Ideas and themes for your garden
The outdoor space is one that can be enjoyed in many different ways. For those that want to create a place of serenity we have some top tips and ideas to help you along. Ultimately when planning and designing your garden, always add your own personality to it. Creating a garden out of a magazine may seem like a great idea, but make sure you add your own touches.
Styles and themes are important for your garden. A well thought out theme can give your garden character, transporting you to another time or place. Themes are a great idea if you want to hark back to the old days, experience other cultures or plant yourself in the modern world. This month we will focus on creating a rustic, old fashioned style garden that you can relax in (like our furry friend here).
For creating a rustic themed garden consider using lots of wrought iron products. Manual water pumps make a great centrepiece to your garden, you can pump water from a well or clean water source in your garden. Alternatively you can get smaller water pumps that attach to an outdoor water butt. Attaching a pump to a water butt is a great idea and to maintain the rustic feel of your garden, consider turning your water butt into a wooden barrel by covering it with wooden planks secured by iron banding.
Old fashioned oil street lamps are a great rustic feature to light your garden on those late summer evenings. Use them to line your paths or place them near focal points in the garden to really highlight your gardens features. If you struggle to get hold of an oil based lamp, electric and candle lit versions are also great alternatives.
Another great touch for a rustic garden is to cut wooden barrels in half and use them for planters. When using the half barrels as a planter make sure you provide good drainage to help protect the timber from damp and rot. Drill holes into the bottom of the barrel for the water to drain through. The barrel will naturally have 1-2cm space between the ground and the barrel base where the staves protrude. Fill this space with 30-40mm stones and do the same in the bottom of the barrel where you will place your soil to maximise drainage.
When thinking about furniture, metal and iron furniture keep your garden grounded in your rustic theme. Try to avoid concrete or paving slabs to sit your furniture on, instead use natural looking materials like decking. When choosing your decking try to avoid profiled boards where possible, stick to smooth faced decking boards for a natural effect. If you have a decked seating area close to your house but want somewhere to sit amongst the garden, metal garden benches are ideal to use.
One of the most important considerations with your rustic garden will be your plants, shrubs and trees. Fruit trees like apple and plum are great for rustic gardens and harvest a tasty bounty too. These trees can grow to a good size without being too large and are perfect for a mid-large size property. Try to avoid hitting the garden centre and picking up exotic looking flowers, the key to a good rustic garden is keeping it traditional. Poppies, nasturtiums, sweet peas and sunflowers are great for adding a splash of colour to your garden. If you want to add bulk to your garden the English yew, laurel and common box hedge are ideal and can easily be shaped.
So there you have some ideas to get you started on planning and designing your very own rustic garden. Next month we will be giving you tips and advice on creating a garden full of culture from the far reaches.
For more tips, advice and to buy garden landscaping materials visit AVS Fencing Supplies.
Create your own secret garden
Have you ever dreamed of building your own private outdoor getaway in the comfort of your own home. Somewhere you could escape to after a hard days work. Creating your own secret garden is an easy task that requires a few materials, space in your garden and a bit of patience.
To start with you need to decide on what materials you will use to enclose the secret garden. For those who are more experienced in DIY, you can build a stone wall to create your enclosure. Stone walls give an attractive rustic look to the garden, but require expertise to build. The alternative to building stone walls would be to use 6ft garden trellis and fence posts. Using trellis is less permanent than a stone wall and can be put up with ease.
Once you have decided on what you will build the foundations of the enclosure with, it is then time to hit the garden centre and find the right climbing plants. Using climbing plants to cover your wall or trellis hides the enclosure to the naked eye, making
it appear as part of your garden fence or wall. Some great climbing plants for this job are clematis, climbing rose, honeysuckle, wisteria and Ivy. Be careful of Ivy if you are using the trellis method as Ivy can quite often break up the timber and destroy the trellis.
So now you have your enclosure and the climbers, you need to consider access to the secret garden. If you are using the stone wall method, a traditional closeboard gate works very well with a ring latch. You will also need hinges, gate posts and a gate stop. If you are using the trellis method, purchase a section of trellis 3ft wide, put it on hinges with a ring latch and you have your gate. This can work very nicely as the climbing plants will be able to cover the trellis gate and hide the entrance to your secret hideaway.
To finish off your secret garden consider the Classico Garden Sofa Collection, perfect for giving your secret garden a rustic touch. Comfortable and relaxing, your secret garden is ready to be enjoyed.
For more tips, advice and garden landscaping materials, visit www.avsfencing.co.uk.
Garden Series VI – Zen Garden How-to
Image by Wikipeida
A Zen Garden or Japanese Rock Garden (Karesansui ) is a miniature stylised landscape carefully-composed through an arrangement of rocks and gravel or sand to represent water. The purpose was to imitate the essence of nature to serve as an aid to meditation.
“In a place where there is neither a lake nor a stream, one can put in place what is called a kare-sansui, or dry landscape.” - The Sakuteiki (of the Heian period (794-1185) is the first known manual of Japanese gardening).
This manual describes creating a garden as ‘setting stones,’- ishi wo tateru koto, which literally translates to the act of setting stones upright. It details very specific rules for choice and placement of stones. If these rules were not followed, the owner of the garden would suffer misfortune.
While you may not be interested in these ancient Japanese superstitions, there are advantages of this type of garden in modern day British life. It uses only stones, rocks, sand, gravel and some plants. Therefore it’s minimalistic and low maintenance, as well as a great talking point.
