Millstone Landscapes Ltd Blog

*Ash Dieback Disease Update*

Ash dieback is a disease found on Fraxinus varieties or its common name Ash tree’s.  The dieback is caused from a fungus called Chalara fraxinea.  The disease causes leaf loss during the growing season and crown dieback.  The disease has been recently identified in several counties with the disease spreading from Europe.  Ash trees of all ages can be affected with the disease, particularly common in young saplings.  We have been very proactive in making site inspections on our projects which have fraxinus species planted.  We have currently found no evidence  of the disease on our sites. 

We have temporarily stopped planting Ash varieties as a precaution and will continue to monitor the spread of the disease.

Millstone Christmas Shoot 2012

Millstone Landscapes Ltd hosted another succesfull corporate shooting day on Sunday 25th November.  We proved very lucky with the weather on as it remained dry in the morning for the shooting.  The prize Trophy, crafted by our in-house carpenter!?!, was won by the 2011 winners Persimmon Homes and was presented on the day by Arthur to Adrian Smith.  Top Gun on the day was our Sales Manager Matt with a score of 43 out of 50 shots. The shooting and the food was greatly enjoyed by all with special thanks to Singleton cafe.  We are delighted to announce that we managed to raise £205.00 for our local charity St Wilfreds Hospice on the day.  May we thank all those who attented to help make the day an enjoyable and worthwhile event.

Millstone Landscapes Ltd are NHBC Award Winners 2012

We are delighted to announce that Millstone Landscapes Ltd has succesfully won 3 NHBC Pride In The Job Awards on Sites which we have landscaped in 2012.  We feel very proud to have contributed towards our clients achievements this year and we will strive to continue to provide a superior quality of service to our clients throughout 2013. 

May we offer our congratulations to all those companies involved in winning the award alongside us.

Quote from our Sales Manager “It is a great achievement for us to be able to associate ourselves with award winning developers.  It shows what our hard work and high quality workmanship can achieve.  Our company will continue to grow in 2013, working alongside new and existing clients, providing an award winning standard of service”.

Millstone Win At Charity Shooting Day

Ben Gilbert of Millstone Landscapes Ltd succesfully won the award for Top Gun at the Redrow Homes Charity shooting day.  The event proved to be a huge success raising over £6000 for Charity.  We are delighted to have been able to take part and contribute towards raising this considerable sum of money.  We at Millstone Landscapes Ltd try to help when we can towards funding needy charities, as we feel it is important to help those less fortunate.  Many congratulations to Ben for scoring 46 out of 50 shots and beating a field of 65 competitors on the day.

New Contract won at Durrants Village, Faygate

Millstone Landscapes Ltd has successfully won the Landscaping Contract for the site landscaping of a new retirement village in Faygate.  Durrants Village, being built by Ardmore Construction, will be constructed over a 3-4 year period and will involve carrying out some major landscaping works.  We very much look forward to working alongside Ardmore Construction, who we hope to form a close partnership with, to create a beautiful landscaped environment for its new residents to enjoy.

Millstone Approaching Milestone

At this year end, Millstone Landscapes Ltd have been trading for 20 years.  Starting in 1992 we have grown to become an established name in our industry, providing our clients with a high standard professional service.  We would like to thank all our clients for there continued custom over the past 20 years.  We aim to continue to grow and to provide a reliable, professional service to all our new and existing clients for many more years to come.  Thank you.

Congratulations to Team GB

Millstone Landscapes Ltd would like to send our sincere congratulations to all those Great Britain Medal Winners at the 2012 Olympic Games.  We have all been watching with great enthusiasm with some of us being lucky enough to attend some of the events in London.  All the athletes have shown what hard work and dedication can reward.  Well done.

Salisbury Show Home Garden Completed

Millstone Landscapes Ltd have finished creating a beautiful Show Home Garden for Linden Homes in Salisbury.  We offer a complete landscaping service from initial design stage to practical completion.  Working to a within a tight deadline and set budget, we pride ourselves on making each garden unique and specific to the target audience.  We are very pleased to be working alongside the Linden Homes Sales department, creating individual, eye catching displays for them at numourous developments.

