Designing Gardens with Steps & Copings

A three-tiered slice of calming, tropical paradise in this Islington garden, designed by Urban Paradise's Mark Soanes. Mark has used Golden Stone Porcelain from our Luxury Italian Range to incredible effect, creating a tranquil, private space, in which the homeowner can relax and unwind, to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.

Golden Stone Porcelain not only adds warm, softening tones to the overall aesthetic, it also provides this garden with a neat design solution to help navigate the different levels of the space. Our sleek 40mm downstand steps - made in-house by our skilled masonry team - provide a cohesive finish for the steps and copings within the design. Finished with a chamfer along the leading edge, they bring a contemporary feel, in keeping with the city setting, and modern garden furniture chosen for the space.

The garden is cleverly landscaped into three distinctive areas: the dining terrace as you leave the house, a middle tier, which moves you through the tranquil setting, allowing visitors to be enveloped by the luscious greenery, and the relaxed, serene raised seating area at the back of the garden, covered with a wooden pergola; perfect for evening drinks with friends, or enjoying the weekend papers over coffee and pastries.

This garden creates a rainforest-like environment, by using ferns and tree-ferns of varying heights, to add scale and privacy, as well as an immersive living wall on the patio at ground-level. The warm feel of the garden is emphasised throughout, with agapanthus and Albizia silk trees — both from naturally warm climates — adding splashes of colour.

This incredible garden won PC Landscapes a prestigious BALI Award in 2018 in the Domestic Garden Construction £100k-£200k category, and it's easy to see why! A cohesive, contemporary design from Caroline Davy, where our exterior Faro Porcelain Paving matches the tiles used on the inside of the property. The khaki-cream coloured porcelain is perforated by courses of wood-effect Rovere Porcelain, to soften the feel of the substantial terrace, and mirror the look of the steps as you view the garden from the expansive kitchen inside.

A 40mm downstand edge profile has been used to create the focal Faro Porcelain steps and has turned the sizable change-in-level into a stunning hard landscaping feature. Utilising the downstand steps and copings, as opposed to thinner alternatives, gives this large garden, and the substantial hard landscaping, scale and grandeur, befitting of the space.

The extensive upper tier of the garden, which contains sizeable lawns, formal pleached trees, and topiary, is able to be enjoyed from the cosy Renson garden building, clad with hardwood, to match decking in the garden, as well as tying-in with the dining table and benches in the kitchen.

When it comes to the soft landscaping elements of the garden, a muted colour-palette ensures that the space isn't too busy. The upper level is framed beautifully by a crimson-coloured acer, and the flower beds are brimming with luscious greenery, highlighted with lilac-coloured floral delights like geranium and salvia.

A flawless, masterful design, this garden in the North West was created by the inimitable duo of Robert Hughes Studio and Brockstone Landscape Construction. London Stone's Slab Khaki Porcelain was selected to give this modern garden a minimalist, contrasting style, when paired with the darker materials used in the space, by way of the pergola, water feature and sleek garden furniture.

A virtuoso design, the garden uses straight lines throughout its form, and this is demonstrated by the chic chamfered edge profile that has been used across the leading edge of the steps and copings. Slab Khaki Porcelain has also been used to neatly edge the immaculate lawn, and to clad the step risers, and blockwork under the water feature, adding to the seamless, cohesive feel of the garden.

The owner of this beautiful modern space is a keen gardener, so extensive topiary, buxus, yew, and box hedging has been used throughout this formal, contemporary garden, to keep those green-fingers busy. The garden uses linear, formal shapes, which also incorporate sculpture and lighting, to create an almost dramatic, vaguely theatrical setting. Splashes of colour by way of alliums add a sophisticated feel, while pleached hornbeams, bay trees, and pencil-thin Italian cypress trees give the garden scale and form.

A modern, multi-levelled masterpiece of landscaping from Tom Howard Gardens, with this impressive garden. Tom's brief was to shift focus away from the existing steps which dominated the width of the garden, while creating a vibrant, functional space. Access to the garden is from the side, so a-symmetrical (and smaller!) steps were created, featuring our Jura Grey Porcelain, finished with a sleek 5mm chamfered edge. The transformation included installing modern wall copings to accent the new, large beds that draw the garden nearer to the house.

Jura Grey Porcelain — manufactured exclusively for London Stone by our porcelain supplier, Caesar — emulates its natural stone predecessor, but at a fraction of the cost. Cooling tones of grey and blue give this material a unique contemporary character, while the chamfered edge profile used across the steps and copings, adds a minimalistic feel; perfectly in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the space.

This design embraces the sizeable change-in-level within the garden, by incorporating raised flower beds, a cosy seating area (complete with lighting posts to add scale and a practicality) halfway up the stepped tiers, and the a-symmetrical theme of the design is further emphasised with the use of timber cladding, adding colour and texture.

Although this space contains a lot of hard landscaping to navigate the topography of the garden, soft landscaping features in abundance. Multi stemmed trees — especially the soft pink flowers of the heptacodium — bring balance as well as privacy and soften the overall look. Taxus balls, verbena bonariensis, and decorative grasses further soften the aesthetic, and bring a welcome touch of nature into the garden.