WELCOME to the season of Spring gardening.

Hello there - I am back albeit a little late. I could say that I have been busy planning, drawing and designing gardens, digging, weeding, pruning etc., but no I just forgot to update!! I think it is an age thing.......

Well the winter has come and gone without too much ado! In the Essex area we only experienced approximately 3-4 cold spells and that kept our salt spreading machines and operatives busy but not too many late nights! In between the cold spells we certainly had plenty of rain which has slowed our spring work down but we are now getting things up to date. We are now waiting for the spring rush and you know what will happen then, machinery will break down!

Moving back to all the winter rain, all our water storage tanks are now overflowing so hopefully this also goes for the water company stocks and that we will not experience another hose pipe ban.

With all the rain we have experienced an increase in drainage enquiries and we have secured some contracts to drain gardens and these are underway. With the past dry summers and winters, drainage had all but been forgotten (every cloud has a silver lining).

Regarding our team at Dagenham Landscapes, this season we welcome Darren Waterman, a young man with plenty of energy and enthusiasm. Darren's aim is to take over from some of us older fellas and will ultimately be an estimator/manager. To help him achieve these goals, he will work through the landscape/maintenance sections plus administration and office procedures. With the knowledge gained he will be in good stead to implement any new ideas he may have - all for the good hopefully! I wish him luck.

Our other new member is a DAF 45 crane-loading lorry. This now brings our fleet of vehicles to six. It also allows us to deliver soil/bark in the jumbo bags and of course other materials can be lifted off which will greatly help the landscaping teams (check out the photos). The operator on this occasion is our Darren Waterman.

	Double click on image to enlarge

Before signing off we have entered one of our landscape schemes into the BALI Awards for 2007. I will keep you all updated with photos and progress in due course so keeping my fingers crossed of the outcome.

Wishing you all well for the spring season and if you need any advice, help or soft landscape materials - you know where we are.

Colin