Planted Terraces Remake a Sloped Yard.BaoHa

September 18, 2023 by Bao Ha Leave a Comment

“The difficulty with wide, shallow gardens is you don’t really have a direct focal point,” designer John Brennan of Yorkshire Gardens says, “so you have to send the eye left or right.” This backyard had the added challenge of being on a steep slope, so Brennan created a terraced design with a journey through pretty plantings.

Some of the photos below are of the just-finished garden, showing the structure; others taken later reveal how the plantings are starting to make the space lush and beautiful.

Yorkshire Gardens

Yard at a Glance
Who lives here: A professional woman
Location: Roundhay, West Yorkshire, England
Size: 3,234 square feet (300 square meters); 33 by 98 feet
Designer: John Brennan of Yorkshire Gardens

The owner wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with the space, beyond making it usable and enjoyable, but Brennan established that she liked Japanese, Mediterranean and cottage gardens, so he aimed to subtly blend elements of all three.

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Before Photo

Yorkshire Gardens

Before: The sloping plot was a large but mostly impractical lawn. “Slopes are good for rolling down, but that’s about it,” Brennan says.

Yorkshire Gardens

After: Brennan terraced the slope to make it usable. The terraces were created from new wooden railroad tie-style planks, bringing structure to the garden but with a natural feel. The wood pieces are all treated and should last for decades, he says. The patio paving is Indian sandstone.

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Yorkshire Gardens

The plantings took careful planning. “It was tricky, because just under the grassy slope there was some really poor soil — heavy clay, large pieces of bedrock, building rubble,” Brennan says.

“We terraced it using imported soil, so as you go up, the depth of the decent soil varies. Some of the plants we put in went completely mad, while a couple didn’t thrive,” he says. (He’s since replaced the latter.)

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Yorkshire Gardens

This photo, taken when the garden was newly planted, shows the wide, shallow nature of the space. A path runs from this patio to a second, circular patio, with cottage garden plantings and Mediterranean plants along the way.

Yorkshire Gardens

This is a view of the just-planted garden from the opposite end. “As with long, thin gardens, it’s best to break up a wide, shallow space into smaller areas,” Brennan says. “The main thing is to try to give a reason for going to different parts of the garden, rather than it just being nice to look at. I tried to create different spaces the owner could use.

“There’s an area on the left [of the garden] to sit, an area on the right to sit, and a nice walk through the middle,” he says. “And the walk alters as you go along, as you’re changing level and direction and going through different styles of planting.”

Yorkshire Gardens

This photo, take later, shows how the Mediterranean-inspired bed is flourishing. “I tried to mimic a Greek hillside in the middle, gravel section,” Brennan says. “In the mix, there’s a mugo pine [Pinus mugo], trailing rosemary [Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Prostratus’] — which creeps rather than being bushy — thyme, lavender, geraniums, euphorbia and fountain grass [Pennisetum sp.].”

Elegant cypress trees bookend the garden. They’re Italian ‘Totem Pole’ cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens ‘Totem Pole’), which Brennan says are slow-growing and don’t get very big.

Yorkshire Gardens

In the middle of the garden, at the top of the steps, is a small serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) tree, which acts as a focal point when viewed from the back door and softens the line of the top terrace. “It’s important when you put terraces in that you break up the lines,” Brennan says.

Yorkshire Gardens

The brick retaining wall of the property behind this lot is a beautiful feature in itself. “I did have the benefit of that amazing wall as a backdrop,” Brennan says.

He initially put wildflowers in the back planter but wasn’t really happy with them. “They tended towards very few species — mainly Achillea,” he says, “so then I put in loads of bulbs and some grasses.” You can see those newer plantings in the next photo.

Yorkshire Gardens

“I also added fan-trained fruit trees,” he continues. (The trees have been trained so that the branches radiate from a short, central trunk, helping maximize yields.) “They’re quite small and have nice blossoms in the spring.”

The bank is south-facing, but the area near the front of the garden is in the shadow of the house, so Brennan chose shade-tolerant plants for the lower beds, including hebes, hostas, heucheras and ferns.

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Yorkshire Gardens

The pergola is planted with honeysuckle, clematis and a climbing rose.

Yorkshire Gardens

This photo, taken later, shows the climbing rose starting to bloom.

Yorkshire Gardens

The cottage garden plantings around the pergola include columbine (Aquilegia sp.), geranium, Schizostylis, bellflower (Campanula sp.), hebe and Luzula nivea.

Yorkshire Gardens

Brennan gave the smaller, circular patio a different feel from the cottage-style garden under the pergola. It’s made of Raj Green Indian sandstone.

Yorkshire Gardens

A wisteria is now spreading nicely across the circular patio’s pergola and along the wall. There’s also star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) growing up the other side.

Yorkshire Gardens

Brennan has taken the space from dull, unusable lawn to a garden with lots of interest and a reason to visit every bit of it. “Everywhere you stand, you see something different,” he says. “And it’s actually pretty low-maintenance too.”

Yorkshire Gardens

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