Home & Garden

If you are lucky enough to have your own garden you will know how valuable it can be as an extension of the space you have in your home. It can be used as a virtual outdoor room. With the right patio furniture and an attractive space to sit in, you can enjoy every aspect of your garden when it is looking its very best.

How do you reach that enviable stage? If you constantly look over at your neighbours’ gardens and feel as if you have been left behind, you will be glad to know there is a lot you can do to bring yours up to scratch.

Firstly it is essential to have some kind of plan in place. Start by figuring out how much room you have available. Do you have a large area of lawn you want to keep, for example? Do you want more flowerbeds and shrubs, or are you happy with what you have? Or do you simply want to get rid of everything and start again?

The important thing is to plan the whole garden rather than tackling just a small aspect of it. If you were to decide to lay a new lawn and you then decide you want a small vegetable plot along one side, you may have laid some turf for nothing.

In addition to this, you need to consider how much time you have to devote to caring for your garden. No matter what you decide to do with it, it will require a certain amount of upkeep to keep it looking good. The question is how much upkeep will it need? A gravelled plot with lots of containers filled with perennials will require a lot less ongoing work than a lawn with lots of annuals in the flowerbeds, for example.

Containers are always good for keeping down the weeds as they contain a lot less compost and you can easily change and move them around if you want to. You can also invest in different containers and even hand paint some earthenware pots yourself if you want to, to make them more personal and individual to you.

Remember to think about the bigger spaces and sections of your garden as well as the smaller ones. For instance you could create a huge patio area if you like entertaining and you feel you would get a lot of use out of it.

The same goes for a lawn, although you don’t have to worry about mowing it if you don’t want to. Artificial grass offers a practical and good looking solution if time is still of the essence when it comes to caring for your brand new and eye catching garden.