the booklet and understands how the roof of my hub must be constructed in order for me to get creative with the planting!

I am going to have to grow my green roof in trays which can be transported to Gardener's World Live and lifted up onto my roof.

Lunchtime gave me the chance to talk to Dusty and John more about my plans and they are hoping to come and do some talks on my stand in June, so if you are interested, then watch this space to find out more about when they might be at the show!

We also discovered that we shared passions for a lot more projects and I am sure I will be doing some more work with them, especially with the container rooms that they produce... take a look at http://greenroofshelters.co.uk/green-roof-shelters-container-family.... and be inspired!!!

I have had such a wonderful day and a massive thanks to Dusty, John, Fleur and Kay who did such a wonderful job of organising and running this event. It is the start of something much bigger... I just know it!

Phil's Blog: I start building the Hub

Hello again.

I've now taken delivery of the first timber order for the start of the construction of the WildlifeKate Hub. EXCITING STUFF.

 Over the last days I've started 'KreATEing' the first hub panel.

 On the 1st of March Kate, Donna (my wife) and I will be meeting in person for the first time. We are really looking forward to meeting Kate as we have had contact through twitter, email  and have spoken on the phone, but never met.

Kate is travelling to Cumbria to meet us and I will have the first panel ready for her to see - we have so much to talk about …

 All the timber used to build Kate's Wildlife Hub is FSC rated and treated with ECO friendly timber treatment.

  I'm posting a few pictures showing how it will all begin to develop. As I build each panel you will slowly see it come together .

Working with G-Scapes in Lichfield

I am delighted to announce that I will be working with G-Scapes of Lichfield, a family-run business, established in 1973.  G-Scapes of Lichfield is comprised of four divisions: Their retail plant centre at Curborough Craft Centre, a Landscape and Construction Division, Fullbrook Wholesale Nursery and also a Commercial Contracts Division.

I want to say a big 'Thank you' to Elizabeth and Daniel Gee who have been so positive about my venture to Gardener's World Live. They have very kindly offered to help me out with the planting side of the stand, both on an advisory role and with the 'loaning' of plants! How fantastic and a big 'tick' off of my 'to sort' list. G-Scapes are also hoping to have a show garden at the show and it will be great to share the experience and work with a local company.

In fact we got on so well, that it was not long before the subject of nest box camera systems came up! Today I went down to their nursery in Curborough to take a look around and to locate a spot  for a nest box. We found a great tree stump and one which will be easy to wire back to the greenhouse and shop area. They are then going to mount a TV on which to live stream the image, so visitors can watch it. They were very keen to get it set up as soon as possible and I will be returning next week to do just this. I will also be doing a small display next to the monitor so locals can find out more about what I am doing in my patch. Hopefully it will encourage more people onto my website and to visit my stand in June.

I am very much looking forward to working with G-Scapes.

Phil's Blog: Starting an exciting project....

My customers always tell me if they want something making out of the ordinary , we will ask Phil Clark.

That’s me, a carpenter and joiner from Cumbria.

I met Kate through twitter, Kate had posted a couple of tweets on twitter showing pictures of timber buildings , a sort of wish list. I sent Kate a couple of pictures of a garden studio I built for a customer  , I had no idea where it was going to lead.

Kate told me about the wildlife hub , and the possibility of taking it to Gardener's World Live. WOW! Kate emailed some sketches and ideas which I thought were amazing .

In the months running up to June I am going to be creating Kate's Wildlife Hub. I will be posting updates on the blog and on twitter to let you know how it's coming along.

RHS Exhibitor Seminar 2012

This week, I travelled down to London, to attend a seminar being held by the RHS for garden exhibitors in this year's shows.... not just at Gardener's World Live, but also at Tatton Park, Hampton Court, Malvern and Chelsea. The seminar was held at their Halls and Conference Centre in Westminster.

The day started with an informal tea and coffee session and a chance to chat with loads of other prospective exhibitors.... lots of them exhibiting for the very first time, just like me. It is a very exciting, but pretty daunting prospect, especially for those building actual show gardens at these shows for the first time.

