Down By the Sea at Bexhill Landscaped Prom.

Its been a little while since I have been writing.  I apologise for this.  My recent travels last weekend took me to East Sussex, England.  I took my Wife to see Great Dixter Garden, which was fine for a passing visit.  The main point of interest on our trip to East Sussex was to visit Hastings and on to Bexhill.  Parks are going through some tough times at the moment due to Public Finance restraint, so it was very pleasing to see some good quality landscape design, planting and something that is always neglected from design that of quality maintenance.  Our visit along Bexhill Seafront was just that, good design, planting and maintenance.  

A recently completed project at Bexhill Seafront is the enhancement of the Promenade as part of a £5 million landscape enhancement.  The key for the planting on the seafront is it has to be tough, tolerant of the harsh sea salt spray from the English Channel that beats this coast hard and the other notable characteristics is the planting is low maintenance and above all drought tolerant.  

The design was for Rother District Council, by HTA Design, London with funding from the defunct CABE Space through a scheme called sea change of Bexhill on Sea in 2009.  The project encompassed a significant step of Promenade renovation totaling 800 metres.  The promenade has strong emphasis in the linear site towards both planting and the physical hard landscape such as the furniture, paving, surface dressing of the promenade and the layout of which is in balance with the landscape of the shingle beach and the adjoining residential properties.  

The use of timbers creates a compartment feel and at the same time somewhere for people to sit. 

One of two types of seating.  Note the space by the side of the seat for a wheelchair or pram. 

Planting at the Promenade Gardens Bexhill on Sea has been chosen to be tolerant of the rigours of the coast. Plants such as Ballota pseudodictamnus, Eryngium bourgatii, eight different types of Hebe such Hebe 'Blue Gem', Hebe albicans.

Here we can see common but reliable plants of Rudbeckia, Achillea and Santolina.

A green strip of grass runs through the central area of the landscape, tough rye grass to tolerate both wear and weather.  All the grass through the site is box mowed.  I was very impressed with the quality of the maintenance of the whole site.  I could not see any weeds and suppressing any weeds was a good layer of pea shingle.  Rother District Council has combined its Grounds and Landscape Management with its next door neighbor Hastings Borough Council working with the Landscape Group.  From design concept, placing of signage, use of plants and quality maintenance you can see why the project has won the Landscape Institute Awards 2012.  The over used words of 'sustainability' and that of 'biodiversity', are to broad and meaningless for this project, this is simply horticultural ecology and best practice at that alone.

Until Next Time in Green Space.