Roundabouts at the cutting edge of garden design

You may have the wrong idea about roundabouts. Far from being functional barriers to stop cars crashing into each other, they are horticultural beacons. As well as encouraging road safety, they are a showcase for cutting-edge British garden design.

You don’t believe it? Then let me take you on a tour of the UK highways. You’ll soon start to see roundabouts in a new way.

We begin our trip in Yorkshire, where, on a roundabout in Leeds, an exuberant mass of purple and yellow flowers has been arranged in the shape of the Lexus car logo. Moving on to Harrogate, we drive around the magnificent new Diamond Jubilee roundabout on Royal Parade, in the middle of which stands a wrought-iron crown, spilling over with red, white and blue flowers.

Crossing over to Lancashire, we marvel at what’s been done in Oldham, where an everyday roundabout flower bed has been turned into a magical, fairy-tale seabed, in the form of a tableau comprised of sand, coral-like vegetation and a rusting, old pirate treasure chest.

Outside Barclays, in Stratford-upon-Avon, it’s standing room only for the mass of tightly packed yellow flowers that take up every inch of the little town centre roundabout. Meanwhile, the Colyton roundabout, just outside Cardiff, is so large (1,800ft by 500ft) that local nature groups organise guided tours for the botanically minded.

There’s plenty for them to see, too. Despite being surrounded and overshadowed by both the M4 and A470, this accidental patch of greenery plays host to two species of crickets (long-winged conehead and slender groundhopper). It also features five species of orchid: southern marsh, bee orchid, pyramidal, common twayblade and not just the normally pink common spotted, but rare crimson and purple variants, some of which have been dug up and removed by local flower-rustlers.

Meanwhile, in Truro, the message on the huge Trafalgar roundabout is spelt out in lettuces. Not only have the members of the city’s horticultural department created a full-scale image of the county’s winged emblem, the Cornish chough, but they have also announced their success in the annual Britain in Bloom contest, by creating the message “National BIB Finalist” in edible leaf form.

Then there are the garden statue and design statements, some of which would look bold in a full-scale RHS show, let alone at the junction of a dual-carriageway.

Take the 15ft-tall, metallic flying geese that soar up from the roundabout in the middle of the A6 at Belper, in Derbyshire. Or the giant silver cockerel that guards the grassy traffic interchange at Deepdene, in Dorking (it represents the five-toed variety of chicken peculiar to this area).

And for interpretation of a concept into full-blown roundabout reality, the prize for thoroughness and commitment has to go to Seaside Garden, at Herne Bay, in Kent. Here the notion of a traffic island has been given a whole new marine twist, in the form of a sea-blue-painted perimeter, encircling not just a bit of shingle and a few waving grasses, but a full-sized boat and a pair of brightly painted beach huts.

“We have very little vandalism, too,” says Herne Bay’s Colette Ashwin-Kean. “We made a point of involving local schoolchildren in the design and construction of our Seaside Garden, and I think the whole community feels rather proud of the finished product.

“In fact, it’s gone down so well, we’re thinking of building a similar roundabout at the other end of the town.”

This might sound extravagant at a time when we are all having to dig deeper into our pockets (and municipal parks departments are having to dig rather less deep, with fewer staff). But this roundabout renaissance is, for the most part, being funded not by the public purse, but by private sponsorship.

Recent years have seen the flowering of a small number of firms which specialise in persuading local businesses to “adopt” a traffic intersection in their area. Companies pay a sum of money: anything from £1,000 to £10,000 per year. In return they get to plant not just their corporate signboard in the middle of a busy roundabout, but to have said roundabout planted, beautified and maintained.

It’s big business. Over the past 10 years, Aberdeen City Council reckons to have received half a million pounds’ worth of income via roundabout sponsorship. In Wrexham, North Wales, it will cost you £2,000 per year to have your name on even the barest bit of bypass.

Further south, the London Borough of Hillingdon, has 25 sponsored roundabouts on its books (prices from £1,000 to £4,500 per year), while even a small town like Burgess Hill, in Sussex, has all of its eight roundabouts happily hooked up with sponsors, and a waiting list of firms keen to be involved.

The influx of cash has come with fresh attention for the quality of the planting. Where once roundabouts might have been dreary affairs with lawn and shrubs, now they are platforms for innovative horticultural thinking.

“Our displays have been developed using geraniums, polyanthus, hebe, lavandula, flax and a variety of grasses,” says Paul Richards of the London Borough of Hillingdon. “All planting schemes are carried out on an individual basis, and careful consideration is given to soil type, soil depth, ease of watering and exposure to wind, frost and sun.”

Plus car exhaust fumes, too. After all, these circular-shaped oases are located in busy roads, not the middle of Kew Gardens. Certain horticultural features aren’t an option. Towering, lush foliage, for instance.

“The layout of beds on a roundabout has to take vehicle sight lines into account,” says Marilyn Ayoade, communications officer at Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, in Surrey. “Tall planting is kept towards the centre,” so cars can see what’s going on around the edges.

That said, local authorities can differ widely when it comes to safety regulations.

“There are as many different rules as there are councils,” says Mark Barfoot, of Sponsorthisroundabout.com. “In one county, the biggest signboard you’re allowed is 800 by 225mm, but in the next-door county, it’s 1,625 by 625mm. Some local authorities let you put up signs that dwarf the roundabout, others make you put up signs so small, you can hardly read them.

“Some counties let you put up signs without applying for planning permission; others insist you apply for planning permission at £325 a time.”

Some sponsors, he adds, also need help with the specifics of the gardening. “It can be a minefield. You need to explain to them, for example, that it’s fine to plant daffodils, but that they only flower for a short time. Not only that, but for them to grow back healthily, you have to allow them to die back and be deadheaded. Which means there’s going to be a fair bit of time when the roundabout isn’t looking at its best.”

Along with the cost of maintenance, this is why more and more councils are moving away from seasonal bedding displays, and towards all-year-round arrangements, using dry beds instead of soil, plus drought-tolerant grasses and perennials instead of short-lived annuals.

Others are opting for paving or mosaic-type decoration. Those who remain wedded to a floral display are copying the artfully unkempt, wild-flower-meadow look, as perfected on two edge-of-town roundabouts in Loughborough, where it’s not just vehicles buzzing back and forth, but bees and other varieties of insect.

Naturally, the sponsorship consultants talk up the commercial benefits of exposure-by-roundabout.

“If a firm buys an advertisement in a newspaper, it’s in there one week, and gone the next,” says Peter Knightley of Ukroundabouts.com. “But a roundabout is seen every day by thousands of people.” What’s more, the money raised helps beautify not just that individual roundabout, but the whole area.

“We realised some years ago that, with our roundabouts, we were sitting on a gold mine,” says Patrick Phillips, head of horticulture at Bromley Council. “The money we make from roundabout sponsorship pays for a substantial part of our bedding throughout the entire borough.

“We’ve got just short of 100 roundabouts, of which 60 are already taken and another 40 are available.”

Happy executives, plenty of lovely planting, and free-flowing traffic. At these new roundabouts, businesses, plants and local councils all help each other. Virtuous circles, you might say.

Three firms that bring roundabout sponsors and local authorities together

Ukroundabouts.com (020 8869 9733)

Sponsorthisroundabout.com (01424 205406)

Marketing Force (01394 672467)