One of the UK’s top landscape and maintenance contractors, Ashlea Ltd, has teamed up with leading commercial nursery Johnsons of Whixley to complete the soft landscaping at the Whinfell Forest Center Parcs Visitor Centre, giving it a new look for reopening after lockdown restrictions.
The popular holiday destination is situated at Penrith, on the edge of the Lake District National Park. Set within 400 acres, Whinfell Forest is the largest of Center Parcs’ five UK villages, offering a range of indoor and outdoor activities, restaurants and shops that attracts thousands of holidaymakers every year.
Landscape and maintenance specialist Ashlea Ltd has completed several hard and soft landscaping projects at the site in recent years. The latest includes clearing and replanting the banking at the visitor centre.
Johnsons of Whixley supplied more than 250 plants to complete the banking’s transformation. The supply included a mixture of shrubs, grasses, and ferns with varieties such as Euonymus ‘Emerald Gaiety’, Pinus mugo, Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’, Cotinus’ Royal Purple’, Mahonia x media ‘ Charity’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘ Zebrinus’ and Dryopteris erythrosora.
Wayne Dand, Contracts Director at Ashlea Ltd, said: Once again Johnsons Of Whixley excelled in the delivery and supply of mature shrubs to enhance the Visitors Centre embankment prior to the park opening In July 2020. The embankment is situated on a busy route to the visitors centre and is always far too busy to close the footways for completion of the works. Due to the park being closed during the lockdown, the opportunity came to remove the old and tired planting and replace with a new mature planting design to freshen the area for reopening.”
Johnsons of Whixley’s marketing manager, Eleanor Richardson, added: “It’s great to have supplied another area of the well-loved Whinfell Forest Center Parcs via our long-standing customer Ashlea Ltd. Thousands of families visit here each year, so it’s fantastic to be enhancing the already beautiful outside space with hundreds of our plants.”