Rise & SHINE

There aren’t many London gardens that could double up as a ski slope, but the towering Highgate plot belonging to Frida Grundberg and Peter Dahlen is one of them. When the Swedish couple called in garden designer Sara Jane Rothwell for help with the unusual space, she’d have been forgiven for taking a deep breath.

The garden rears up behind the house, rising seven metres over its 38-metre length. Mature shrubs on either side took away the light and made it feel like a claustrophobic tunnel. “A 2.5m patio just outside the back door was really the only flat place to sit in the whole garden,” Frida recalls. “Then it was just a big slippery ski slope, covered in grass all the way to the top.”