The Brief
Located in a quaint village and largely hidden from the main entrance to the property, the ‘Podium Garden’ had a unique genius loci of its own, meaning we could have fun with the brief without the aesthetic restrictions of the surrounding area or properties. Our client’s wish was for a stylish outdoor living space with curves, which felt like a continued expression of their eclectic interior and flowed with the open plan kitchen and dining room when the bifold doors were open. The amazing views of the countryside were to be preserved but the surrounding stone walls hidden or softened. It was important to design a garden that made the most of morning, midday and evening sun with areas to eat, relax and entertain (but not cook) all year round with lots of planting and seasonal colour. A flexible dining or seating area which could provide shade on very hot days was requested. Some screening was required to create privacy from neighbouring properties, along with a storage space but most importantly, a lawn for Freddie the dog.
Design & Planting
The design began by breaking up what felt like a very rectangular, uninviting and exposed space using large, bespoke, raised Corten steel planting islands in organic shapes to create curves. These created several new zones in the garden, blurred the boundaries and gave a sense of prospect and enclosure, immediately making the space feel more interesting and comfortable to be in. Large freestanding fibreglass planters for gnarly Olive trees and trough planters for evergreen hedging provided further zoning, screening and added height, greenery and a sculptural quality. A large central border filled with clouds of Pinus mugo, pollinator friendly perennials including Astrantia, Helenium and Verbena and textural ornamental grasses such as Miscanthus, borrow the landscape beyond, so that parts of the garden appear to dissolve into the view. The large corten steel side borders contain mostly shrub and textural planting using a mix of evergreens, grasses and groundcover. This is to provide year-round interest and further conceal the boundary of the garden, breaking up the boxy shape. Taller corten cylinders within the borders allow for a deeper planting space for the rootballs of low growing multistem trees which add much needed height and shade and an interesting level change in the borders. We chose a mix of native and ornamental tree varieties such as Acer campestre (Field Maple), Cornus (Dogwood) as well as Amelanchier for their seasonal blossom and berries for wildlife, as well as great autumn and winter colour.
Considerations & Constraints
We named this project ‘The Podium’ because it has the unusual feature of being a garden built on two different sub-bases, half the garden is built above re-enforced hillside and half perched on top of the client’s garage. Technically neither a roof garden nor a true podium garden but a hybrid of the two, bringing with it many constraints and considerations from a technical perspective, the main issues being wind, weight and water.
The existing split levels of the roof garden influenced a two-tiered drainage system. We split the garden into two separate drainage zones using linear drains that ran along the width of the garden. We used an innovative product called Deckdrain which was laid over the concrete base and under all planting areas including the lawn to ensure a reliable drainage solution, help reduce water runoff and move surface water into the drainage system. A large water tank was installed under the concrete base at the top of the garden.
Structural integrity and load bearing was also a huge consideration when choosing materials and looking at build techniques to bring the design to life. A structural engineer signed off our plans and we designed the volume of soil to work within their calculations. We specified a specialist substrate designed for use on roof gardens which was extra lightweight and free draining to reduce the water weight stored in planting beds.
The concrete base of the garden could not be punctured or disturbed due to a risk of damaging the load bearing structure and the water proofing layer for the garage beneath. This meant we had to be very creative when designing the raised steel planters. We developed an internal bracket system to support the freestanding planters which were stabilised with steel tensioned wire to prevent warping due to the weight of soil and planting. Each planter section was manufactured locally, and heat rolled to create curves to our exact specification and built on site. Each one has an open and castellated base to allow water to move freely beneath.
We chose large format porcelain paving to match the clients interior and to reduce wastage and the number of cuts made by the landscaping team when compared to the smaller squares normally used for roof gardens. Each tile was cut on site to fit the curve of the steel planters. All the paving in the garden is laid on a pedestal system which reduces the requirement for a traditional MOT Type 1 subbase and gave us a cavity below the patio which is used to hide the conduit for the irrigation and lighting within the garden.
Due to being in a conservation area, the garden lighting had to be discreet and required planning approval. We have used bat friendly, low voltage lighting to softly illuminate the trees and wash up the planters visible from the house, so that the garden can be enjoyed well into the evening and looks great from inside the house even when the door are closed.
A few less glamourous considerations and additions which made the garden a safe and practical space were the design and installation of bespoke railings that wrap around the podium boundary. These were required due to the rise in floor level and to keep Freddie the dog contained within the garden. An out of site storage spaced tucked in a corner using black slatted timber screening and trough planters hides a garden shed, garden services and a rotary washing line. A unique paver style mowing strip around the lawn creates a decorative feature that accentuates the sinuous shapes whilst removing the need for manual edging or strimming.
Success.
The garden reveals itself as you walk around and use the space, with interesting zones and islands of planting appearing around each corner giving the illusion of a much larger space. Our clients now have a garden that is so much more than they thought possible, which has made the challenges faced bringing this project to life more than worth it. It is an aspirational, dream garden that provides a fun lifestyle element as well as an opportunity to grow beautiful flowers and actively garden. It is a perfectly crafted outdoor space to relax, enjoy and entertain. Beautiful wildlife friendly planting provides interest through scent, colour and texture from spring bulbs to autumn foliage. The new space provides a totally new area for nature and wildlife by transforming a sterile and hostile concrete space, into a new green and biodiverse garden that has resulted in an extremely high biodiversity net gain.
-Emily Barnes