We kicked off by meeting all the show managers for each of the RHS shows this year. Lucinda Costello is the Horticultural Show Manager for Gardener's World Live, with Katy Gaunt Assistant Show Manager. I had already met these two when they came to visit me to discuss my proposal. These managers are our point of contact for any queries or worries over the coming months. They are there to offer us help, advice and support.

We were also introduced to Bob Sweet, who has been Head of Shows Development for the last 15 years at the RHS. He heads up the team of show managers and is responsible for coordinating the content of the RHS Shows.

Andrew Wilson then came to the stand to talk about exhibiting.

Andrew is an experienced RHS selection panel member, assessor, judge and moderator. He is a director of the London College of Garden Design. He talked all about how to make the most of the experience and how efficient planning was the key. Also to think about the 'reason' behind your stand and how you are going to engage your audience.

Mark Gregory then spoke on the side of contractors. He is the Managing Director of Landform Consultants.

Mark has built and designed many gold winning gardens at Chelsea and other shows and assists the RHS with assessing and judging show gardens. His work is with the large construction elements of many of the amazing show gardens you see at these shows and, although not relevant to my venture this year, it was amazing to see and appreciate the partnerships that evolve between the designers and the contractors. There are immense challenges often to be overcome with building such amazing gardens in such a short space of time, often in difficult conditions (terrible rain last year during build) and with very limited space at the Chelsea site.

We also learnt about Health & Safety issues and the protection of trees in the area of your stand... (not relevant to me as I am inside!)

A lovely lunch gave us the chance to mingle some more and meet some of the other exhibitors who are going to be at the same show. It was really great to talk about what we each had in plan and about our hopes (and fears!) for the challenge ahead.

The afternoon sessions gave us the chance to hear from some people who had already exhibited and built gardens. Sadie Stowell talked us through her experience as she heads to her 4th show garden.

Sadie is a talented designer and her Copella Bee Garden can be seen HERE.

We also learnt about the judging processes and how the press and PR for the shows will advertise and showcase what you are doing, as well as ways to maximise your exposure.

It was all very interesting and I am sure everyone left the seminar as I did... buzzing with information, ideas, excitement and a level of trepidation!

Building a Green Roof

For those of you who read about my plans for the WildlifeKate Wildlife Hub, you will have noticed that my plans included a green roof. I have always been interested in the idea of a living roof, so wanted my hub to be the chance for me to learn more about them and see if I could create one. It is not simply a matter of sticking some turf on the roof though... there is a lot more to it than that, of course,... so I contacted the experts to help me... Dusty Gedge, of www.livingroofs.org has kindly agreed to help me and I'm really excitied about learning more about this.


The first thing I did was upload Dusty's great PDF booklet off of his website....

He then invited me to go on a beginner's DIY course on the 25th February.... this looks absolutely brill and I just can't wait to go and start learning all about this...

There is a chance that Dusty or his partner John Little might be able to make it to the show as well to explain to the visitors a bit more about how they can create a green roof. How brill would that be??!!


I will be taking lots of photos on my training day and letting you know how I get on... hopefully it will inspire you to think about where you could could create something similar....

My Wildlife Hub

Have you ever dreamt of creating the perfect building for you?... one which is a reflection of your personality and meets your needs.... this is exactly what I am doing for Gardener's World Live!


My WildlifeHub will provide me with wildlife and photographic opportunities and I have designed it myself. I was lucky enough to meet Phil via Twitter and straight away, we realised that we would work well as a team and had skills that would benefit each other..... Phil is a talented carpenter and could turn my Wildlife Hub dreams into a reality and he needed a website... something I could do for him!


A couple of months have passed and Phil and I have been working together to fine tune my plans and to talk about all the possibilities. It is all tremendously exciting! I was going to keep it all a secret, but I thought I would rather just share everything... if you have seen it from the seed of an idea, to it becoming reality, then it will mean all the more if you have the chance to come and see it for real in June!


