Raingardens That Perform
Raingardens are designed to manage rainfall where it lands. Instead of sending water straight into underground pipes, they slow, store and treat runoff at the surface, reducing pressure on drainage networks while improving water quality and enhancing the spaces around them. When designed properly, raingardens become more than a landscape feature. They are dependable infrastructure, working every day […]
How to Build an Urban Tree
Urban tree populations in cities around the world are under pressure. Despite the clear benefits trees bring, including cooling streets, managing stormwater, improving air quality and creating better places to live, too many fail to establish, or never reach their full potential. Successful urban trees are the result of careful, considered design, where soil volume, water availability, rooting space and overall site conditions are […]
Root Girdling and Why Context Matters
When the phrase root girdling appears in a specification meeting or planning discussion, it tends to stop the conversation cold. The challenge is that the term is often used loosely – sometimes to describe any visible change in root direction or diameter – when, biologically, true girdling is a very specific (and thankfully fairly uncommon) condition. What […]
Planting Is Easy. Keeping Trees Alive Is the Work.
One of the biggest challenges facing the urban greening industry today is how we respond effectively to the accelerating climate crisis. It’s also how we align as a sector to support an integrated approach, one that considers both mitigation and adaptation to reduce emissions, manage stormwater, address the urban heat island effect, and ultimately help […]
Creating Moments to Pause with Spring Blossoms
Planting a tree is often framed as an act of optimism, a gesture toward a greener, more hopeful future. But with blossom trees, the thinking starts earlier: choosing the right tree, the right place, and understanding what it will bring to a space over time. In urban environments, that early thinking is critical. Space is […]
The Three Keys to Successful SuDS Implementation
Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) are most effective when they are treated as a core part of urban design rather than a technical exercise that sits at the edge of a project. Too often, surface water is addressed late in the process, once layouts are fixed and space is limited. At that point, options narrow and […]
The Critical Role of Interlocking Soil Cells in Urban Tree Infrastructure
Designing urban landscapes that successfully support both healthy tree growth and the structural needs of pavements, pathways, and vehicle areas is a complex engineering challenge. Beneath the surface, the soil cell system plays an essential role in meeting these demands. Its ability to bear static loads, resist lateral forces and preserve large volumes of uncompacted […]
Nature-based SuDS should be the default. What’s holding them back?
For more than a decade, the UK has broadly agreed on the direction of travel for surface water management. Policy documents reference it. Guidance supports it. Demonstration projects prove it. Designers increasingly understand how to deliver it. And yet, across much of England, nature-based Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) are still often delivered through planning negotiation […]
Soil Placement Drives Long-Term Urban Tree Performance
Soil in urban environments rarely provides the conditions trees need to grow and thrive. Limited rooting space, compaction, and conflicts with surrounding infrastructure all work against long-term tree performance. That’s why designers and contractors use soil cells — not just to support pavements, but to create a stable, healthy soil environment beneath them. We’ve put […]
Building Urban Drainage Resilience Through Distributed Solutions
Our existing urban drainage systems are being asked to do far more than they were ever designed for. Denser development, hard landscaping, population growth and increasingly intense rainfall are combining to expose a fundamental weakness in traditional sewer networks. The symptoms are now familiar: surface water flooding that appears without warning, wastewater assets pushed beyond […]