At Q&S Limited (Quality & Service Ltd) we’ve worked hard to move towards chemical-free landscaping, and today we manage our sites without herbicides, pesticides or intensive machinery at all. It’s a slower way of working – hand tools, careful pruning, weeding by hand rather than spraying – but the results speak for themselves: healthier soil, better plants, and habitats that pollinators choose to forage and nest in.
We were delighted that our MD, Sue Payne joined Alison Benjamin of URBAN BEES LIMITED on Friday's HortWeek podcast, in conversation with Matthew Appleby, discussing why city landowners are increasingly recognising the importance of pollinators to the wider ecosystem - and how "gardening by omission" is leading that shift.
"Going backwards to go forwards"
The conversation covers why chemical-free landscaping is gaining ground with commercial estate owners, and how sustainable, pollinator-friendly habitats are proving their worth in the most unlikely city settings - 11 floors up in Bloomsbury, for example - with benefits for Nature Action Plans and local communities alike.
Pollinators are the foundation everything else in the ecosystem is built on, which is why a rooftop full of honeybee hives isn't always the win for biodiversity it looks like. Sue and Alison discuss why and drop into conversation the UK's surprising number of wild bee species, most of which don't even sting!
They also talk reframing "messy" as naturalistic, chemical-free green corridors, and why slowing down is what lets soil, planting and the landscape flourish.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation here:
www.HortWeek.com/podcasts
