A GARDEN RARELY STARTS WITH A BLANK SHEET

On most of our projects, we cannot simply choose a height for a new patio and work outwards from there. The existing garden has already made some of those decisions for us.

The level beside the house needs careful consideration. Further into the garden there may be a wall that needs to remain, a neighbouring garden considerably higher or lower than ours, mature trees, drainage points or structures that cannot realistically be moved.

Even a small London garden can contain several different levels. We therefore take levels seriously during the survey and planning stages: a difference of only a few centimetres in one place can influence what happens several metres away.

Levels are not individual measurements. They are relationships between different parts of the garden.

FLAT IS NOT NECESSARILY WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO ACHIEVE

A newly finished patio may appear flat. Technically, it usually is not.

External paving needs carefully considered falls so rainwater has somewhere appropriate to go. The challenge is achieving that without making the slope visually obvious or the patio uncomfortable to use.

The same principle applies to lawns, paths, planting areas and transitions between surfaces. They all need to work with the movement of water and the wider topography of the garden.

When the levels are right, much of this becomes almost invisible.

SOMETIMES A STEP IS BETTER THAN FORCING A SLOPE

We regularly have to decide whether a difference in height should be absorbed gradually or separated with a step. There is no universal answer.

A gentle transition can make two areas feel connected. Elsewhere, stretching the same height difference across the available distance may create an awkward slope, making a step the cleaner solution.

That step then affects other decisions: its height and position, paving joints, access through the garden and its relationship with walls, lawns or planting.

Levels are part of the design. They influence how you move through the garden and how one space becomes another.

THE LEVEL THE GARDEN GIVES US IS NOT ALWAYS THE LEVEL THE CLIENT WILL SEE

Existing ground level and finished garden level are not necessarily the same thing.

The existing ground gives us physical conditions to understand, not a finished level we automatically have to accept.

A client may want a terrace that feels almost level with the house, a seating area that connects naturally with another part of the garden, or a cleaner transition across ground that changes height considerably.

Our job is to find a way of achieving that intention while respecting how the garden needs to work.

The finished level does not always represent the ground level beneath it. Decking can sit above existing ground on its own supporting structure.

A patio on a pedestal system can work on a similar principle, creating the required finished level above a very different structural level.

Sometimes the answer is excavation or retaining. Sometimes it is building an area up. And sometimes the better solution is to create the finished level independently from the ground beneath it.

The garden gives us the conditions; the client and the design give us the intention.

EXISTING LEVELS CAN TELL US SOMETHING

An old garden often contains clues about what has been happening there for years.

A low area may show where water naturally collects. A raised bed might be retaining a significant amount of ground behind it. An apparently unnecessary step may exist because of a change in level underneath.

We do not necessarily want to preserve those features, but we do want to understand them before removing them.

Once an old patio, wall or step has been demolished, some of that information becomes much harder to see.

A site survey is not simply about measuring the length and width of a garden. We are also trying to understand why the garden is shaped the way it is.

ONE SMALL CHANGE CAN TRAVEL THROUGH THE WHOLE GARDEN

Imagine we raise one area of patio by 50mm. It does not sound significant.

But the patio now meets the lawn 50mm higher.

Raise the lawn to compensate and its relationship with the flower beds changes. That may alter the amount of soil against a fence or wall, affect a step at the other end of the garden, or change where surface water naturally wants to travel.

Suddenly, a 50mm decision beside the patio has influenced several other parts of the garden.

It is why we look at the garden as one connected system rather than solving the patio, lawn, steps and planting areas independently.

THE HOUSE IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT REFERENCE POINTS

The relationship between the garden and the house deserves particular attention.

Door thresholds, damp-proofing, air bricks, drainage and existing ground levels all need to be considered before deciding where new paving should sit.

Raising a patio may reduce excavation or make another part of the garden easier to connect. But the convenient level is not automatically the correct level.

The garden has to work with the building, not simply look right beside it.

DRAWINGS MATTER — BUT SO DOES WHAT WE FIND ON SITE

We use surveys, measurements and drawings to establish the main relationships before construction starts. But a garden is not a perfectly controlled environment.

Once excavation begins, we sometimes find things that could not reasonably have been seen beforehand: old concrete foundations, buried structures, unexpected drainage, roots or previous construction beneath the surface.

Sometimes the actual ground conditions make us reconsider a small part of the original plan.

That does not mean planning has failed. It means the plan has reached the real garden.

Part of our job is knowing which levels are critical and should remain fixed, and where there is enough flexibility to make a small adjustment that improves the finished result.

SOMETIMES A FEW MILLIMETRES MATTER

A few millimetres can have surprisingly visible consequences: the top of a step meeting a paving joint, a linear drain running alongside a patio, paving meeting a lawn, or the top of a wall lining up with another feature.

Consider these relationships early and the finished result can look simple.

Discover them too late and the solution can begin to look like a compromise.

We are not only asking whether a level technically works. We are also asking what that level will make everything around it do.

GOOD LEVEL PLANNING CAN REDUCE UNNECESSARY CONSTRUCTION

Changing levels means moving material.

Lowering an area can mean significant excavation and waste removal; raising another may require additional sub-base, soil or retaining construction.

Sometimes those changes are necessary. But a different level strategy can sometimes achieve the same design intention with considerably less intervention.

The aim is not to move as much ground as possible. It is to create the levels the garden actually needs.

THE BEST LEVEL WORK IS OFTEN SOMETHING NOBODY NOTICES

When a finished garden works well, the client does not see every level decision behind it.

They see a terrace where they wanted one, a comfortable transition into the lawn, a step in the right place and a deck that sits naturally within the garden.

The level they see may not even be the true ground level beneath their feet.

Behind that apparently simple result may be excavation, retaining, drainage, structural support and different construction build-ups.

Our job is to know what is possible and choose the construction method that turns the client's intention into something that can be built and will continue to work.

When that is done well, the technical decisions disappear into the finished garden.