Taylor Wimpey Contract Won

Millstone Landscapes Ltd are delighted to have won a new contract with Taylor Wimpey Homes at Hambrook, West Sussex.  This will be our first site working alongside Taylor Wimpey and we hope it will be the start of a long and succesfull working partnership together.  We will strive to create a highly aesthetic landscaped development for them at Hambrook.

Sponsored Fire Walk

Congratulations to Paul for completing the sponsored Fire Walk on Saturday in aid of Winstons Wish appeal.  He managed to walk into work unscathed this morning!! Well done Paul.  By taking part, he has raised money to help a very worthy charity. We would like to thank all those who donated.

Millstone Landscapes Ltd to Donate Trees to Local Community

To mark the Queens Jubilee this year Millstone Landscapes will be donating six lime trees to Lavant Parish council to plant on the village green.  Each tree will represent a decade of the Queens Reign.  It has also been agreed that we will be donating an English Oak tree to Lavant C of E Primary school to be planted as a commemerative feature.  Here at Millstone Landscapes Ltd we know how important it is to help our local community. By donating these trees we hope that they will grow and be enjoyed by residents for many generations.

New Projects Co-ordinator

We all at Millstone Landscapes Ltd would like to give a warm welcome to Jake Smith our new Projects Co-ordinator.  Jakes main role will be to liase with onsite managers and to organise our teams to ensure complete efficiency on all our existing and forthcoming contracts.  Jake has a wealth of experience in Landscaping, carrying out many commercial and residential landscaping contracts for developers in the past.  We see him as an asset to the company and we wish him every success in his new role. Welcome.

Happy New Year 2012

All of us here at Millstone Landscapes Ltd would like to wish all our clients a Happy New Year and wish them all a prosperous and productive Year.  We look forward to working alongside you all throughout the year on many new and existing projects.

Annual Christmas Shoot 2011

Thank you to all those who attended the Christmas clay pigeon shooting event on Sunday 27th Nov.  A great day was had by all.  The weather was perfect, the shooting was competitive and the company was great.  May we add our congratulations to Persimmon Homes South Coast who won best scoring team on the day.  The priceless Millstone trophy was presented by Arthur to Chris Holt on the day, of which has now taken pride of place in their regional offices. We are also pleased to announce that the raffle on the day raised £110.00 for the African Children Charity.

Persimmon Homes South Coast Winners 2011

New Works Division in Hampshire

Millstone Landscapes Ltd are pleased to announce that we have established a new base in Andover.  From here we will be operating to sites in the Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire areas.  Mr Roger Moore our Projects Manager will be running the division and we wish him every success. 

                                                         Our new telephone number for this area is: 01264 712173.  For any enquiries please call the office and we will be more than happy to help.

NHBC Pride In The Job Awards 2011

Millstone Landscapes Ltd have landscaped five of the sites awarded NHBC awards this year being Barratt Homes at Felpham,  A2 Dominion Homes at Walton on Thames, Charles Church at North Bersted and Persimmon Homes at Picket twenty and Shaftesbury.  We are very proud to have worked alongside these companies to ensure that the site landscaping was carried out and maintained to a very high standard throughout 2011. We would like to congratulate our clients on their success and hope to maintain our highly committed working relationship with them on many other future developments.

New contract won in Didcot!

Millstone Landscapes Ltd are delighted to announce that we will be working alongside David Wilson Homes at Great Western Park in Didcot.  We will strive in creating yet another high quality landscaped housing development and are looking forward to again working for such a highly renownned housing developer.

The dreaded Knotweed

We have found that over the past few years the problem of Japanese Knotweed is increasing throughout the southern counties and many of our clients involved with the construction industry, and also local authorities, are coming across this evasive weed.

We at Millstone Landscapes Ltd have been dealing with this on-going problem for many years and offer a complete service from identification of the weed to compiling a detailed course of action to remove it from sites.

We are currently chemically treating several large infestations and are dealing with many enquiries on a weekly basis.  E-mail sales@millstonelandscapes.co.uk or contact our offices with any enquiries.

