Midsummer Boulevard East – Green Heritage and Future

Introduction

Central Milton Keynes’ landscaping was created by renowned landscape designers such as Peter Youngman, Neil Higson and Tony Southard. The formative work was undertaken by Tony, who also planted the Shopping Building with Andrew Snoddyfrom Edinburgh Botanic Garden.

Tony set about creating the planting design – London plane trees along the boulevards, with ornamental trees such as rowans, cherries and apples on the streets – as colour was important – and horse chestnuts on the Gates to create a sense
of place and orientation. Further subgroups of planting laid out according to the design structure covered car parks
and squares.

Note how the Shopping Building is not central to its grid – it is offset to the north to give more space on this sunny southern side for generous planting including more tropical palms and cacti on Midsummer Arcade. It was also designed for people to dwell and hold public events, an important design attribute as future plans to develop Midsummer Boulevard East take shape.

The boulevards

The London Planes on Boulevards were planned to take 90 years to mature to give scale to the setting, provide a canopy and weather protection. Raised planting beds in high quality granite along with smaller tree species close to the buildings echoed the grid structure and rhythm.

As the cherry tree is relatively short-lived replanting is required. This is underway, but using a broader pallet of trees to help insure against climate change and invasive pest species. Advances in planting design now allows trees to be better contained so their roots do not damage the surroundings infrastructure, but the tree can still thrive.