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Garden gets Gator aid
Although it’s 20 years since the great storm of October 1987, staff at the National Trust’s Sheffield Park Garden in East Sussex are still replanting thousands of trees and shrubs as part of the ongoing restoration of this magnificent "Capability" Brown landscape. And in order to do this, they have to transport people and materials across large areas of amenity grass every day, without leaving unsightly tyre marks to spoil the view for between 180,000 and 200,000 visitors a year.
To help do this around the recently expanded estate, a new John Deere HPX Gator 4x4 utility vehicle equipped with turf tyres has been bought from local dealer Palmers Turfcare, following an extensive test drive of all the different Gator models to see which one suited the garden best.
Well known for its spectacular autumn colours, the 120 acre Grade 1 landscape pleasure garden and 80 acres of woodland have recently been extended by the Trust’s acquisition of another 258 acres of adjacent countryside, all of which is maintained by the garden staff.
“We needed a vehicle not just for general transport duties around the estate, but particularly to support the planting of new trees and shrubs throughout the garden,” says head gardener Andy Jesson, who leads a team of five staff. “We aim to present the lawns and grass areas at their best at all times, which means we need to move across the grass without leaving a footprint, especially when carrying everything from trees and supports to compost and Scots pine bark chips.
“Also, we do most of the planting in the autumn when the ground conditions are at their worst for taking vehicle traffic. We’re on very heavy clay soil so it can get very wet and the wrong type of vehicle just skids about – for example, we couldn’t take a compact tractor on the grass, this would just cut it up, whereas the Gator doesn’t leave a mark. It’s also the only machine that can cope with the grass rides in our woodland plantations.”
One of the best views of the formal garden is from an extensive elevated grass area known as the cricket field, notable for being the site of many 19th century England v Australia cricket matches – the Australian XI regularly opened their tour at Sheffield Park between 1884 and 1896. The garden team is now in the process of putting in a new cricket square and outfield, so the Gator has plenty of work to do here as well.
The staff are supported in their planting activities by local contractors Dick and Bernard Clarke of Blackboys in East Sussex, who run their own John Deere 4x2 Turf Gator backed up by three original AMT 600 five-wheel utility vehicles from the 1980s – coincidentally, these original predecessors of the Gator range were first sold in the UK in 1987.
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