SoilsCon 2016 praised for wealth of practical knowledge delivered
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120 delegates attended ‘SoilsCon 2016 – Soil use and management’ on Wednesday, 5th October, and left the conference armed with a wealth of knowledge and practical tools to apply to their landscape projects. The conference was the second to be organised by soil scientist and landscape consultant Tim O’Hare and focused entirely on soils and their crucial role in delivering successful landscape schemes.
As they left the Phyllis Court venue in Henley-on-Thames, delegates – landscape architects, garden designers, contractors, and topsoil suppliers – were fulsome in their praise for the speakers and the programme content. Their feedback comments included:
“Best conference I’ve been to in years! Look forward to the next one!”
“Really excellent content and perfectly timed length of talks.”
“A very informative day, good diverse range of topics covered, and well organised.”
“Really interesting breadth of subjects covered and a lot of knowledge shared.”
“Very good.Covered a diversity of topics that are very relevant to my work.Useful, technical information, entertaining and engaging speakers.”
“Very informative day. Well organised, nice atmosphere and great networking opportunities.”
“Absolutely brilliant day! See you next year!”
Tim O’Hare’s practice has provided soil science consultancy to some of the country’s highest profile public realm landscape schemes, including the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, The Garden Bridge, Jubilee Gardens, Chavasse Park, Battersea Power Station and King’s Cross Regeneration. His objective for SoilsCon 2016 was to focus on the common problems that occur and the mistakes made across the industry with regards to soil use and its ongoing management.
Tim was first to speak and looked at the problems caused by soil compaction, which is a major issue on nearly all construction sites and something that is still not dealt with properly in many landscape schemes. He explained the problems that often occur, their causes, and the ‘best practice’ soil management methods and equipment required to deal with these issues. His talk included the correct methods of topsoil stripping and storage, topsoil depths, use of compaction resistant soils, tree pit considerations, and the reinstatement of soils once re-spread in both small and large sites.
In his presentation ‘Tree root and soil systems – what is going on beneath our feet?’, Luke Fay, Managing Director and Senior Arboricultural Consultant at Treework Environmental Practice, discussed how trees interact with the soil to draw out required water and nutrients and remain stable, and what happens when this goes wrong or is disrupted. He explored tree root growth patterns and architecture and the essential relationships between tree roots and soil structure, micro-biology and chemistry, as well as the impact of damage such as soil compaction on these invisible, below-ground systems and how they can manifest in the visible, above-ground parts of the tree.
Andy Sturgeon gave a wonderfully frank presentation, drawing on his experience as an award-winning landscape designer to emphasise the importance of fully understanding the soils on projects from the outset, designing planting schemes that utilise what they have to offer and being fully aware of the consequences if poor soil selection or management occurs during the landscape construction process.
Dealing with contaminated land by employing clean cover systems was the subject for Richard Brinkworth, Director at Leap Environmental. In explaining the calculations used to determine when a simple clean cover system can be used to mitigate contaminated soil, Richard explained how the engineering part of the system isn’t always given due consideration within landscape schemes, leading, in some cases, to unserviceable gardens. Using case studies of the good, the bad and the ugly, he explained what a cover system is, highlighted the common pitfalls and outlined the means of designing successful cover systems.
Andy Spetch, National TOPSOIL Manager at British Sugar TOPSOIL gave an overview of the sugar manufacturing process and the co-products that derive from that process, including quality manufactured topsoil. He explained the process of manufacturing sustainable topsoils, the benefits to developers and contractors of using BS3882:2015 certified topsoil, and the importance of obtaining detailed analysis to ensure soils meet the project design specification - and the issues that arise when they don’t.
Tim White, Senior Associate at Tim O’Hare Associates, is an expert on Wildflower Meadows and used his presentation to introduce the main types of semi-natural (and not so natural) wildflower grasslands and the principal properties of their associated soils. He looked at the substrates suitable for the creation of new grasslands and the options for soil management to assist the process. The need to match species/seed mixes to soil types was also discussed.
The final presentation, delivered by Alistair Bayford, Regional Operations Director - Strategic Business, at The Landscape Group, used the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Jubilee Gardens as case studies to illustrate the importance of maintaining soils after a major construction project. He made the very convincing case for considering the maintenance of designed landscapes at the planning and design stage.
Speaking after the conference, Tim O’Hare commented: “The feedback from delegates has been overwhelmingly positive. This reinforces the need for the conference, and is ample reward for all the work and commitment that goes into putting on such an event. As with our conference last year we wanted to ensure this year’s event gave the audience real learning opportunities that would improve their knowledge of soil use and its ongoing management. From the feedback we have received I think we most definitely achieved that and we now have landscape professionals who know much more about soils than they did before and, more importantly, are armed with the sorts of questions they need to be asking at the planning and design stage of any landscape project.”