My Wildlife Hub will consist of a wooden garden building with lots of 'Pods'. These pods are different add-ons that can be affixed to the building in different positions, depending on individual's needs.


My Wildlife Hub will be set up in my garden after the show and is going to be sited on a patio area about half way up my garden. It will have some really exciting 'Pod' additions:


- Hedgehog box - with access from the inside to film visitors
- Nest Box - with access from the inside to film nesting species
- Photography / viewing windows
- Window bird table with opening for photography
- Moveable arms for bird feeders to position them for perfect photo!
- Bug Hotel with compartments to fill
- Planters for my choice of nectar rich flowers
- Solitary Bee hotel
- Green roof


Although this is just a preliminary sketch, it will give you an idea....

I will be travelling up to see Phil and see the first panel of my Wildlife Hub on the 1st March. The plan is to build it in panels, transport it to the show, where it will be erected and then we'll bring it back to my garden, so I can use it in my patch... I can't wait!


Phil is a talented guy... here are a couple of pictures of a garden building he built actually 'around' a tree!

You can see the branches of the tree coming out of the right-hand side!


I am very excited to be working with such a skilled carpenter, as I know he will be able to turn my sketches into reality... what a truly wonderful experience that will be. Thanks Phil for being so enthusiastic and so willing to be part of this adventure!!

The RHS visit me!

On the 19th January, Lucinda Costello (Horticultural Manager) and Katy Gaunt (Assistant Horticultural Exhibitor Manager) came up from London to meet me and discuss my proposed stand for Gardener's World Live.


We had already spoken on the phone and via email and I had spent several weeks drawing up some pretty ambitious plans for a stand. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited and keen to impress them with what I proposed to do....


I was well prepared. I had detailed sketches and had also tried to get to grips with a program called Google Sketch-up... a FREE package that allows you to create 3D drawings and move and rotate these and even walk into them... take a look if you have not seen it before. I found it a brilliant way to get an idea of the stand space I wanted and how much space everything would take up. This mock up is just to gauge space ....

My plans are to re-create a WildlifeKate patch, with lots of the feeders, nest boxes and other gadgets I regularly use... the things you see me blog about and you see on my live cameras. I will have cams on the stand wired back to a monitor and my website live streaming images as well. I plan on visitors being able to see everything in context and leaving my stand brimming with ideas about what they could do in their patch!

The centre-piece  of my stand will be my WildlifeKate 'Wildlife Hub'.... my dream Wildlife garden building, with all the additions any discerning wildlife enthusiast would want...there will be a separate blog post all about the plans for that! I will be working closely with Phil Clark, an amazing carpenter as well as a wildlife enthusiast, who is going to turn my dream building into a reality!


As education is a fundamental part of what I do, I also want to have a group of school children working on wildlife projects throughout the show. These will include pupils from my schools and other schools I have contacts with. Their work will be displayed on my stand and it will be a wonderful opportunity for them too.

Lucinda, Katy and I hit it off immediately! Over mugs of tea and homemade Victoria sponge, I showed them all my plans, talked them through my ambitious drawings and our combined enthusiasm made for an amazing morning! They loved all my ideas.


The most fantastic moment for me is when they laid out the plan of the whole show on my sitting room floor and decided where my WildlifeKate stand was going to go...... a 9m x 8m stand, right in the middle of the Gardening for Wildlife section of the show! Perfect! I simply couldn't ask for more.

The three of us could have carried on talking all day, but they had another appointment to go to, so sadly our meeting had to end. I know that this is the start of something great and I just can't wait to get going!

The Journey Begins!

With my stand confimed at Gardener's World Live, the hard work really begins. Over the next week or so, I will create some blog posts to catch you up on the progress so far and give you an idea about how much planning, building and work there is to do between now and June! All very exciting, a little daunting but such a wonderful opportunity, I want to share it with as many of my followers as possible. I want you all to be part of it to and to come and see me at the show in June, when all the hard work pays off, hopefully!

I also hope this blog will act as a great reminder and diary for me to look back on, after the event!