Kings Garden at Balmoral gets a Takeuchi FR makeover  

Kings Garden at Balmoral gets a Takeuchi FR makeover 
The creation of the giant thistle and maze design at Balmoral called for some clever groundworks and innovative machinery.

When the Kings Garden at Balmoral was scheduled for a re design incorporating 2 new garden mazes, a local civil engineering company Nicol of Skene in Aberdeenshire were put in charge to deliver the groundworks ready for this rather special project. 

Nicol’s have many Takeuchi excavators their extensive fleet and the 6-tonne FR with STS boom identified as the machine for the job. The FR fitted with a Trimble machine control system by Sitech translated the CAD landscape design drawings into the site dig-plan.

WHY an FR with STS
As excavators go, the Takeuchi FR has always been regarded as quite a uniquely special machine. Its boom configuration is unique and patented with the STS Side to Side Offset boom giving operators an unrivalled ability to work in the most difficult spaces and at different angles. 

In the maze the machine was programmed to use GPS to accurately create 1.2m curved paths and 0.8m wide beds, all ready for planting to become 6ft high walls. The Takeuchi TB257FR provided the offset boom versatility for the complex series of beds, which will grow to become 6ft high walls of the maze once fully grown.  

With a compact machine footprint of just 2000x2500mm the machine gets access where others can’t. Without moving the tracks and having to reposition the machine, the STS boom can parallel trench both to the left or right and anywhere along the full front of the machine. This flexibility proved invaluable amongst the complex series of beds of the maze. 

Nicol’s of Skene were keen to work on this prestigious project and their machine operators were trained on the new Trimble technology. Each maze had to have original groundworks ready for the landscaping shrubs and the whole maze design and future growth relied upon the accuracy and foundation of the groundworks excavation.  

The FR machines were fitted with Trimble Earthworks that had pre-programmed the ground works design template. The job was completed in record time within 12 weeks and was soon followed by the second maze design recently completed again using Trimble Earthworks and the Takeuchi FR.