Commercial Landscape Maintenance
Alpha Garden has chosen the grounds of St James’s Hospital for this year’s ALCI Awards 2024. SJH as it is a unique, demanding and ever-changing environment to carry out landscape maintenance. Alpha Garden have been employed to carry this out since September 2021.
SJH is one of Irelands main hospitals located in Dublin’s south inner city. It is the largest in terms of activity encompassing a hospital of this size which makes it the busiest in the country due to its location but is not the biggest in scale. The grounds of the hospital are quite small and are ever evolving, but due to the grounds scattered locations, internally and externally, this provides many challenges to keep the grounds of SJH maintained to a high standard.
With an average of 10,000 people moving through the hospital per day, made up of Health workers, Contractor, Out-patients and Patients, carrying out landscape maintenance requires communication with all levels of management, departments and planning weeks in advance before works can commence.
Not much thought was given to the planning and layout of the landscaping at SJH due to certain locations of where you may find areas that need to be maintained (climbing through windows of an office to gain access to a balcony that has planters or up a fire escape with a nap-sac sprayer to spray off areas outside operating theatres) (The location of trees growing in the internal courtyards that can’t be accessed to carry out remedial works, crown raise/reductions) and the ever-evolving nature of the site.
Compare to residential landscape maintenance, where best practice is carried out, the aesthetics and functionality of the garden are considered from the beginning and how they will evolve over time. However, the grounds of SJH are far from this as it is a concrete jungle with an afterthought given to the landscape and grounds. One week you’re maintaining a section of the grounds, following week, there’s a portacabin in its place as priority is given to a functioning hospital as space is premium.
Challenges that Alpha Garden have faced and dealt with are that we had to introduce battery equipment as some areas are very sensitive to noise of 2 stroke and petrol machinery. Using this battery powered equipment, Alpha Garden have been able to counteract the noise pollution it creates.
Moving green waste which can be contaminated with soil particles and other arisings through a sterile environment, containers need to be sealed and equipment always clean.
There is a significant anti-social element on these grounds. Unfortunately, many drug addicts use these grounds and dispose of their paraphernalia in the shrubberies which is an enormous health and safety issue for the landscaping team.
The rising numbers of the Seagull population in urban areas has an influence on the grounds of SJH as it is an ideal breeding grounds to raise their young. Seagulls are a protective species under Irish Law and their choice of breeding area can make landscape maintenance difficult for several months during the summer.
The reason I have chosen SJH for this year’s awards is to show the endeavour and challenges that the Alpha Garden’s team go through to maintain these grounds on a weekly basis, not so much about the quality of the landscape, or the choice of plants, as this is secondary to our clients brief as they want the grounds looking neat and tidy all year round.
With this entry, I have actively chosen not to show pictures of the landscape, but of the challenges, environment and equipment we use during each site visit.
For the last 20 years, Alpha Garden’s experience has mostly been in the maintenance of residential properties. The experience gained from this part of landscape maintenance, mainly the detail that is required has transferred automatically to this commercial site. It’s still not residential standards by any means, but the detail afforded does stand to the work that is carried out by the team.
There is no biodiversity or sustainability program in place at SJH, but over the last number of years, Alpha Garden has been implementing its own work practice to reduce Alpha Garden’s and SJH carbon foot print. Along with introducing battery operated equipment, we are beginning to implement a biological friendly herbicide along with implementing wildflower courtyard and self-watering planters to reduce maintenance during the year.
Reducing maintenance, is an eye on the current labour market as this is a major issue in the landscaping industry.
Landscape maintenance was dramatically reduced during the pandemic, and it has taken some time to get this back to a manageable, maintainable standard. We have carried out extensive works to bring life and colour to the grounds of SJH with rejuvenation of the Breast Check Clinic Courtyard, H.E.P Department Wildflower Courtyard, Psychiatric Courtyard along with many smaller projects that have impacted the overall aesthetic of SJH.
Judges’ Comments:
“To say that the landscape maintenance of St James Hospital by Alpha Garden is challenging would be an understatement and do an injustice to the work that Alpha Garden put into this project. To carry out routine maintenance, both internally and externally, in one of the country’s busiest hospitals, brings the challenge up to new level. The need to be flexible in planning and scheduling works as well as having to carry out works in the sterile hospital environment are only a couple of things which cannot be really appreciated when merely observing a landscaped space.”
“A mature landscape in a series of spaces whose maintenance is a direct function of client brief.”
