British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) South Thames group organised Makita, Stihl, RUBI, Kress and many more suppliers at the Machinery Day at Merrist Wood on 4th Oct 2024. Also, the GoLandscape team from BALI were there looking for ambassadors to go into schools to talk about careers in landscaping and Merrist Wood’s Activate learning, who were looking for placements for their landscaping apprentices.
RUBI diversified into the landscape sector in 2019 when porcelain tiles started to be used outside. Existing paving cutting methods ended up chipping the tiles, and this is a problem which RUBI solved by developing a range of specialist tools. They were promoting their bullnose bit at Merrist Wood, that can cut up to 63 linear meters (lm) for £130, which is a vast saving on the traditional method by stonemasons, which is £45 plm.
Makita tools are battery packed for versatility. Makita are willing to come into schools and colleges to give health and safety talks and demonstrate the tools. They realise the importance of giving teenagers the opportunity to try out the tools to overcome obstacles to using the tools and choose a career that involves the tools. Getting hands on matters.
Plant has evolved into one machine with many attachments.
I was quite taken by Compact Loaders UK’s Sherpa, which had skinny wheels that allow access to site via very narrow gaps of 68cm, and then once on site you can put on the fatter wheels, ready for work. It is a big outlay to buy plant and servicing them is an issue, which is why hiring plant has always been the preferable option. Interestingly the Sherpa has a network of service engineers who will come to site and deal with any service or problems with the machines. They will look to service any other tools or machines you have. Multi One is a larger version of the plant with up to 170 attachments. One of the advantages of the Multi One is that is better for unloading trees from lorries and has a root ball grabber.
KRESS had some lovely new toys, and I am putting the pruner on my Christmas list! Glendale’s maintenance teams have these, and it has improved their job no end apparently. The chain in the pruner is at a speed below that which would classify it as a chainsaw, reducing the need for specialist training and equipment.
Kress have put a lot of development into their robotic lawnmower which is controlled by GPS. There is no need for a fence limiter. The GPS is linked to the nearest dealership and will increase their network to cover any purchase, even including the Scottish Highlands. It is virtually theftproof as it only works on Kress’s GPS system and the co-ordinates input. There are variety of sizes for gardens, up to golf courses, which I believe is the desired client. They start at £1300, which is a lot cheaper than a ride on mower. Also shown below is the charging port. There is no need for broadband to operate as it runs on a phone signal. It might do a few gardeners out of job, or you could just get them on tidying up your borders. You never know, this might be the solution to filling the skills gaps in the landscape sector.
Lunch was delicious pizza and the afternoon entailed a discussion on the merits of the machinery and whether owning was better than hiring. The consensus was it was worth owning if you had good locks such as Meck. There is a move to the battery-operated tools as the noise and vibrations are less, which leads to happy clients and safer use for staff. There does appear to be a skills shortage for repairing tools, so, moving toward battery operated tools does reduce the need for mechanics. The key to battery operated tools appears to be that you need to be in the possession of a fast charger that can recharge the batteries in 25mins to give 2-hour trigger time.
The day finished off with a very informative talk from Lyndon from Holly Landscape Training about Health and Safety training. His first point was that you need to make sure any trainers are ABA approved as they are accepted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Your insurance is void if you are not trained. If your training is booked in then you are covered. If you are not tracking any accident on site, including bumps and bruises, it sends a red flag to the HSE. If they come to site and they will investigate more thoroughly. Apparently, ignorance is no defence. Near misses need to be tracked and to improve participation from staff, incentives with donations to charities has worked for some in the past. An interesting point that Lyndon made was that both the manager and the supervisor need to be trained, otherwise the manager can’t manage. Lyndon also explained that a recorded conversation on your phone giving date and who is present, followed with a verbal risk assessment and task assessment (RAMS) is a valid. This was warmly received as a new method for recording RAMS. The final learning point about plant operators is that training and being authorised to use plant is one thing but the plant operator needs two year’s experience to be considered competent.
Such an informative day and I have already shared some of the learning with my clients. Thank you to the South Thames BALI team for organising this event.