Top tips and tricks for split-level gardens: link the basement area and the garden together with staircases and raised beds

Turn your basement courtyard and groud-level garden above into one cohesive space with these nifty tricks...
Sitting pretty: a sunny spot on the upper level is the perfect place for a lounger
MMGI / Marianne Majerus
5 August 2016

Digging out the basement to create another floor for her house gave interior designer Amanda Durham the bonus of a lower-ground courtyard, but somehow she wanted to make it part of the ground-level garden above.

“A lot of Londoners are digging out their basements and we have the challenge of linking the basement area and the garden together, and getting a good flow,” says garden designer Claire Mee, who was called in, together with architects at Fulham-based Roxburgh Construction, to create a double-level outside room for Durham.

“Some people settle for a courtyard with no relation to the garden at the next level, but with connecting steps the two areas start to become one cohesive space. For fire regulations, you always need an exit in a basement, which often means awkward steps or a ladder, but steps that connect one level to the next fulfil that requirement and add to the space rather than detract.”

At Durham’s house in south-west London, three small staircases, each set at right angles to one another, make an easy transition and are finished with clean-cut metal handrails and stainless steel wires. “The kitchen at basement level has a floor of poured concrete, so we chose a floor of pale grey sawn-cut sandstone that runs through both levels to make a smooth segue from indoors to out,” says Mee. “Amanda wanted a contemporary look so we decided on rendered walls at the lower level and rendered raised beds. If you have dogs, and Amanda has two, raised beds are always a good plan to keep them off the soil. There is a maintenance issue with rendered walls because they do need regular repainting, so dark grey, which was Amanda’s choice, is more practical than a pale colour.”

In the basement, the supporting wall has an invisible door for storage as well as a built-in raised bed to provide planting at ground level. Raised beds run around the parameter of the upper level, with the exception of a space that Mee purposely left. “I don’t like completely enclosing a space with beds. You do need gaps, otherwise you get a railway carriage effect,” she explains.

Adding an outdoor “rug” of ipe decking, to mark a space for dining table and chairs or perhaps a pair of sofas, further breaks up the space and is inset with unobtrusive LED lights to make it clearly visible at night.

A pair of cantilevered ipe benches set against the raised beds provide generous seats, while extra perching places are provided by ipe timbers edging a central raised bed that holds a mature olive tree.

“I wanted a sculptural feature that could be seen right from the house entrance and that was perfectly framed in the doorway, so it was the first thing that you see. An olive, which stays evergreen through the year, was the ideal choice,” says Mee. “Many London gardens are viewed from the house right through the year, so you need to consider the views and vistas from various key points indoors, as well as using a proportion of evergreens so there is always something to look at.”

As well as evergreens, Durham wanted to see the seasons change in her garden, so at basement level, which is viewed from the kitchen, Mee planted a Magnolia stellata in the bottom left-hand corner for starry white flowers in spring, and backed it up with plants that can cope with a shady basement, such as hellebores, box balls and Euphorbia robbiae. In the higher raised bed set into the rendered wall, in the right-hand corner, a Prunus subhirtella Autumnalis, a cherry that blossoms spasmodically through winter, supplies the earliest flowers of all.

At the back of the upper level, a wisteria standard in one corner makes a striking feature while five multistemmed crab apples, Malus Red Sentinel, are planted all along the back to produce sprays of white blossom in spring and red crab apples in winter. Along the fence itself, Mee planted evergreen jasmine, climbing roses and clematis that will eventually semi-conceal the horizontal battens.

Beneath the central olive tree, among hazy blue clouds of nepeta, oregano, thyme, rosemary and sage provide herbs for the kitchen, while the two benches are flanked with fragrant roses such as Gertrude Jekyll.

What makes the final link to the two outside spaces is the planting, much of which is repeated on both levels, in the same restrained palette of green, white, pink, blue and purple: Box, alchemilla, astrantia, skimmia, lavender, foxgloves, alliums, with a connecting double layer of bright orange tulips come spring.

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