Sunshine and laptops – striking the balance

Hello  everyone.

Look at this sunshine and warmth we are all having finally – with a bit of rain in between for good measure.

Down here, on the South Coast our growing season is 3 to 4 weeks behind schedule due to the cold snap we had earlier on in the year.

Not only has this affected our floral displays being way behind their usual schedules for being showcased, it has also affected the strength of those first buds and shoots from being exposed to that extreme cold.

It’s really affected the growth rates right across the whole portfolio and the evidence of the cold snap is there plain to see with burns on the foliage.

We now find ourselves chasing our tails with the grass – perfect mixture of warmth and rain to really aid growth. The one good thing about this though is that we don’t need to worry quite so much about watering all those new trees we have planted with the slight intervals of rain we are still getting.

Over the years I am watching the details of our climate closer and closer and seeing the impacts this is having on our landscapes and trying to work through that complexity and huge variances in planning / preparing our landscape designs and changes to enable it to adapt to these extreme variances.

I think these aspects of our roles, people very rarely talk about or probably even think we are having to plan for.

I am finding the balance of being behind a laptop as a manager and the need to be in tune with our environment on a personal level is becoming more and more conflicting and I’m not sure that I have balance right to be honest. I’m thinking too much screen time (as I now need glasses due to zoom tipping my poor eyes over the edge) and not enough time on the ground to do the work that we need to do. Nobody else will be doing it after all.

With that in mind, I am closing off the blog to get outside

Pippa

Philippa Reece Parks & Foreshore Manager, Adur & Worthing Councils