The Essentials
Stones/Rocks – The main elements of Karesansui are rocks and stones so you’ll need ornamental and feature rocks of different shapes and sizes. Stones are used in a number of combinations and arrangements. These are symbolic of gods, mountains, temples, islands and even battle scenes. Groupings of 2 or 3 are the norm, these can be joined together to create larger focal points. There are normally around 5 stone groupings which will be the main focus of a garden. To find out more consult your copy of the Sakuteiki.
Image by Wikipeida
Gravel/Sand – Will be used to symbolise water or the sea. Water is represented both by the arrangements of rock forms to create a dry waterfall (karetaki) and by patterns raked into sand to create a dry stream. Traditionally white sand was used for water as it represented purity, although, sand could also be gray, brown or blue-black.
Metal Garden Furniture – In Japan, dry gardens are viewed and not entered, in order not to disrupt the delicate relationship and scale of the composition. Like paintings, Karesansui are meant to be viewed from a single, seated perspective. This means you’ll need some sort of viewpoint. You could create a seating area or include a garden bench for prolonged meditation. If you can – invest in a sheltered area to cover your observation point such as a pergola or gazebo.
Planting
Plants are much less important and often nonexistent in many rock gardens. However, you may wish to include some limited plant life. Mosses often used to suggest that the garden is ancient; a popular feature is an ornamental moss pathway. Some plants are chosen for their religious symbolism, such as the lotus, sacred in Buddhist teachings, or the pine, which represents longevity. Common trees and plants found in a Japanese garden are bamboo, azaleas, Japanese maple, Japanese anemone and the cherry tree.
Accessories
Stepping Stones – A pathway is symbolic of the journey through life. Be careful of your choice of path-stones though as certain ones may have meanings. Smooth and round sedimentary rocks are normally used.
Bridge – The bridge symbolises the path to paradise or immortality. In a Zen garden bridges are normally made of stone, wood, or logs with earth on top and covered in ornamental moss.
Stone Lanterns – Originally these lanterns lined the paths and approaches to Buddhist temples. The design expresses the idea that after death our physical bodies will go back to their original, elemental form.
Water Basins – were a common feature so monks could bathe. Worshippers washed their hands and mouth as a symbol of purification. A decorative granite water feature is a great design idea to add interest to the landscape.
Garden Series V – How to Create a Contemporary Outdoor Space
Courtesy of David Andersen Garden Designers
Contemporary gardens have become increasingly popular in recent years. They are designed for low maintenance, look great in built-up areas and are perfect when you have limited space such as a courtyard or rooftop garden.
Design Considerations
Streamlined and minimalist is the look to aim for, with clean lines and bold shapes. Use a graphic pattern, define your spaces and put in a path to create a flow.
This type of outdoor space is more about hard landscaping than planting. Most contemporary gardens are primarily made up of hardscape materials and have limited vegetation. This includes terraces, patios, paved or decked areas and pathways made from simple materials such as wood, gravel, stone, tile, pebbles. There are trendy alternatives available too, for example glass or metallic gravel and volcanic rocks and coloured pebbles.
The key to a successful contemporary space is to introduce different heights. This can be done with decking, raised beds, 
stepped planters, oversized urns, or a metal gazebo or pergola which will create a sheltered area too.
As the focus is on the hard landscaping materials, the design shape is much more noticeable. Whereas, in traditional style gardens you can hide a multitude of sins with a good planting scheme; you won’t have that luxury. Expect to spend more as a lot more time and skill goes into creating this style of garden.
The Essentials
Metal Garden Furniture – A modern garden is all about bold, clean lines, making metal garden furniture perfect. Me
tal can be sculpted to form the bold, striking designs and it’s low maintenance – which fits in very well to the modern lifestyle. If you’re feeling daring metal gives you the opportunity to go for a bright colour or you can play it safe with black, grey, chrome or silver.
Outdoor Lighting – a modern garden must look just as good after dark as it does in the day time, use contemporary outdoor lights such as built in, colour changing LEDs or fibre optics to set the mood. You’re literally spoilt for choice these days from designer outdoor lamps to trendy Japanese style lanterns.
Statement Piece – statement wall-art or an abstract sculpture will create a focal point and really help to set the theme whether that’s contemporary-elegance, informal chill-out, industrial or tropical. Everything you put in the garden will have to be carefully chosen so it helps to have a theme/colour scheme in mind from the outset.
Planting
Using fewer plants means that their selection is even more crucial, use structured plants with strong forms to create a modern look. Exotic plants with large, irregular shapes are ideal. Here’s a few modern favourites -
Black bamboo
Lily turf
Mountain Flax
Agave
Black Magic
Japanese Silver Grass
Indian Shot Plant
Japanese Sedge
Flax Lily
Miniature Papyrus
Accessories
In a minima
listic space, accessories should be kept to a minimum. To avoid cluttering it’s often best to choose a statement piece, as mentioned above a piece of wall art, mirror, a cool water feature or an abstract sculpture.
Oriental styled accessories are popular in many modern gardens. Asian urns, oriental rock gardens or fire pits provide an eye-catching focal point.
It is important to incorporate non-traditional materials like plastics, synthetics, stainless steel and other metals to give a modern feel to the outdoor space. Do this with chic metal garden furniture, shiny metallic planters, a bright synthetic designer chair or a cool chrome light fitting or vase.
Follow Us!