Roof Garden Design

WM Design Studio created the landscape and roof garden design for this stunning luxury outdoor roof garden entertaining and living space in Wigan, Lancashire.

The outdoor office entertaining and living space was designed by Michael John McGarr to create a better working environment for staff and for entertaining corporate clients.

The 220 metre square space in Atherton had to fulfil many needs, including day to evening garden transformation capabilities. We needed to create private quiet spaces for office staff, for either breaks or meetings, but also needed the ability to transform into a vibrant outdoor entertaining space for the evenings.

The brief also included using wildlife-friendly plants in order to attract insects, birds and pollinators.

Weight restrictions around rooftop design meant we had to think around planting and hard landscaping needs, without adding too much weight.

The rooftop area was divided up into small areas, with tables and chairs and relaxing seating areas, using planters to create the idea of privacy.

The hard landscaping materials included composite grayscale decking and zinc cladding which is illuminated by powder soft white light “halo” lighting which really brings the garden together at night.

We also added a bioclimatic powder-coated pergola with a retractable roof which would allow protection during windy or rainy weather, but could also be totally retracted on a sunny day.

Our team designed bespoke lightweight fibreglass planters into the garden design, where a portion of the planter was filled with empty plastic bottles to further reduce the weight, as well as reducing waste by using materials that would go to landfill.

We chose a number of specimen trees including the stunning Tibetan cherry (Prunus tibetica) for its spring flowers and wonderful red-coloured bark.

We also selected the wonderful Juneberry tree (Amelanchier lamarckii) for its year-round interest including bouquet of small white flowers in spring through to the deep red berries in autumn, as well as being very attractive to pollinators.

We also added a beautiful Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) for year round structure and greenery.

A touch of tropical interest was added in the form of Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis).

A selection of grasses were chosen for texture and movement, which includes feather reed grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora); Autumn moor grass (Sesleria autumnalis) and Blue fescue (Festuca glauca)

Flowering perennials were planted in the planters to give splashes of seasonal colour as well as being good pollinators. These included Perovskia; Sedum matrona; Erigeron karavitense; Verbena bonariensis; Rudbeckia Goldsturm; Actaea; Persicaria; Artemesia “Powis Castle”.

Larger shrubs were added to give greenery and texture include Hebe; Fatsia japonica and ferns (Dryopteris felix mas.)

We also planted bulbs to ensure year-round colour which includes Narcissus thalia for the spring and the beautiful white Allium ‘Mont Blanc’, which flowers across spring and summer.

Planting list: