GLDA Seminar 22 Feb 2025
Building Resilient Landscapes for a Changing Climate
Building Resilient Landscapes for a Changing Climate
The upcoming Garden and Landscape Designers Association 2025 seminar entitled ‘Building Resilient Landscapes for a Changing Climate’ will take place on the 22nd February 2025 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Santry, Dublin. Tickets are available to purchase through the GLDA website:
The evidence of climate change is all around us. We are confronted with it every day. Extreme weather events are occurring around the globe at an alarming and devastating rate. The message is clear - we need to be prepared. The definition of Resilience is to be able to endure strain without being permanently injured. This is what our landscapes and gardens need to be able to do. How do we help them achieve this? How do we ensure they are able to bounce back and recover quickly from the extremes of a changing and unpredictable climate?
The spaces we design and manage have the potential to play a huge part in lessening the negative effects of a changing climate. Managing these spaces well gives us a certain amount of control in a scenario that may seem far beyond our control.
At the conference, we will hear from a range of speakers who will emphasise the need for climate resilience in landscape design. Among them will be the following:
- Adam Whitbourn, Gardens Manager at the iconic Blarney Castle who is well placed to offer advice on how our historic properties can be bolstered against climate change.
- Charlotte Hitchmough, Director of Ark the Rivers Trust, a charity aimed at educating people about how to protect water quality and rivers.
- Wendy Allen, an award-winning garden consultant specialising how to manage water using sustainable drainage systems including rain gardens and rain planters.
- Henrik Sjöman, an Associate Professor and botanical curator who will advise how to choose the best plants for climate-resilient planting.
- Ann-Marie Powell, a celebrated garden designer, author, and TV presenter who highlights sustainability in all of her designs.
The speakers are all industry professionals who share a vast range of experience and knowledge from different aspects of their careers. They are united in the belief that by learning how to adapt to changing conditions we can tackle problems head on and avoid permanent repercussions.
They will tell the attendees how, by using design principles that ensure our green spaces can cope with and adapt to rapidly changing conditions, we lessen the negative impact thereof. By choosing plants carefully, learning how to manage water responsibly, forging a deeper understanding of the interplay between soil, plants and climate, we can put in place natural solutions to the problems we face. By harnessing and magnifying natural processes, we can increase the ability of the land to recover, to be resilient.
We can influence how our landscapes respond to the effects of extreme weather events such as flooding. Although flooding is a natural process, climate change and a lack of action and investment means we are now very vulnerable to it. Slowing down water entering our waterways can reduce flood risk, reduce pollution and help keep our rivers and seas healthy.
Simple ideas to slow the flow of water such as using weirs, leaky dams and controlled flooding of uninhabited areas can have an impact if implemented on a broad scale. But on a domestic scale there are things that we can do too such as making parking areas permeable and incorporating sustainable drainage systems into our gardens and designed spaces.
It is crucial that those who design and manage our outdoor spaces are informed and educated about the future impact of their decisions, how those decisions will enable spaces to withstand deluges or droughts, erosion, pollution and scorching or plummeting temperatures. We can help to make our landscapes less vulnerable to all of these factors and create spaces that enhance the well-being of people and the wider environment.
The GLDA has a strong track record in informing and inspiring garden and landscape designers and gardeners, keeping them up to date with important developments in design trends and best practice in the sector. Through its annual seminars, the GLDA aims to empower designers and increase confidence in the face of a challenging future. For those who attend, meeting other like-minded individuals, asking questions and learning about new approaches are some of the most rewarding aspects of the day.
Becoming a successful garden designer today requires a high level of knowledge and skill that includes awareness of the effects of climate change and how to mitigate them both on a domestic and broader scale. We must understand the interplay between the environment and a changing climate that is increasingly tending towards extremes. With the right knowledge, we can ensure the spaces we design will recover from challenges quickly and without lasting effects. We can use the challenges we face as a means to make our designs more robust and our green spaces less susceptible to damage in the future, which in essence is the meaning of resilience.
