PROFESSIONAL LANDSCAPING

Hard landscaping built on the right base

Most patios and driveways that fail do so underneath, not on top. The slabs were fine; the sub-base was too thin, laid on soft ground, or given nowhere for water to go. We spend a disproportionate amount of a landscaping quote on excavation, sub-base and drainage, because that is what decides whether the surface still looks right in five winters.

Surfaces we lay

• Porcelain paving — dimensionally consistent, low-porosity and easy to keep clean, but it needs a primer or slurry bond coat under each slab.
• Indian sandstone — warmer and more varied in tone, and more porous, so it benefits from sealing.
• Resin bound — permeable, seamless and good over an existing sound concrete or tarmac base.
• Block paving — individually liftable, which matters where services run underneath.
• Decking — timber or composite, with the ventilation and joist spacing the boards actually require.

Drainage and permeability

Falls should run away from the house at roughly 1 in 80, and surface water is not allowed to discharge onto a neighbouring property. Where a driveway is being laid over five square metres of new impermeable surface, the water has to be handled on your own land or the work needs planning permission — a permeable surface or a soakaway is usually the simpler answer, and we will design it in rather than leave it for you to discover later.

Fencing, walls and levels

Sloping plots in the Valleys often need retaining before they need decorating. Anything retaining a meaningful height of soil is a structural element and is priced as one, with drainage behind it. We would rather quote a lower wall properly than a taller one cheaply.

When to book

Groundwork is easier in dry ground, so spring and early autumn are the least disruptive windows, but the work runs year-round. Planting and turfing establish better outside the height of summer.