Pergolas mark the transitional point between a sunroom and an open garden, providing shelter and shade with a covering of our door plants. A pergola is probably the simplest and cheapest extension which you can build on to the house and incorporate many of the advantages of more complex structures; though its use may be limited by seasonal weather changes, yet the pleasure of easting or sitting out doors under a green or flowering roof is hard to surpass.

A carefully sited pergola can link house, garden and any out building in a visually satisfying unity which improves the appearance of the whole site. Where a house has a dull or irregular frontage, a pergola along the width of the house can disguise this deficiency. Similarly and oddly shaped spaces between the house walls and nearby our building can be covered by a pergola so that the structures are brought in to a harmonious relationship. A corner between two walls of the house, or a house wall and adjoins a garage wall, would be an excellent site.

It is useful to remember that an overhead frame tends to make the floor space beneath seem larger. If the terrace beneath the structure has the same paving material as the adjoin room inside the house, this will increase the sense of unified space; in warm weather the difference between indoors and outdoors will almost seem to disappear. Flooring materials should always be durable, frost resistant and dry off quickly as the overhead plants will drip for a long time after rain or after top spraying.

A pergola in close proximity to the house will always look best if designed to echo not only the materials of the original building but the lines of its windows and door frames. The top line of the pergola should usually lie just above the window lintel. In some houses it may be possible to extend the floor beams of the house outwards to form the overheads. Take care, however, that the pergola will not provide to easy a route into the first floor windows for burglars and try to discourage children from using it as a climbing frame although, if strong enough it can provide a support for a swing or hammock.

Generally speaking it is more effective to build a plain strong structure and let plants growing over it supply the variation in pattern and colour, though a more ornate design, perhaps in trellis work, may suit older houses. Avoid the common error of making the verticals too heavy for the horizontals; metal or timber supports are generally more suitable and easier to erect than a massive brick or stone ones, though these many be in keeping with a country setting.

Pergolas supported by a house wall are obviously simpler to design then the free standing kind, and possibly more versatile as they from the most convenient sitting and dining areas. Free standing pergolas can be used as a kind of colonnade leading people through a green walkway to some focal point, but the small garden may well not have enough space to provide the right kind of view. You may find that a bare frame looks stark in the winter; this can be avoided by combining deciduous and flowering annuals with evergreens or, on a new pergola, fast growing climbers with slower evergreen ones.

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