Talking Points and Speakers
Bolstering our heritage gardens and parklands - Adam Whitbourn
In Ireland, we have a number of large public gardens and parks attracting thousands of visitors each year. How do we manage them in the face of climate change to ensure they survive and put their best foot forward? How do we minimise damage from increasingly frequent storms and unpredictable weather events?
Adam Whitbourn is Gardens Manager of the extensive Blarney Castle Gardens. He trained in the UK at Askham Bryan Horticultural College in York and ran his own landscape design business before deciding to make the permanent move to Ireland. He took up his role at Blarney in 2009, and for the last 15 years, in conjunction with the estate owner Sir Charles Colthurst, he has been instrumental in transforming the gardens into one of Ireland’s finest horticultural gems.
Anyone who has visited the gardens and grounds surrounding Blarney Castle, which extend to over 70 acres, will know that it is no mean feat to be Head Gardener here. But during his tenure, Adam has developed and expanded his skills to be in a strong position today to offer guidance to anyone with an interest in large gardens, parks and historic estates.
Adam’s love of design and dynamic approach is well illustrated by some of the newer garden areas at Blarney such as the Poison Garden, Seven Sisters and Carnivorous Courtyard. He also has a passion for wildlife and biodiversity, and this is clearly shown in how he manages the grounds and gardens. In his talk, he will share what he has learned and how he is adapting his approach to boost the resilience of the gardens under his care during challenging times.
How to select the best plants to withstand a changing climate - Henrik Sjöman
Plants are a primary consideration of any design, but with an increasing array of issues fueled by climate change such as new plant pests and diseases, intense temperature fluctuations and changing seasonal patterns, which plants should we choose to grow?
Henrik Sjöman is Associate Professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Scientific Curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden and Honoree Research Associate at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Henrik’s work focuses on sustainable plant use and how different trees perform and offer different beneficial functions in different scenarios. For Henrik, knowledge is key when it comes to choosing plants for any project whether it be a private garden or public park.
Trees provide various important ecosystem services and Henrik believes we need to develop our abilities to compare and contrast different species more effectively by understanding exactly what makes some plants a better option than others. We should be choosing to plant diverse species that are best adapted to a particular site instead of relying on the same go-to plants again and again.
Henrik believes that we need to develop a language around sustainable plant use so that we can more accurately evaluate different species with regard to their suitability and intended purpose for any given site. This will help us avoid the risk of planting trees that are not well suited to their environment. As a result, our green spaces will be better able to cope with our future climate and will have the ameliorating effects that we need from them.
An increase in our knowledge of trees and more careful assessment of them will result in a more diverse range of trees being planted and ultimately in greater resilience of the vitally important treescapes in our parks and gardens.
Protecting our waterways in the face of a changing climate - Charlotte Hitchmough
In addition to trees, our blue spaces are vitally important in our efforts to mitigate the effects of a changing climate both in urban and rural settings. However, a poor understanding of how water systems work and a lack of protection has left them in a poor state and resulted in them being less able to function as they should. By carelessly modifying them and removing natural features, we have ensured that they are less capable of absorbing and holding the vast amounts of water that result from extreme weather events. They are also extremely vulnerable to ecological collapse due to pollution from sewage, chemicals, and excess nutrients and plastic.
Charlotte Hitchmough has devoted her career to developing a better understanding of the problems faced by our rivers and their catchment areas and how best to address them. She is based in England where just 15% of rivers are in good ecological health. In Ireland that figure is 50% and if we want to prevent our rivers from deteriorating further, we need to learn from people like Charlotte how to protect our water systems to keep them healthy, unpolluted and functioning as best they can.
Charlotte is Director of Action for the River Kennet and for eight years served on the board of the Rivers Trust. The River Kennet is the largest tributary of the Thames and is a globally important fragile ecosystem.
