Garden Ideas

If you have a really damp or shady corner in your garden where you would like to put an area of lawn to place a garden bench on but fear it will just get wet and muddy underfoot why not forget about real grass and fork out for some top grade artificial turf, which can look very realistic. You will find that it can transform your garden and give you the perfect lawn all year round.

If your garden is very heavy clay, which you can hardly be bothered to cultivate, but you would like one lovely flowering tree to look at from your window or put a deck chair under in summer what should you choose? Probably Malus, or flowering crab. It is one of the nicest small trees to grow in clay and it's not going to grow too big. It flowers profusely in spring and is followed by attractive crab apples in autumn. 'John Downie' is universally regarded as one of the easiest and most impressive varieties, with its pretty white flowers and largish orange-yellow fruits that attract the birds and also make delicious crab apple jelly. There are lots of wonderful Malus trees available, some with red leaves and all shades of blossom from pale pink to a dark wine colour.

To cheer up a dull front garden and driveway use gravel for the finished surface for vehicular access so that you can spread the interest in an undefined way beyond the the absolute minimum area required and where possible linking it to flower beds that can spread flowers and ground cover into the gravel forming loose edges that are much less severe that just plain concrete or tarmac. Then to give more interest, especially in winter, place large clay pots planted with clipped box balls, between the plants.

Searching for that last minute Christmas present for a garden loving couple? Why not buy them a beautiful wooden love seat to be put in pride of place on their patio or lawn? There are lots of different styles and this is something they will never get tired of using or indeed looking at.

Plant great bowls of Hippeastrum, Paperwhite Narcissus and winter flowering Erica and place them on a conservatory table to make a wonderful Christmas display to help to bring some of the garden indoors, on dank dark days.

Place a stone or lead container near, or next to your front door then insert into it a bucket or bowl full of water. Next stuff the whole thing with as much berried holly, ivy, fir cone branches and coloured stems as you can manage, then spray with artifical snow for a beautiful seasonal display.