It is vital that the aspirations of a landscape design are realised, yet so often the management and quality of the soils are less than satisfactory and compromise delivery of the scheme. A layer of bark mulch can hide a multitude of problems (compaction, anaerobism, the wrong soil, contamination, no drainage).
Tim O’Hare Associates has wealth of experience in the monitoring and inspection of soils during the construction process. Our presence on site during critical phases e.g. topsoil stripping and stockpiling, subsoil decompaction and tree pit construction, ensures that the works are carried out correctly and that the soil profile will function properly as a growing medium, a water attenuation layer (re: SuDS) and a clean cover system (re: land remediation).
Services
- Pre-start meeting with the contractor
- Site inspections and monitoring of soiling works during the following operations: topsoil stripping and stockpiling, subsoil placement, topsoil placement, decompaction measures, surface cultivations, fertiliser application, soil amelioration, land drainage installation, tree pit/trench excavations and backfilling, tree planting, mulching.
- Imported Soil Assessment – assessment of imported soils (topsoil and subsoil) at source and prior to import.
- Soil examination – construction of inspection pits to check important in-situ horticultural soil properties (eg. compaction levels, soil structure, anaerobism, drainage characteristics, soil depths).
- Tree pits – inspection of tree pits to assess the depth and conditions of drainage layers, backfill materials, presence of compaction, anaerobism, waterlogging.
- Compliance Testing – sampling and testing the soils placed by the contractor to ensure they are ‘fit for purpose’ and compliant with the landscape specification.
- Inspection Reports for each visit to confirm that soil conditions are compliant with the specification/design or to identify non-compliances that need to be addressed.
- Completion Report for the landscape contract, including supporting drawings, photographs, test results.