Sponsored Skydive for RNIB

We at Millstone Landscapes wish the best of luck to our Sales Manager, Matt , who is attempting to raise enough money to skydive for the RNIB. We fully appreciate what a great charity this is and wish him all the encouragement and luck in raising funds for this organisation.  He’s asked anyone who would like to sponsor him to contact the office or message him at matt@millstonelandscapes.co.uk.  All contributions we’re sure will be greatly accepted.  We all hope he can raise enough money to take the jump.

Millstone Landscapes Ltd to hold St Wilfrid’s Charity Event

We at Millstone Landscapes Ltd are very pleased to be involved with the opening of a new phase of housing at the Berkeley Homes site at North Bersted on the 18th June.  We will be setting up a plant sale stall on the day to try and raise funds for our chosen charity St Wilfrid’s Hospice, who we have supported for many years.  We wish Berkeley Homes every success with this new phase. We will be working alongside them to implement the new landscaping scheme throughout the new phase.

We have recently completed the structural landscaping to the new road layout at North Bersted.  This involved designing and planting the new roundabout, on which we planted over 400 ground cover roses.  Several hundred tree whips and standard trees were also planted alongside the road on the approaching verges.  Our clients are delighted with the end result.

Growth in the Millstone Landscapes Team

2011 has started with growth not only on our plantings and landscapes, but also in the Millstone team where we have some new members of staff. Since the start of the year we have employed five new landscapers, a new Yards man who commenced at the beginning of April and a Projects Manager to help keep things running smoothly on sites. A Sales Manager has been appointed to start in May; he will be generating new projects and re-launching the private landscaping side of the business.

Our apprentice has passed his CSCS Health and Safety test and is taking his Brush Cutting course very soon – he attends Chichester College once a week.

April see’s 300,000 tree’s & a superb landscaping project in Andover for Millstone Landscapes

Maintaining your Landscape & Maintaining our Equipment

New Chichester to Bognor Roundabout Landscaping Contract Awarded to Millstone Landscapes

We are pleased to have the contract to design and plant up the new roundabout and surrounding area of the new roundabout on the Chichester Road into Bognor Regis, working for a consortium of developers (Persimmon Homes, Charles Church and Berkeley Homes).

Planting consists of over two thousand ground cover Roses in four varieties with Pine trees as the structural feature in the centre.
The approach road verges will be planted with native trees and hedges and should be completed by Easter.  Check back here for updates.

If you are a local authority or a developer and require quality landscaping services please contact us for a free estimate.

Millstone Landscapes – Proud to be recycling 85% of our waste

Re-Cycling – The company is pleased to report that 85% of waste materials produced is re-cycled. All flower pots are given to local nurseries, green waste is processed into compost, paper from the office is regularly collected by a re-cycling company, and pallets and wood waste is chipped into a mulch material which is then re-used for woodland paths. We are working towards a 0% waste and hope to achieve this over the coming years.

Latest News – Millstone Planting Contract in Hampshire

We have recently won a large planting contract close to Andover in Hampshire. The first stage commences in February 2011 and involves planting 20,000 tree whips as a buffer zone against the adjoining motorway. Further stages will commence in Autumn 2011.

Another interesting project that the company have just completed in Dorset involved re-layering of ancient hedgerows on a new development site. The hedges had been untouched for over thirty years and some major layering and under-planting works were carried out.

Millstone Association with The Princes Trust scheme

Millstone Landscapes is pleased to be associated with The Princes Trust scheme, and in October one of our Directors gave a presentation to the local group on the subject of interviewing and what is generally expected by an employer – giving the students an insight into the other side of the table.   Following this, Millstone Landscapes offered a 2-week work experience placement to one of the students followed by a permanent position commencing in the New Year.

At the end of November one of our landscaping teams erected a huge 25 foot Christmas tree with almost a thousand twinkling lights outside the Show Homes at the new Felpham housing development site.

It seems a long way off, but Landscapers have to be thinking about the spring in the winter, and during November Millstones planted many thousands of colourful spring-flowering bulbs to create a stunning display at Easter outside many of our current working sites.

Trading is still very tough but hopes are high for a better year in 2011 and, on a happier note, this year saw the wedding of our Projects Co-Ordinator in September and two beautiful baby girls born in November!
Further information about The Prince’s Trust is available at www.princes-trust.org.uk