Commercial nursery, Johnsons of Whixley, has teamed up with contracting company, p1 Solutions/Contractors, to spruce up a multi-million pound hidden gem in Scotland.
Saughton Park, in Edinburgh, has been subject to a £6.7 million restoration project that includes the walled garden, winter garden and the 110-year-old bandstand, Italian garden, children’s playground and multi-use sports court.
As part of the improvements, Edinburgh-based p1 Contractors and its sister firm, p1 Solutions, has been handling the large-scale project including soft landscaping, landscape conservation and various refurbishments, and enlisted Johnsons to supply thousands of plants in a contract worth more than £100,000 to the North Yorkshire nursery.
Johnsons has supplied products across five different areas of the garden, including 70 pleached carpinus, 90 trees, 11 betulas, and more than 5,000 hedging plants.The rose garden supply was worth more than £40,000 and included 8,000 herbaceous plants, shrubs and roses for the rose garden.
There has also been a further supply of more than 5,000 plants for the bandstand, which included a mixture of shrubs and herbaceous and over 3,000 varieties from Hakonechloa macra to Helleborus and Brunnera.
The nursery, based between Harrogate and York, also spruced up the Italian garden’s new-look border with 6,000 plants including Allium purple sensation as well as another 700 shrubs and herbaceous plants.
Richard McMonagle, director of p1 Contractors Ltd, said: “The outcome of this project has been fantastic. It hasn’t been an easy task by any means with over 1,000 plant varieties on the order either so Johnsons really has excelled itself in only having to offer minimal substitutes from the original specifications and sourcing a lot of stock that we don’t normally see on our usual day-to-day schemes.”
Ellie Richardson, Johnsons of Whixley’s marketing co-ordinator, added: “It’s great to be involved with a full renovation of a well-known Scottish park with a long-standing customer. The supply has been ongoing for a year so it’s great to see the finished result.”
Johnsons has a strong connection with Scotland, having supplied plants to the Forth Road, Athlete’s Village for the Commonwealth Games and Culzean Castle.