Barbican Beech Gardens, London

Beech Gardens, as part of the Barbican Estate in the City of London was laid out in the 1970 and required a refurbishment and replanting in 2015. Based on a new design concept the requirements to meet were the reduction of maintenance needs and the removal of the permanent irrigation system to decrease water consumption significantly. So the landscape architects opted for a naturalistic meadow-like flower-rich vegetation, however, robust and drought-resistant enough to tolerate low water availability and requiring only little maintenance throughout the year. In addition, the long-proven ZinCo system build-up “Roof Garden” with FD 60 – thanks to its high water retention capacity – was the ideal solution to provide for a balanced water-air supply, to drain off excess water and at the same time store sufficient water given the absence of any additional irrigation.