Buckinghamshire’s
Waddesdon Manor has recently turned to HusqvarnaAutomower to maintain a complex grass maze situated in the middle of a
wild grass area at the property.
Located
in the Aylesbury Vale, Waddesdon Manor is a Grade I listed house and Garden
which was built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the 1870s. The stunning
location is owned by the National Trust, and managed by the Rothschild
Foundation and is one of the Trust’s most visited garden properties, with over
471,000 visitors in 2018.
This
summer, the gardens team of Waddesdon Manor saw the opportunity to install a
grass maze at the location and were keen to explore an automated solution in
order to keep the walkway section of the maze maintained.
The use
of automated technology was important to the team’s plans due to the location
and the amount of time it would take to maintain the maze. Because of the
distance between the maze and the team’s machinery sheds, this presented a
problem. Furthermore, as the maze area was complex to cut, it would take a lot
longer for the team to complete.
Authorised
Husqvarna dealer, RT Machinery, provided advice on Husqvarna Automower and
completed an initial assessment followed by an expert installation which
required two Husqvarna Automower products to be installed in order to deal with
the complexities of the maze.
This
installation was challenging for the obvious reason of the maze’s layout but
also because the machines needed to find their way home to their respective
charging points. Typically, the mowers would have guide wires to guide them to
their charging station, however blind alleys meant this couldn’t be done –
further increasing the challenge.
Over a
two-month period the Husqvarna products have excelled. Gardens Manager, Mike
Buffin, commented on the performance of the products in light of the
challenging location: “We’ve been very impressed with the two Husqvarna robots
and they have shown just how well they can handle complex areas by keeping our
maze in great condition. The mowers have been out cutting whilst people are in
the maze, something which we didn’t think would be possible initially. Children
find them fascinating and we’ve seen people follow them as they go about their
work.
“The
robotic mowers have saved the grounds team a great deal of time, allowing us to
focus on other tasks whilst the maze is taken care of. We have asked guests to
come up with names for the two robots and people have been tracking them on
Facebook, which is fantastic to see.”
Waddesdon
Manor is part of a growing list of locations across the UK putting their faith
in Husqvarna Automower. These range from municipalities (Edinburgh, London
& Glasgow), botanic gardens, multi-national headquarters, stately homes,
sports facilities, universities & schools and zoos & animal parks.
