Soft Landscaping
Planting schemes installed to specification and, crucially, kept alive afterwards. Trees, hedging, shrub beds, turf, and seeding for developments, campuses, and managed sites, with establishment maintenance from the same contractor and much of the stock grown in our own nursery.
Own Nursery Stock
What We Do
Commercial soft landscaping is the living half of external works: the supply and installation of trees, hedging, shrubs, herbaceous planting, turf, and seeded areas on commercial and development sites, usually to a landscape architect’s specification or a planning condition. Silver Tree Services installs and establishes soft landscaping across Gloucestershire and surrounding counties for developers, principal contractors, councils, schools, healthcare estates, and property managers, with a structural advantage most landscapers can’t offer: our own nursery in Shurdington growing a good share of the stock we plant.
What we deliver
- Tree planting: standards, semi-mature, and whips, with pits, staking, guards, and irrigation provision to specification
- Hedging: native mixed, formal, and screening hedges, planted and established
- Shrub and herbaceous planting to planting plans, including mulching and bed preparation
- Turfing and seeding: amenity turf, sports-grade where specified, wildflower and meadow seeding on conservation areas and margins
- Topsoil, cultivation, and ground preparation, because planting into unprepared ground is how schemes die
- Establishment maintenance: the watering, weeding, firming, and replacement programme through the defects period, typically 12 to 36 months, that turns an installed scheme into an established one
Planning conditions, discharged properly
For development sites, the landscape scheme is usually a planning condition, and a failed scheme is an undischarged condition. We install to the approved drawings, document the installation, and run the establishment maintenance so the scheme passes its checks, with replacements handled inside the programme rather than negotiated afterwards. Where retained trees sit within the scheme, we work to the tree protection plan, and our arboriculture teams handle any consented tree works under the same contract.
The nursery advantage
Stock from our own nursery means shorter supply chains, plants that haven’t spent a week dehydrating on a lorry, and honest substitution conversations when a specified plant is unavailable, proposed like-for-like from what we actually grow. For phased developments we can grow stock forward against your programme. It also means the planting contractor and the plant supplier are the same company, so there’s no warranty gap when something fails.
Installed, then maintained
The cheapest way to lose a landscape budget is to install a scheme and walk away. Our grounds maintenance teams take schemes from establishment into long-term care under the same contract, and the handover between “landscaper” and “maintainer” stops being a place where dead plants hide.
Why choose Silver Tree Services
Silver Tree Services has traded for over 20 years from Shurdington, Cheltenham, with 30+ qualified staff across seven specialist teams, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification, ARB Approved Contractor status, and SMAS SSIP accreditation. Crews are NPTC-certificated with IPAF and CSCS where work requires it, RAMS are produced per site, DBS-checked operatives are available for sensitive settings, and public and employers’ liability insurance covers every job. The client list, NHS, Gloucestershire Police, Stroud District Council, Savills, the Church of England, is the vetting evidence.
Areas we cover
Soft Landscaping across Gloucestershire, including Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Tewkesbury, Cirencester, and the Cotswolds, with commercial work across Bristol, Bath, Swindon plus surrounding counties and further afield for contract clients.
Pricing
Priced from the landscape drawings and plant schedule, with establishment maintenance itemised separately so you can see the real cost of a living scheme. Send the package and we’ll return an itemised proposal.
Frequently Asked Questions About Commercial Soft Landscaping
Frequently asked.
What does commercial soft landscaping include?
It covers the living elements of a site’s external works: tree planting, hedging, shrub and herbaceous beds, turfing, and seeding, installed to a landscape specification, plus the ground preparation underneath and the establishment maintenance afterwards. Silver Tree Services delivers full soft landscaping packages across Gloucestershire and surrounding counties, from single planting schemes to the landscape works for whole developments, with much of the stock grown in our own Shurdington nursery.
Can you install a landscape scheme to discharge a planning condition?
Yes. Silver Tree Services installs schemes to the approved landscape drawings and plant schedule, documents the installation, and runs the establishment maintenance through the defects period so the scheme is alive and compliant when the condition is checked. Failed planting is the most common reason landscape conditions stay undischarged, which is why we price establishment honestly alongside installation rather than treating it as an optional extra.
What is establishment maintenance and why does it matter?
Establishment maintenance is the programme of watering, weeding, firming, mulching, and replacing failures during a scheme’s first one to three years, the period when new planting either roots in or dies. A scheme without it routinely loses a large share of its plants, wasting the installation budget and breaching planning conditions. Silver Tree Services prices establishment as a defined programme with the installation, and can transition schemes into long-term grounds maintenance under the same contract.
Do you supply the plants as well as install them?
Yes, and a good share of our hedging, trees, and shrub stock comes from our own nursery in Shurdington, Cheltenham. That shortens the supply chain, keeps plants fresh, and means substitutions are proposed honestly from stock we actually grow when a specified plant is unavailable. It also closes the warranty gap: when the supplier and the installer are the same company, a failed plant is simply replaced rather than disputed.
Can you do wildflower and meadow seeding?
Yes. Silver Tree Services seeds wildflower and meadow areas on commercial sites, conservation margins, and amenity ground, including soil preparation, the right seed mix for the ground, and the first-seasons cutting regime that establishment depends on. Meadow areas are then maintained on their own late-season cutting calendar, which our grounds maintenance and flail mowing teams handle as part of the wider contract.
How is commercial soft landscaping priced?
From the landscape drawings and plant schedule where they exist, itemised by supply, installation, and establishment so the whole-life cost is visible, and from a site survey and written proposal where they don’t. Plant sizes, soil condition, access, and irrigation provision drive the price more than headline plant counts. Silver Tree Services returns transparent itemised proposals across Gloucestershire and surrounding counties, with the site visit free.
Ready When You Are
Planted to spec. Alive in year three.
Send the landscape drawings and plant schedule, and we’ll price the installation and the establishment honestly, as one document.
Or call · 01242 472560