Charlotte is particularly interested in nature-based solutions, and how communities and individuals can reduce their impact on every part of the water environment from water conservation to pollution and flood risk. For example, by having a more sustainable approach to water management we can slow down and capture rainwater runoff. She has developed and managed award-winning projects with the aim of protecting and improving rivers and their catchments through practical habitat restoration, education, and outreach and community engagement.
Charlotte will explain how healthy rivers can be a powerful force in diminishing the effects of climate change by protecting communities from flood and drought events. They also play an important role in bolstering ecosystem and biodiversity resilience. Many of our rivers are in a terrible state and are very vulnerable to further degradation. So it is vital that we learn how to protect them by managing our landscapes in a responsible way and considering the impact of our actions both locally and on a wider scale.
Sustainable drainage systems - local action that resonates - Wendy Allen
Managing water in a sustainable way is a primary tenet of creating resilient landscapes and gardens. To build in buffers against the effects of extreme weather events is now a requirement of sustainable design.
Flooding has human, financial and environmental consequences. Increasingly intense rain events mean that even areas that were not previously affected by flooding are now at risk. Gardens can intercept, slow and temporarily hold large amounts of water by using a few simple nature based solutions.
Wendy Allen is a UK-based garden designer who specialises in designing rain gardens, green roofs and rain planters. These are all features of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS for short) which can have a huge impact both locally and further afield. In 2009, she won a gold medal at Hampton Court flower show for her sustainable rain garden. The garden demonstrated techniques such as using permeable parking areas and ways to slow down the flow of rainwater. Since then she has completed many projects that are hugely beneficial for people, rivers and biodiversity.
Rain gardens are becoming more in demand and are a great way to add an aesthetically pleasing feature that can have far-reaching environmental benefits. Rain gardens also add substantially to the biodiversity and sustainability credentials of a space. They work by channeling the water from paved areas, driveways and roofs into a specially engineered area, where it drains away slowly over a period of 12 to 24 hours into the ground, instead of putting pressure on the local drainage system.
Wendy has designed many rainscapes for UK Rivers Trust ‘Action for the River Kennet’ (ARK) where she led teams of volunteers within communities and schools to build the projects. She instructs and informs those interested in installing creative, biodiverse infiltration rain gardens and retrofitting rain planters via practical workshops, talks and lectures, both in person and online. She will aim to inspire those present at the GLDA seminar to include sustainable drainage systems in their garden plans.
Changing our approach to garden design - Ann-Marie Powell
Listed by Gardens Illustrated Magazine as one of the most inspiring female garden designers in British history, Ann-Marie Powell runs a thriving multi-award-winning garden design practice based in the UK. Sustainability is a fundamental value as she and her team strive to design naturally energetic and bold landscapes where clients live in harmony, up close and personal, with the natural world.
Ann-Marie and her team see outdoor spaces as places with exciting possibilities and focus on creating garden habitats that invite a resilient, evolving ecology instead of the traditional approach to garden design.
Many will know Ann-Marie from her TV appearances as she has presented 20 different garden related programmes including coverage of RHS Chelsea Flower show for the BBC. Her breadth of experience makes her an ideal speaker to inspire and inform people with regard to the practices we need to amply and those we need to leave behind so that we can have the best chance of future proofing our green spaces.
Her work was the subject of an hour-long documentary as part of the series ‘The Art of The Garden’ on Sky Arts. She has written four books on garden design and writes regularly for national magazines and newspapers including The Telegraph, Gardens Illustrated and The English Garden. To add to her accolades Ann-Marie is a Top 50 House & Garden UK garden designer and Top 20 Country and Town House garden designer.
Known for her lively and personable communication style, Ann-Marie is in demand as a speaker for a range of clients and horticultural societies. In 2021, she was awarded Social Media Influencer of the Year by the Garden Media Guild for her Instagram account @MyRealGarden, which has a 60K-strong following. A natural communicator, she thrives on engaging with her audience and sharing her passion for designing sustainable and biodiverse gardens and landscapes.
