Riverside garden landscape, Berkshire

This riverside garden in Berkshire was designed, built and planted by Artscape. The bespoke garden design has resulted in a beautiful outdoor lifestyle space that is a pleasure to use and easy to maintain. The combination of light-coloured hard landscaping and exquisite planting has created an ideal setting to enjoy views of the river from comfortable sofas.

Hard landscaping: paving and decking

We created an attractive boardwalk which takes you through the planted beds and borders to reach the riverside deck. The high specification composite deck enhances the outdoor lifestyle and is designed to be fade-resistant, easy to clean, anti-slip and splinter free. The fresh, cream colour harmonises with an upper Travertine paved terrace, pale-coloured gravel and stepping stone path edged with scented lavender. Travertine is wonderfully durable and comes in a variety of earthy shades and finishes for a natural organic look.

Planting scheme

The light bright appearance of the landscaping continues through to the mainly pastel planting scheme of mauve and white. A border of hot coloured perennials such as fiery Crocosmias provide a sunny contrast to the scheme with exciting accents. While box topiary adds structural interest here, it should be noted that we no longer plant box because of the prevalence of the box moth caterpillar pest. We have used Iris pseudacorus, the native water Iris, which links the garden to the river. Other plants include Verbena, Salvia, low-growing silver Stachys and Nandina, or heavenly bamboo, an elegant evergreen.