If you’re planning to reinvent your garden space, you’ll first want to figure out exactly what it is you want from your garden. It’s easy to create a boring, generic yard, but there are many drawbacks to this. Firstly, you’re not making good use of this space, and it’s important to remember that your garden can serve as an extension of your home and can even function as an entirely separate room in a sense. Secondly, a well-designed garden will also increase the value of your property, too, compared to a dilapidated and unkept yard. To help you decide on a style for your garden, we’ve listed a few different styles that you could choose from and how to make them a reality.
Kitchen Garden
Many homeowners relish having the opportunity to cook outside once the summertime rolls around. You’ll be hard-pressed in the UK to walk around a residential area on the first hot day of the summer and not smell a barbeque. But a small grill on wheels doesn’t need to be the only method of cooking in your garden. In fact, if you’re the type that loves having the chance to cook outside, you could convert a section of your garden into an extension of your kitchen itself. There are plenty of large and impressive cooking appliances that many of us just don’t have the space for inside. The most notable of these appliances is the outdoor pizza oven. Whether you opt for a contemporary metal oven or a traditional stone one, having a space in which you can cook outside and serve directly to your friends and family can be a fantastic experience for everyone involved. Don’t forget to ensure that you have a well-covered area for your equipment and furniture and that you can protect everything from the weather during the winter.
Snug Area
Another great use of your outdoor space is to create a cosy and relaxing area for you and your guests to enjoy throughout the day and night. The specific theme you choose for an area like this is entirely down to personal preference, but the main focus should be on comfort and creating a welcoming feeling. Common additions to a space like this include large outdoor seating such as a sofa, beanbags, and big armchairs that people can sink into. Lighting is also important here, with fairy lights being a popular choice. You could drape strings of LED lights along fences or entwine them around a pergola, or even choose a net of fairy lights to act as a wall or curtain of light for the space. Lanterns and candles are also a great choice here as the flickering, warming lights can be very relaxing for your guests. Finally, a firepit or heaters will also be worth adding, as these will keep everyone warm, and an open firepit will also serve as a stunning centrepiece.
Wildlife Garden
For the more eco-minded homeowners out there, using your garden as a dedicated space for nature is also a great idea. There are many different ways you can do this, but the focus is naturally going to be on attracting wildlife to your garden. This can serve as a sort of refuge for the wildlife in the area and encourage creatures and native flora to thrive. You could designate an area specifically for wild growth in that you aim to avoid interfering with it as much as possible. Sow a selection of native seeds across your wild growth border and leave them to flourish on their own. You can keep the space tidy by trimming back and pulling up any plants that may end up spreading outside of the border, but it’s best to leave the plants to do their own thing. This wild growth will act as a home to many different species of mammals and insects, or even reptiles in some cases, becoming its own little ecosystem.
Outdoor Lounge
Similar to an outdoor kitchen area, you could also create an outdoor lounge area. This space will have everything you’d normally find in a lounge but will benefit from being outside in the fresh air. Of course, this means you’ll have plenty of heavy furniture dotted around, which will require cover from the rain and snow throughout the year. First of all, you’ll want to cover this space with high-quality materials, such as polycarbonate roofing sheets connected to a sturdy frame. You can find these sorts of materials from trusted suppliers like ClearAmber Shop. An area like this works very nicely as an attachment to your house as it provides additional coverage for you and your furniture. Using these polycarbonate sheets for a shelter, such as a permanent awning attached to your home, is a great way to create an outdoor space that functions as an extension to your property.
Mediterranean Garden
When we sit outside under the stars with a fire crackling away, it’s common for this to conjure up feelings of being outdoors in the Mediterranean with a warm breeze blowing and crickets chirping all around us. You can add to this by turning your outdoor space into a Mediterranean-themed garden, complete with Greek or Italian-inspired décor. For example, you could create a garden with pure white brickwork and stunning blue furniture and adornments to the area, reminiscent of the beautiful Santorini. Or you could choose the rustic, terracotta-themed garden replicating the décor of Florentine or Dubrovnik. There are so many Mediterranean styles to choose from, so look around to find the right fit for your garden. Don’t forget to choose some plants that complement these designs, too.
Garden Allotment
If you’re looking for more practical use for your garden, you could instead choose to turn part of it into a space in which you can grow your own food. You could dig up part of the garden to plant rows of seasonal vegetables throughout the year, creating well-kept pathways between each plot for both aesthetic and practical purposes. Growing your own fruit and vegetables isn’t the easiest of tasks, but plenty of crops are quite hardy and straightforward to grow, requiring very little maintenance. A garden allotment is also the perfect accompaniment to a garden kitchen, too, as you’ll be able to harvest what you need and then prepare and cook it a few feet away.
Mindfulness Space
Gardens are often sought by homebuyers due to their ability to offer us a place of quiet reflection, and so you could look at creating a space that is designed to help you to relax and meditate. A popular choice of style when creating a space like this is karesansui or the Japanese dry garden style. These spaces are often devoid of things like lawns and instead rely on rocks, sand, woods and other natural materials to create a quiet and clear space to help you remain undistracted. When it comes to greenery, bamboo, ferns, and Japanese maples are popular choices. You could even consider a moss lawn that is incredibly soft underfoot and very good for the environment. A moss lawn can absorb much more carbon dioxide than a regular lawn and is also very low maintenance. It can even grow over pretty much anything, from rocks and trees to furniture and ornaments. While you may want to keep it away from your outdoor seating, this can create an almost fairy-tale aesthetic for your garden.
