The creation of the landscape at Adare Manor (voted Hotel of the Year 2019) was one of our most ambitious projects to date and was headed up by Project manager, Gregg Fanning.
The project encompassed all soft landscape elements within the Adare Manor Estate and Golf Course, including the extensive in-house redesign and implementation of the Clubhouse landscape and surrounds. The project included the following key areas: Formal garden (Parterre), ballroom roof, spa roof, arrivals area, ballroom arrivals, cloister garden, riverside, smoking area (Ballroom), north car park, beechwood car park, main entrance, parkland landscaping, facilities, western access, golf course, tree planting. Redesign and build areas include the Clubhouse courtyard and course facing landscape, Lavander and Rose cottages and the Clubhouse carpark
The nature of the work encompassed a wide variety of landscape activities from procurement, design, implementation and maintenance. We were responsible for all aspects of the soft landscape for the entire estate. This required the establishment of an on-site logistics and administration office, dedicated nursery, the employment of specialists including civil, electrical and drainage engineers. A fire during construction provided the clients with the opportunity to re-look at major aspects of the landscape. Our team turned around the extensive redesign and implementation within an extremely narrow window.
Staff numbers varied over the duration from 20 to 80 and involved direct and sub contract employees. Beyond the actual management of the installation the works required constant reporting and liaison between clients, the numerous subcontractors, suppliers and designers. A few top line plant specifications include 300 50-120 trees, 30,000 transplants, 1700 hedging plants, 10,000 clipped Taxus, 225 topiary plants, over 5,000 herbaceous species, and 500,000m2 of cultivating and seeding.
Some of the challenges we faced during construction included the extremely limited time scale, which was further exacerbated through building delays, the uncovering of archaeological relics, damage caused by building contractors, necessity to work at night, a major fire during construction and poor weather. The procurement of high volumes of consistent quality materials and in particular, locally sourced soil. The transport and installation of 150 mature trees across and within an existing golf course without causing damage. The necessity to utilise a 300-ton crane to plant six mature trees at the entrance. Protection of landscape works while we worked around 700 building contractors. The sequencing of works created constant challenges as building works did not conform to schedules. This presented issues with resource and man power planning and the need to keep large volumes of high value trees and plants alive. The location of the site also presented logistical challenges for deliveries and skilled labour access. The level of administrative requirements in the form of constant reporting, checking and sign off also presented the company with challenges. The need to rapidly turn around a major redesign of the clubhouse landscape which included the creation of significant areas of planting which had previously been paved.
A selection of images of the construction phase.
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