Solutions to Planting Failures

Landscape planting schemes are essential to the aesthetic success of a development. Therefore the failure, or even below optimum performance, of a scheme will detract from the impact of the overall development.  Coming at the end of a development presents those involved with the landscape works with a number of problems, which can result in failure or below optimum rates of establishment. At Terragen our team of Soil Scientists are experienced in identifying and mitigating plant failure.

  •  Diagnosis

Plants fail due to some form of stress, which can occur for a wide range of reasons, poor soil handling, compaction, anaerobism, waterlogging, extremes of pH or salinity or presence of contaminants, to name but a few.  The diagnosis of cause or causes is facilitated by a combination of on-site soil survey, to ascertain the condition of the site soils and therefore any physical impediment to growth and laboratory analysis, to determine whether there are any chemical factors contributing to the plant stress.

  •  Solutions

The findings of the survey would be presented in a comprehensive interpretative report detailing practical and cost effective solutions to the problem or problems identified. These may range from a programme of aeration, to chemical treatment to balance pH to the installation of a formal drainage system. In all cases the recommendations would be focused on improving growth with the minimum disruption to the scheme. Including a Soil Scientist in the project team would ensure that the potential for any planting problems are identified at the outset and any required mitigation built into the scheme ensuring that planting failure does not occur.