Moving large trees is not easy

So you are thinking about landscaping your garden.

With programs like Ground Force, who transform a disaster area into a work of art in 2 days, inspiring people to attempt landscaping projects, it is worth mentioning that there are quite a few things to consider before taking such a step.

Firstly, not taking anything away from Alan Titchmarsh and the guys at Ground Force, it will take an enormous amount of planning, time, disruption and effort to get a garden landscaped. At Gibbons Gardening, we make sure you know the disruption that will happen and the potential mess – it is after all a major construction job.

Then of course there is the design.

What are you looking to achieve from this major work? It is vital to have a vision at the planning stage. At Gibbons Gardening, we really take time to discuss your objectives and goals, take a full brief and then commit effort to designing the effect you are looking to achieve. We will also offer advise on the concept as we have seen many different ideas over the years.

After this, we move into the planning stage. This is where Gibbons Gardening are highly skilled. Getting plant and machinery into the appropriate place and the right time is an art form in itself – more like a precision military manoeuvre than a landscaping project. If there are any major works or pieces of the overall design, like sculptures, features, pools and ponds etc, these need to be planned and delivered at the right time in the most appropriate manner, then positioned with extreme care – all taken in our stride as we have done this type of work many times before.

Buying mature trees that instantly change the perspective of the grounds can be problematic as trees are notoriously difficult to manoeuvre and are extremely fragile and also very heavy; however we do this very regularly and have lots of experience in this field.

 Also, choosing plants and shrubs that will provide the coverage and effect you are looking for is vital to the whole project. Making sure the plants cover the area, but not go wild and swamp the effect is very important. Consideration must be given to the ongoing maintenance of the area and making sure the colour scheme matches the idea.

The ultimate goal is to create you a very special, unique garden that you will enjoy for many years to come.

So whilst Alan and the team do a great job, don’t leave your landscaping project to chance – call in the experts and get the job done right from the start – after all you are living with this creation for years to come – call Gibbons Gardening now for a consultation.

Using Risk Assesments is a major benefit

In this job, you have to get involved in all sorts of different things and have to have loads of skills. We are great believers in self development, training and safety (all important when you are constantly using power tools and heavy plant).

One of the most dangerous tools we use regularly is the chainsaw. For us, the use of chainsaws is restricted to those who are fully trained and competent. With increasing Health and Safety legislation and insurance companies looking to not pay out if there is an accident, it is important to get proper training – especially when using tools like chainsaws.

We have always had a very healthy respect for tools that can maim or kill you – chainsaws are not very forgiving and every accident is a nasty one. We always use Personal Protective Equipment (referred to as PPE) but it’s amazing how many people don’t.

When using dangerous equipment or entering into dangerous tasks we always do a risk assessment to ensure both the user’s safety and anybody else’s safety (or property) is not in question. It not worth taking that short cut – EVER!

This all probably sounds a little over kill, but we believe that if we identify and look for the possible issues via a risk assessment, we look at the project with different eyes, and so the risks are removed. Also, in the unlikely event of an accident, everybody is positioned to respond to the event correctly.

It still amazes me the number of so called professional Grounds Maintenance firms who do not follow the same procedures. For the time it takes to do and the benefits it brings to both us and the client, it makes no sense not to do it.

Whilst the cost to the business is high for ongoing training, the benefits to the staff and our clients is well worth it, both in terms of up skilling and personal development and of course staff morale.

Graham Gibbons of Gibbons Ground Maintenance displaying the New Uniform

With the kind of work we do, it is important the businesses we provide service for know who we are when we are on site. There  really is loads of reasons for this, security, health and safety requirements, peace of mind for the business you are working for etc etc – but we think it is important for the image of our company and the image of the companies we work for.

We promote a real team ethos within the staff and pride in what they do – this reflects in the attitude towards the job, the care taken when working and pride in a job well done – this is fundamental to our ongoing success.

We have just upgraded our uniforms to make sure there is no question when we are on site – these range from polo shirts and fleeces to day-glo hi-vis smocks when working in potentially hazardous environments like roadsides or car parks etc.

The guys love the new gear – its easy to keep clean and hard wearing – also gives them a real sense of pride to be part of the Gibbons Ground Maintenance Team.

No mistaking Gibbons Ground Maintenance Staff on your site wearing this

Mole control is essential

…..according to Jasper Carrott anyway!

Suprisingly, Moles are very active during this time of year and so the sight of large mounds of earth are common place in most gardens – especially lawns.

Moles are really fascinating. Not much is really known about them but they are certainly on the increase and they cause a huge amount of damage to both agricultural land and gardens. Moles are solitary creatures and protect their territory viciously against all comers – even their own off-spring once the mother has evicted them. They can travel up to 300mts in a single day and are pretty much constantly on the move, hunting for earthworks, leather jackets and just about anything else they can find.

This is where the conflict arises. With such activity, they have to push the tunnel earth up somewhere. The biggest problems occur where there are lots of worms – you guessed it - a well cared for, fed and watered lawn!

Our armoury of treatments has been cut to basically two options – gassing or trapping. We used to be able to deal with moles very effectively and cheaply by the use of Strychnine laced worms which were placed in active runs – if applied following proven safety guidelines was far the most effective and safe way to control them. Today, we will either use Aluminium Sulphide gas tablets (a very strictly controlled substance that will only be supplied to fully trained professionals like us) or trapping using humane mole traps.

Now trapping is an art. Everybody has a go at it but most attempts are futile. We  have learnt over the years “the best” way to trap and the best traps to use, but there are many more factors which affect the success than you can imagine.  We get good results based on certain conditions and in many cases trap several moles in each trap (as one is caught, the constant search for food and territory from bordering moles is their downfall).

