Landscaping in Wellingborough, priced in writing before anything starts.
Landscaping in Wellingborough carries a responsibility that landscaping on drier ground does not, and it is the single most common way a garden project causes a building problem.
Every time a patio, a path or a raised bed is built against a house, the external ground level goes up. On a modern house with a damp proof course well above ground that may not matter. On an older Wellingborough property, where the internal floor may be close to or below the outside level already, raising it further bridges whatever protection exists and puts water straight into the wall. We have been called to more than one damp problem that began with a beautifully built patio.
So we set levels deliberately. Hard surfaces are kept below the damp proof course where there is one, falls are set away from the building rather than eyeballed level, and where the ground genuinely cannot be lowered enough we build a drained channel against the wall rather than pretending the problem is not there.
Surface water is the second half of the same argument. On heavy valley ground it has to be taken somewhere deliberate rather than allowed to sit, and that means designing the drainage as part of the garden rather than as an afterthought.
Front hard surfacing over five square metres needs a permeable material or drainage to a soft area within your boundary, or planning permission. Our landscaping page shows the range of the work.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the North Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our landscaping page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Wellingborough street to the next.
Every tree in a conservation area is protected whether or not a specific order exists, which means six weeks written notice to the council before even a heavy prune. Removing a protected tree is a criminal offence.
Levels and retaining structures are designed and drained rather than stacked, and on ground that holds water the drainage behind a retaining wall is not optional.
Where a garden sits low and wet, we will say honestly whether the answer is drainage, raised planting or accepting the conditions and choosing plants that suit them, rather than selling a solution that fights the site.
Where a garden sits low and holds water, land drainage laid to a proper fall and taken to a sensible outfall does more than any amount of soil improvement. It is a groundworks job rather than a gardening one, and it is worth doing before anything decorative goes on top of it.
Part of our wider building work in Wellingborough.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
