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The Project & Choosing X-Grid®
This project comes from Coldharbour Mill who contacted us back in April as they were looking to create an accessible sensory garden with the help of Tesco’s Bags of Help scheme. Their aim was to transform an area of grass on the bank of their lower leat into an attractive and stimulating recreational area for all visitors. In order to allow access for everyone, a paving system that could be filled with grass or gravel, was strong, permeable and easy to install was vital.
The Mill began researching online for a suitable product that would carry the mentioned above qualities and soon came across our website and our X-Grid®, the gravel and grass grid paving system. After reading up on its many benefits, they called and spoke to a member of our team and any questions they had were answered. The Mill’s team were so impressed with the grid that they ordered 100m² of Black X-Grid® which arrived by pallet delivery to the Mill within 3 working days ready to be installed.
“We decided to use the hard wearing X-Grid® and provided tons of advice for the project team for phase 1 before we purchased 100sqm of grid.”
The project was designed by one of the Mill’s volunteers. It was extremely important that the area could be accessed by everyone. The team had to ensure the area could accommodate grass and stone. It also needed to be specifically accessible and practical for visitors with visual or physical impairments, dementia and wheelchair users.
With the plan in place and volunteers ready the work could begin creating the sensory garden. Using a mini digger, a large mound of grass and soil was removed from the banking to create a flatter ground on which to create the garden. Once the soil had been removed the team could begin installing the X-Grid® pathways in the designated areas. Each path was made approximately a metre wide to allow access for multiple people and was installed in an oval shape. In the middle of the grid path, a large flower bed was to be installed along with a wooden bench. To install the X-Grid®, the team started in one corner of the proposed garden and laid a metre square of our gravel and grass grid each time. From the photos below you can see the shape of the garden take shape before it was completed. When laying pieces of X-Grid® next to each other, they were able to simply connect the neighbouring panels together using the specially designed slot and peg system. This process was repeated and after not long, the full path was installed and filled with either soil or decorative coloured gravel in a pattern. The soil paths were then filled with grass seed and watered.
Once the paths were complete, the team could begin working on the rest of the garden. They used very tactile plants and plenty of natural wood features such as raised beds and benches. Installing the raised beds and bench next to the X-Grid meant they can be accessed all year round regardless of the weather as there would be no unsuitable ground even after heavy rain. With the wooden features installed, more plants and flowers were planted in the raised beds and central area between the paths mentioned earlier.
All that was left to do was to tend to the plants and wait for them and the grass to grow. You can see photos of the finished sensory garden with the decorative gravel areas and fantastic growing areas.
We would like to say a huge thank you to Coldharbour Mill for choosing to use our X-Grid® and then for sharing the in depth information and fantastic photos to allow us to create this case study. The sensory garden looks amazing and we are delighted to have been part of such a great project that benefits so many people.
If you have any questions about our products or have photos of your installation to share with us then please do not hesitate to contact us.