Gassing is very effective but again conditions must be perfect – everything from soil dampness to activate the gas down to depth of run etc will determine the success of each application.

We do have a fondness for these busy little creatures and do feel a little sad at having to wage war on them, after all we are destroying their habitat by building houses on every bit of land….but that’s progress!

Incidentally, going back to Jasper’s technique of shooting moles – it does work too! If you see a mole hill being produced and you have your trusty shotgun with you, shoot the mole hill as it’s moving and you will certainly kill the mole. The shock waves from the impact will kill it instantly – yes we have done this too before you ask!

The absolute best part of our jobs is that we get to play on the best toys ever. This isn’t just me that thinks like this – ask any bloke – we love tractors, ride on mowers and best of all DIGGERS!

We use a whole variety of diggers from tiny 0.75 tonne ones which can go down a small gap at the side of a building no more that a metre wide to massive 7 tonne excavators that move absolutely tonnes of earth and rubble. Each one is different in operation and all have slightly different controls, but that is part of the challenge.

We do hire these machines from a variety of sources, but generally we only have them for a short period of time as they are highly efficient and getting things moved with them doesnt take much time at all.

Digger used to level area

We all take turns in using them, but I do the most – cant let the guys have all the good jobs now can I!

The picture shown is a small 1.5tonne machine on hire from A4 Hire in Hungerford, who also supply dumper trucks and a whole host of earth moving machines. This job involved moving and leveling an area in readiness to build a patio area.

Boxing Hares at the Watermill Theatre

Sometimes our clients just ask us to come up with something different and imaginative…so we do!

One of our regular maintenance clients, The Watermill Theatre in Newbury, have some amazing gardens and so wanted us to add a few features so when visitors come to walk around the grounds, they see things that reflect the nature of the operation.

So with this in mind, we have built a huge arm chair out of grass and earth – which people love to sit on 9its a nightmare to cut though!) and also we wanted something to draw attention so we created two six foot high boxing hares out of willow. As these living trees get bigger and grow thicker, they will become quite a spectacle.

We have done several other projects using willow and hazel, both being very flexible and allowing you to bend and twist them to suit.

One particular one is the “tunnel” where we have trained the hazel to actually create a shady tunnel about 100 meters long.

All these creative jobs makes the whole role more enjoyable and adds a unique feature to the grounds which always draw comment – we love to do them to see the reaction.

Hazel trained into an archway

Ivy Fixed with Blu-Tac

If you have ever sat and wondered how many things you can do with Blu-Tac, firstly you need to get out more, but secondly here’s one I bet you didn’t think of.

We do get asked to do some weird and wonderful things for our clients, however this one did pose a few unique issues for us. Normally, we would be asked to remove Ivy from buildings as it does have a habit of taking over, however on this occasion, we were asked to put some on.

For a bit of background information, our client had some building work done and wished it to look in character with the rest of the buildings. The other buildings have  large amounts of Ivy which gives them character, so to have a brand new looking building without Ivy made it stand out like a sore thumb.

So what to do. Firstly, acquiring living Ivy that has at least 3 metre of growth is not the easiest thing to do. Then the problems get harder. How do you handle this type of beast? Well the truth is carefully!  As you can see, handling these plants is extremely difficult and it took the team a while to untangle and get to grips with it all.

How are we going to fix this?

Then comes the problem, how do you get this very flimsy plant to stand up and then how to attach it to the wall? I must admit, we did ponder this issue for some time but the “light bulb” moment came so I said “We could stick it up with Blu-Tac”.

After the guys stopped rolling around with laughter, I got some Blu-Tac out of the van and it worked perfectly!

We obviously had to fix climbing wires and retainers up afterwards, but without the Blu-Tac it would have been a nightmare.

I think you would agree that these simple ideas just make life interesting – I bet the original manufacturer’s would never have thought of this use – how about calling it Green-Tac!

Finally finished - Ivy stuck in place

Ruth Gibbons getting Alan Titchmarsh to sign his book

It had to happen eventually, the meeting of like minds. This is a picture of Ruth getting Alan Titchmarsh to sign his latest book “The Kitchen Gardener” during a recent visit to Newbury.

 So what did Alan Titchmarsh think about a commercial ground maintenance provider getting into growing vegtables for the kitchen…well he was impressed – especially when Graham And Ruth were doing this for there own garden!

Fair to say Alan was full of banter and spending time with Graham and Ruth seemed to egg him on a bit – not leaving him much time to spend with the other punters in the shop.

A parting comment from Alan to the Gibbons Ground Mainteneace team was “Just keep Growing!” – a very apt comment as the team has just increased again…

Grounds Maintenance

As you drive around business parks or visit businesses with highly kept gardens, do you ever wonder who does all that work?

We all know how difficult it is to keep our own gardens up together, let a lone a garden the size of several football pitches. And then there is the planting, pruning and care of all the plants, let alone cutting the grass!

This is where people like Gibbons Ground Maintenance fit in. Behind the scenes, a flurry of activity ensures your business premises is kept looking its best, whilst not interfering with the normal day  to day activities of the business.

Ensuring you have the right equipment, tools and the right staff to keep everything under control is a challenge in itself, let alone delivering a consistent quality service and a highly competitive rate. Gibbons Ground Maintenance has many years experience in doing just this. The team has grown over the years and is effectively managed and run by husband and wife team Graham and Ruth Gibbons.

With many prestigeous clients in Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, Gibbons Ground Maintenance are quickly expanding all across the South of England and Home Counties. They are ideally situated in the heart of Berkshire in Lambourn, just outside Newbury.

For more information or to make contact, visit the website