Very Steep Garden

Dalkey, South County Dublin

This very steep garden was good enough to ski down! Lacking snow however, Greenstone took no prisoners, with a complete garden transformation.
Two major issues were the large difference in height from the house to the end of the garden, and an existing upper terrace which was too small for entertaining. Greenstone terraced the garden to create level, useable areas and extended the existing terrace outward for more ground space. As the new wall was quite high, safety toughened glass panels were added between the upper and middle terrace. This also allows a clear view over the whole garden from the upper terrace and the kitchen.
The new middle terrace is now an extra space for larger parties of people. It is accessible via a new set of flowing curved steps. This terrace features a fountain built into the wall.
The garden level was excavated to a lower level for greater privacy and then redesigned. A new lawn with very low Mediterranean style planting was created. While the existing hedge was removed down the side, the two remaining cherry trees were left to allow some maturity remain in the garden.
The stone used throughout was turkish travertine, and garden buildings and walls were painted to blend with that. The colour on the shed is London stone and the colour on the walling is old white.

Customer Reference for Greenstone Landscapes

Petra Ryan, Dalkey, Co Dublin

The work was done around October, November, 2010.

Completely re-designing the front and back garden. The back garden needed a lot more work as it wasn’t working for us in its previous layout due to the steep gradient.

Having searched for a number of landscape gardeners online and met with a few, we really liked Ross’s enthusiasm and his approach with the possible designs that we could go for in the garden.

We had a couple of ideas, however we were open to any ideas Ross could offer.

Yes, he had lots of ideas and was able to build on our ideas in order to make the design work much better for us and to make the most out of the space.

Very smoothly. There were no issues at all. The team were always very pleasant and friendly and the work progressed very quickly over the few weeks.

Ross was very open to questions and ensuring we were happy with how things were progressing. He was very willing to help us work to our budget without compromising on the design.

We love our back garden and are really looking forward to next summer when we will be able to take full advantage of it!

Yes, absolutely.

Have some ideas of what you would like, but be open to other ideas that the landscaper may offer.

As told to pickapro on 19-Dec-2010