St Catherine's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford with a large and diverse community.

The college site, established in 1962, consists of 9 acres of mostly Grade 1 listed buildings as well as a number of newer areas - some open spaces on reclaimed land. Head Gardener Simon Horwood says he relies on Headland Amenity to help with the college's complex nutritional requirements.


Head Gardener at St Catherine's College, Oxford, Simon Horwood

"With the site being on top of a university refuse tip, I only have around 1 metre of decent topsoil to work with. This means that preserving trees, lawns and plantings is very difficult. Not only that, but water dissipates through the surface very quickly."

Over his 10 years at the school Simon has gained a wealth of knowledge and experience in maintaining the site, but with a team of just three to support him, he was on the lookout for products that would make the maintenance tasks easier. Word of mouth led him to call Alex Hawkes from Headland Amenity to provide some new ideas and technical advice.

"The first thing Alex suggested we use was a wetting agent to try and overcome the problems we get with the free draining topsoil. We've been applying Tricure AD Granular for a while now, mainly on the lawns and it has worked really well - I'm so pleased with the results."

The college is also taking steps to become more self-sufficient and one way they're doing this is by producing their own compost in two on-site glasshouses. To maximise the success, Alex recommended Simon apply Naturvigor to impart chemical, physical and biological benefits to the composted material.

Another issue Simon has had to deal with this year was Japanese Knotweed in some properties on an attached annex site.

Simon again, "Alex was great and suggested Headland's New Way Weedspray, an environmentally sensitive solution as it breaks down to just water. This was really important as colleges and schools have to be careful what chemicals they use. It was a strategy that wouldn't completely remove the Knotweed but would help to bring it under control. The New Way Weedspray was applied on hard areas with great results before a targeted spray of stronger Dakar Pro (glyphosate) was applied. Any emerging weeds were spot-treated with New Way Weedspray and the combination of these two products cleared the site ready for the students to move in for the start of the new term. It has successfully reduced the invasive growth of the Knotweed but we'll be on the lookout for any further growth next year."

Final word from Simon, "We don't have a big budget to work with and my team are like margarine - spread so thin that the advice and help from Alex has been invaluable. The Headland products have gone a good way towards helping us deal with the mammoth task that is managing the many maintenance and nutritional requirements across the site."