Environmental Sustainability & the Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Myth busting with Director of Horticulture David Richardson

Climate change and global warming have a major impact on the way our horticultural teams work.

To show how we’re rising to the challenge, we spoke with Director of Horticulture David Richardson about our environmentally sustainable approach to estate care.

Environmental Sustainability at the CWGC

 

 

Hi David, thanks for taking the time to speak to us! Firstly, let’s chat a little about environmental sustainability. Why is it a concern for Commonwealth War Graves?

Environmental sustainability for us working in the natural world is one of our main concerns. 

When we’re in our cemeteries and memorials worldwide, we are witnessing changes in weather patterns and climate. 

In Northern Europe seasons have become blurred and we're becoming used to records being broken for extreme weather.

With that in mind, what approaches have you and the horticultural team taken to embrace environmental sustainability? 

Our commitment to excellent standards of care for cemeteries and memorials hasn't changed but we are noticing and recording extreme heat and drought, and torrential rain which will influence how we do things moving forward.

We are very mindful of the impact of our work on the environment and for several years have been minimising the use of chemical products which are now largely eliminated from our horticultural and structural operations.

We are also monitoring how and where we use water for irrigation, particularly in the Mediterranean and North Africa where our gardens have largely been created using irrigation. 

When we are looking at tree planting, in particular, we are referencing global data. This gives indications of which species are going to be at risk due to changing weather patterns and choosing plants which will survive.

Interesting stuff. But what about planting? Do we know which plant varieties are reacting best to changing climates at our sites?

Commonwealth War Graves has gardeners working on every continent so it's really difficult to give a global indication of the changes.

Initially, in mid-July 2023 we're having record high temperatures and in northern Europe in the past winter we've had some extreme cold periods. The planting in our cemeteries and memorials reacts to this but there's often a time lag in terms of understanding impact.

We are seeing plant losses in species we thought were hardy. Even many well-established varieties have been showing a gradual decline. In this past winter species such as Phormium, the New Zealand flax has really taken a hammering in the UK.

We have enormous expertise within our gardening teams and the day-to-day observations and understanding of plants and planting allows us to constantly develop and refine the planting.

Speaking of developing and refining planting, the Commission has been trialling new approaches to maintenance, grassland development, and mowing cycles. Could you tell us a little bit more about this please from a sustainability perspective?

Image: Biodiversity is beginning to flourish in our cemeteries and memorials, something we are keen to promote.

Over the past five years, we've been really conscious of the need to look after our lawns in an environmentally sustainable way.

We have quite specific specifications for the maintenance of our sites, and we have raised the cutting height for all our lawns, as well as virtually eliminating the use of selective weed killers but concentrating on the root zone of the grass.

We are also using techniques like aerating scarifying top dressing and creating the ideal conditions for grass to grow.

In addition to this, we've also been working in some of our larger sites where we have large expanses of lawns outside of the burial areas and letting the grass just grow. We are already noticing large increases in the number of butterflies and insects in these areas.

These grassland areas are very beautiful but have also become real havens of biodiversity and create habitats for a wide range of species. We will work to develop these areas, reducing the soil nitrogen and then trying to increase the range of species.

That sounds beautiful! Do you have any examples of this new sustainable grassland we could take a look at, please?

Image: Orchids bloom at Ranville War Cemetery

We've been doing some work Ranville War Cemetery, Normandy, France, where, amazingly, we've had three species of orchid appear in the grassland areas.

We always knew that the seed bank within the soil is an incredible resource, but seeing orchids appear after a few months of just letting the grass grow feels really significant.

Fantastic! The orchids look lovely. Now, we know that some plants are more welcome than others. How are you tackling the less desirable species that crop up in our sites?

We are really tolerant of different species within our lawns. 

The legislation regarding chemicals has thankfully really shifted and there are no selective weed killers available on the market in many of the countries where we work. 

Even before this, we were being much more tolerant of different species such as clover and daisies and veronica. 

There are still times when we want to remove certain plants, for example, there is some hand weeding of dandelions in lawns.
 
Dandelions are great for early pollinators when we look at the insect life within our cemeteries, but not very good at withstanding wear and footfall, so there are times when we will hand weed.

I think there's been a wonderful shift in public perception of fine horticultural maintenance. We like many of our partner organisations, such as the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, English Heritage, the National Trust, and the Royal Horticultural Society are embracing this change.

Having species-rich lawns is becoming the norm.

There are still a few plants that we find challenging which we will continue to remove, particularly those which have the potential to be harmful.

Image: Notice the daisies on the lawn? Such plants help improve the biodiversity of our sites.

Let’s move on to borders and spaces around headstones. Are there any plans to make any drastic changes to planting and maintenance cycles? 

Our headstone borders are still very much part of the Commonwealth War Graves brand and so there's no radical shift in our approach to our magnificent flowering borders. 

We're spending a lot of time thinking about planting which is appropriate and choosing the right combination of plants for each particular site and location.
 
We have really reduced the amount of plant material that we buy from outside and we're increasingly using our own plantings as nursery beds for our herbaceous and alpine plants in particular.

Image: Headstone borders will remain bursting with beautiful blooms.

Great stuff. We’ve briefly touched on this, but we’ve removed chemicals as much as possible when caring for our plant life around the world. What are we doing to look after our plant life without them?

There is a very well-used term we use in the horticulture world: “Right plant, right place”.

One of the fundamental things is choosing plants which are going to thrive in a particular environment.

We're really concentrating on our soils and making our plants as healthy as possible which helps them fight disease, but we are now tolerant of other diseases such as black spots on roses which can mean foliage loss as well as markings on the leaves.

We accept that in the cycle of nature, there are going to be times when some of our plants don't look as good as they could, but I really think the shift is in the way that we look at the use of chemicals and the potential harm to the environment. 

We are very much custodians of our great heritage and so eliminating the use of chemicals feels exactly right in terms of what we do.

Great! Moving from plants to people, what kind of training is the Horticultural team doing to help them embrace sustainability?

Environmental sustainability is now part of everything that we do in the Horticultural team. It's woven through our horticultural training programmes. 

We've created focus groups with staff worldwide who are leading initiatives in their own workplaces. 

It's great that we're on the journey, of course, there's a lot of work still to be done but we're really thinking about the long term.

We are working closely with the Commission’s Head of Environmental Sustainability to see what other steps we can take and how our team can get involved.

That’s great to hear! So, what about other similar organisations? Are we working with them to push forward on environmental sustainability?

We have got great partnerships with a wide range of other horticultural organisations, and we all pull on each other 's expertise and resources. 

It's great that, within the horticultural profession, colleagues are really keen to share and learn. 

We're just at the start of our environmental sustainability journey but we've made some great progress.

Image: Longer grasslands and meadowing creates another form of beauty in keeping with the CWGC's horticulture practices and philosophy.

And finally, what should visitors expect when visiting a CWGC site? Will our sites continue to inspire and delight?

Absolutely.
 
We are really enhancing what we have done for over 100 years and in many ways have been given some fresh impetus with our drive to be truly environmentally sustainable.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, David! It’s been enlightening.

Learn more about Commonwealth War Graves & Sustainability

We are committed to ensuring our cemeteries and memorials remain a fitting resting place for the dead of the World Wars with environmentally conscious and sustainable methods.

Discover how Commonwealth War Graves is rising to the challenges climate change presents via our Sustainability page.

Got a question or query on our sustainable practices and philosophy? Please contact us and we’ll do our best to answer.