With summer officially on our doorstep, many of us are breathing a sigh of relief. The winter was a difficult one, and the bright long days could not come quickly enough! With summer comes the trappings of warm bright days: picnics, drinks in the sun and barbecues galore. As such, you might be thinking it’s high time you got on top of your garden. But how should you go about transforming it for the summer?
Adding Some Foliage
Gardens are not rendered innately beautiful on account of being outdoors. This much is made clear by the growing number of astroturf eyesores and concrete calamities replacing conventional gardens across the UK. Not only are these unappealing to the eye, but also damaging to the environment. The trick to transforming your garden is to lean in to the foliage – not literally, mind.
By devoting some thought to the plants in your garden, you can elevate it to something wonderful. Planting some pollen-rich flowers for bees and other pollinating insects can revitalise your local ecosystem, while ensuring your garden remains beautiful for summers to come.
Build a Patio
Incredible as a well-populated, flora-rich garden can be, you still want it to be accessible and enjoyable to you. Picnics in the grass will always be fun, but not the most practical way to get the most out of your garden. Whether you’re transforming your garden for your own quiet enjoyment or for entertaining friends, paving part of your garden to create a patio space is almost essential.
This patio space could be used in all manner of ways, whether as an outdoor living room replete with all-weather sofas, or a barbecue-ing hotspot with a stone oven and gas-powered grill. Whatever you do with it, having that stable ground makes enjoying your garden all the easier.
Light It Up
Your enjoyment of your garden should not be bounded to daylight hours, or purely to sunny weather. Adding some outdoor lights can further elevate your garden, giving it an enchanted feeling with the right touch. Festoon lighting can be used to illuminate your patio, allowing you to entertain guests well past sunset. Solar-powered and motion-activated lights can be installed in your flowerbeds or trees, as well as along any garden paths you have. This way, exploring your garden at night attains a magical feeling.
Adding Colour
Finally, you cannot trust your flowers alone to bring colour to your garden. Even with rich flowerbeds, the green of your lawn and the stonework of your patio will dominate. With this in mind, injecting some colour in other ways can be a great idea.
A simple way to do this would be to paint your shed something vibrant, to help it stand out at the foot of the garden. You could do the same to your house, to add some brightness to the patio end of the garden. Using potted plants to decorate your patio, and painting them according to your tastes, can also have a transformative effect.
