Sunday 31 March 2019

New deck in north London

Photo by Krisztian Sipos

This north London garden slopes steeply away from the house and needed, as a matter of priority, a new deck to replace the old softwood platform. We used Senate Composite decking in teak and ebony to create the two-colour, split-level deck. The balustrade was fitted with horizontal steel wires rather than timber banisters, so as not to obstruct the view of the garden from the house.

The gabion retaining wall marks the boundary of the lawn, and the planting area below it, with a mini-orchard of fruit trees – plum, greengage and two dessert apples, with an apricot planted against the west-facing wall just below the new deck – at the bottom
of the garden. A profusion of alpine strawberry plants were planted under the fruit trees, giving the client a ready supply for summer breakfasts.





Photo by Krisztian Sipos
The client is a keen gardener and we were able to keep and replant her favourite hellebores, Euphorbia and hydrangeas among others during the reconstruction process. The new plants concentrated on adding year-round colour and texture with many requested by the client: stately Sisyrinchium striatumRosa ‘St Swithun’ to scramble over the fence by the lower deck, a Passiflora caerulea to add exotic blooms to the main planting area.
Photo by Krisztian Sipos


We fed and reconditioned the soil to give new plants a good head-start and to rejuvenate some of the existing ones – a Callicarpa produced its bright purple berries for the first time ever in the autumn following the redesign.
Many thanks to Daniel O'Neill, Sam Maindonald and the team at Nordland Landscapes for their great work on the hard landscaping. More details on this and other Urban Hedgerow projects at www.urbanhedgerow.co.uk.