You'll have families of rodents, cats... whatever, living under there in no time so definitely bring it down all the way around. Maybe with pressure treated wood so it will last longer on the ground.

Can you share a picture taken from farther back, that shows more of the deck, house, and surrounding yard? Hard to give landscape advice based on this little sliver.

Doesn't code require railing?

I bought the book Deckscaping by Barbara W. Ellis after we built our deck. Its focus is on plant selection and placement.

Right now the rest of the yard needss to leveled and claned up . We need a pic of the whle yard, some idea where you live and why that size of deck. Post pics in comments DO NOT start another post.

Here's a few bigger pictures

Any self-respecting rat or mouse can easily fit through the gap between the boards.

@Eileen that books looks great. Is it for inspiration of they offer advice on how to build these in practice?

It's full of information and photos. You are asking how to design the adjacent gardens, right?

If you're *not* having any kind of railings, then I'd aim for hedges along at least a couple sides, to give a bit of privacy as well as the safety aspect. Or you could have tall wooden planters built that double as benches for parties.

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Lots of ways to appraoch that. If you want to do it all outside the deck, I guess you have to choose how close to get to the footings and how not to encourage critters to live there.

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You might want to thnk of your whole yard and how to make the deck fit into it in terms of landscaping of various sorts. You could get a landscape designer to make you a plan/vision that you could implement in steps over the years...

@Eileenyes I'm looking for ideas how to design the sides, but also something concrete like how to do it.

@laceyvail 6A, WVthank you! Currently we have trees few meters away, but they don't give any cover which is why we do want to consider an umbrella. The deck is towards south(ish) and gets sun from morning till afternoon.

There will be cover in the corner where you see the old poles. Something like this:

@acm that deck with just grass on the side looks good too!

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Would you rather put the wooden planters at the side or on top of the deck? If we put them on top of concrete tiles (see on the left side on the big picture) there would be more space on the deck itself.

What's the ladder for?

@AnnKHon the side of the building? fire escape

Of course! I just don't usually see one on a private residence.

It's not a big deck so I wouldn't put anything on it except for a few potted plants.

Here's my deck. On the left side I have a rhododendron, a hydrangea in bloom, and a Hot Lips salvia. On the right we had to remove 3-4' of decking when we had a/c installed. Before that, we had a hardy fuchsia alongside the deck. That created an open space that was 12' off the ground so we built a planter box along that side. We really don't have room for our 48" table and four chairs now. We'll need a smaller table.

I put Blue Arrows rush in it but I'm going to put a trellis on it this spring and grow something else. You can see how the fuchsia filled that side before we removed decking. To the right of the fuchsia is a Japanese maple. With it as a focal point, I was able to place other plants around it to complete the bed.

Plan is for a short trellis.

This is the bed that curves around from the steps to the corner of the house. You can see the maple and the side of the planter box. That path comes from the side of the house and goes to the deck steps.

A shrub rose screens the left front. I have lavender and other perennials on the front right side.

You need to plan your paths first. Then you want to select trees and shrubs. Place them far enough from the sides of the deck to allow for their mature size.