URBAN OASIS
A lush city roof garden is a peaceful haven all year round
Walk along any city street and it’s not uncommon to glimpse lush green foliage escaping from what appears to be, from ground level, a secret garden way above your head. You know that if you were lucky enough to set foot in it, the rooftop haven would offer a chance to take a breath and relax, away from the hubbub of the urban environment.
The owner of this apartment wanted to capture just that feeling of tranquillity on his own rooftop terrace. Seven storeys up and with spectacular views over west London, the roughly 10-by-10-metre area was already paved but had little planting. It needed some imagination to become the secluded oasis he wanted it to be, so he turned to RHS Chelsea Gold medalwinning landscape architect and garden designer Tom Stuart-smith, with whom he had worked before.
‘I knew what was required to meet this client’s brief as we’d developed a kind of shorthand over the years, but this was different to any project we’d designed for him before,’ says Tom, whose best-known commissions include the restoration of the formal Italian garden on the Trentham estate in Staffordshire and the sinuous Landscape borders that so beautifully set off the glasshouse at RHS Wisley in Surrey.
‘This roof terrace has quite a bohemian, glamorous feel to it,’ says Tom. ‘It comes off the main bedroom so it’s a private space, not really suitable for large-scale entertaining but rather somewhere to share with a small group of friends on a warm evening or to step out onto in the morning with your coffee.
There are great views all round and the plants give a sense of protection.’
Tom’s plan was to introduce a variety of textures for contrast and year-round interest, as well as plenty of scent to promote the feeling of enclosure and relaxation. The resulting design combines tufted cushions of soft, rustling grasses, inviting you to run your fingers through them as you pass by, with structural evergreens chosen as much for their eye-catching foliage as their ability to perform well in such an exposed location.
The scheme is punctuated by specimen trees, including loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), which has long glossy leaves and pretty blossom in summer similar to hawthorn, and a fig underplanted with dainty Erigeron karvinskianus. At the next level are shrubs such as Euphorbia x pasteurii, grown for its architectural stems, red bracts and honey-perfumed flowers, and the unusual oak-leaved Myrica
quercifolia, which is not very hardy in this country as a rule but does well on a largely frost-free London rooftop. The myrica is kept clipped in neat mounds at the base of the fig, echoing the graceful arching forms of the hakonechloa and anemanthele grasses.
All of the plants thrive in pots watered by an automatic irrigation system. Tom chose to use a mix of aged terracotta and Bronzino metal containers in keeping with the informal nature of the design but also to allow flexibility. ‘One of the main constraints we faced was the strength of the roof,’ he says, ‘so we were able to place larger, heavier planting around the edges, saving the middle area for smaller items.’
A towering brick chimney stack offered an ideal opportunity for a dramatic wall of vertical planting and is now smothered in the evergreen climber
Trachelospermum jasminoides. As dusk falls on a summer evening and its heady fragrance fills the air, you could easily forget you’re at the heart of the bustling capital. ‘You feel as though you’re on top of the world in this garden,’ says Tom. ‘It’s fun and unexpected.’