Peter Dowdall: Let's focus on biodiversity in our built landscape

Whether you're a gardening beginner or expert, Irish Examiner columnist Peter Dowdall has the answer to your questions

Wed, 14 Jun, 2023 - 18:38

Peter Dowdall

Ireland is facing devastating losses of wildlife and natural habitats. There has been a massive decline in insect populations recorded since the 1990s.

Stark findings from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that 85% of protected habitats in Ireland are in poor or inadequate condition, and approximately 50% are declining.

As a species, humans too need habitats in which to live. Clúid Housing is an independent, not-for-profit charity, and is the leading approved housing body (AHB) in Ireland. Established in 1994, Clúid owns and manages over 10,000 properties providing a home to over 27,000 people.

Clúid Housing has recently launched a new guide, the Landscaping and Biodiversity Guide, for builders and developers, the most comprehensive guide of its kind for the building industry in Ireland.

This guide is intended to inform developers, landscape designers, architects, horticulturists and other relevant stakeholders of the level of commitment and design input we require to protect and enhance biodiversity in our developments.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

Ingrid Swan, Clúid’s in-house landscape designer who wrote the guide with Clúid's national sustainability manager, Susan Vickers, says: “Urbanisation is identified as one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss.

"However, there are opportunities to enhance and protect biodiversity in new developments, while at the same time improving climate resilience and enriching the health and wellbeing of those who live there, by allowing them to connect with nature. Biodiversity is not an added extra or an inconvenience, it is something that can add value to a development.”

Ingrid Swan, Jimi Blake and Niall Maxwell. "Biodiversity is not an added extra or an inconvenience, it is something that can add value to a development.”

The Landscaping and Biodiversity Guide is a significant step in the right direction for the industry towards sustainable living and achieving Ireland's climate action targets. It is hoped that this guide will have a wider application as a best-practice biodiversity guide for any new residential or mixed-use development in the sector as a whole.

This is an in-depth and valuable piece of work and you don’t have to be in the building trade to see the value in it. Whatever you are doing in your garden there will be a takeaway in this for you. Whether you are starting a garden from scratch or you just need to replace a fence or plants in a raised bed, a quick reference to this guide will pay dividends.

Everything seems to be covered in some detail. For example, as an introduction to boundary treatments: “Boundaries such as hedgerows, walls and verges should be designed to form connective corridors to maximise their value to biodiversity.

"This means that as well as providing food and shelter, they provide connectivity through development by creating corridors to the surrounding landscape, along which wildlife can travel safely. When it comes to boundaries, the most valuable are hedgerows. Existing hedgerows will always be the bedrock upon which new ecological corridors are created through additional planting.”

Soft landscaping or the plant elements of design are broken down into trees, pictorial meadows, bulb meadows/drifts, community orchards, stable plant groups, irrigation, grass seeding/turfing, landscape fabrics/weed matting and mulches.

Each one of these is then dealt with in-depth and considered in terms of how they can be incorporated into the landscape to protect and encourage biodiversity.

Recommendations for apartment balconies and private gardens are further detailed in this guide. As a reference point for someone wishing to construct their own garden in an ecologically sound manner, this is invaluable.

Plants can create havens within an urban landscape in which wildlife can thrive.

For a private front garden, it recommends one square metre minimum of planting to promote pollination and biodiversity.

Wherever possible a buffer strip of planting should be positioned between the dwelling house and the car parking. This strip should be a minimum of one square metre of planting to promote biodiversity. The planting matrix should include early flowering spring bulbs.

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Other landscape amenities are examined and their use in an environmentally sound way and to encourage biodiversity is outlined. These include lighting, seats and benches, bollards, bins stores, bicycle shelters and canopies, water butts/rainwater storage, bird boxes, bat boxes and owl boxes.

Lists of relevant species, plant types and materials are included in the appendices. This is a valuable and informative guide and should be used as a blueprint for every developer to adhere to in order to reach a biodiversity gold standard, and for private individuals who want guidance on how to create an ecologically sound garden, look no further.