UP ON THE ROOF
On the roof of their London town house, Ben Pentreath and Charlie McCormick have created a flower-filled roof garden using only container-grown plants
You need strong legs to find the roof terrace of the florist Charlie McCormick and his husband, interior designer Ben Pentreath. Climb four flights of the handsome Bloomsbury town house – a brief pause to admire the ‘flower room’, blooms languishing in the butler’s sink – then it’s another set of stairs before a sun-drenched table comes into view.
It’s not easy keeping plants in pots alive at the best of times. But when you throw in that Charlie and Ben split their time between here and a parsonage in Dorset with its own acre of garden, in which Charlie grows dahlias and tulips for sale, it’s harder than most. “From August, we’re either in Dorset or away.” An automatic watering system seemed a good solution until it burst, prompting a note pushed through the trellis from their neighbours saying water had been gushing four metres into the air every night at 2am.
New Zealander Charlie grew up on a sheep farm, displaying cut flowers at the village shows. A stint working as ‘manny’ to Bridget Elworthy, half of the florists The Land Gardeners, developed his eye for generous tapestries of colour. His images of the parsonage cutting beds attract what you might call a healthy Instagram following (73.2k and rising fast). He laughs, “I think there must be a lot of people out there into dahlias and tulips.”
The roof garden of this rented property has the multi-layered, spilling generosity that you’d expect from Charlie’s planting eye – “I like colour,” he smiles – but this ‘little brother’ garden to its Dorset relative has to be self-reliant to survive.
On the lower terrace, pots of neglecthappy sedums are displayed on a marbletopped sewing table the couple found at auction. Clustered around the small folding table and chairs, dolly tubs found at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park erupt with Verbena bonariensis, and terracotta pots brim with agapanthus, nepeta, lavender and scented pelargoniums, all thriving on infrequent watering. Foxgloves, too, have taken to rooftop life, happily self-seeding in their terracotta pots.
Reclaimed water tanks are large and deep enough to keep the roots of evergreen climber Trachelospermum jasminoides, hart’s tongue and male ferns, a clematis Charlie can’t remember the name of and ‘Scrumptious’ apple tree on a MM106 rootstock from drying out. “They’re really good eaters. We get a better crop from it than from all the trees in the orchard in Dorset,” he says. He also takes the blossom into the house for arrangements. Another equally roomy tank by the door can cram in a fig tree, Rosa ‘Climbing Iceberg’, passionflower and Cobaea scandens.
Up the vertiginous fire-escape ladder, it’s the edibles zone, lined with seven large wooden planters made by Ben’s father. Even here, Charlie can’t resist cramming in colour, with sweet peas alongside the rosemary, rocket, beans and garlic, which all grow well, but the tomatoes rarely make it through the summer.
No matter. Plants that are looking good can always be brought up from Dorset in buckets to fill gaps – nicotiana, dahlias or cosmos. Meanwhile, dead leaves and the top few centimetres of old compost is bagged up and taken down to the parsonage compost heap. “I admit it’s a bit of a luxury,” smiles Charlie. “But it’s good to keep it in the system and not have it end up in landfill.”
SWEET PEAS ALONGSIDE THE ROSEMARY, ROCKET, BEANS AND GARLIC ALL GROW WELL