The potential of creating diverse plant communities and important habitats by freeing yourself from the yoke of top soil are huge.  We will look at how using mineral soils, construction waste and sands can help to redress the ‘blandlandscaping' within public space, developments and highways.  Taking the open mosaic habitat as our template we look at the possibilities of using soils to dictate the plants, invertebrates and future maintenance of new landscapes and how this can feed into garden design.