Design and construction

Your final resting place

No, this isn’t about where to bury the dog, but about creating places to sit in the garden. There are two distinct seating areas in the house. One is sitting up at the table on an upright chair, and the other is lounging around comfortably on the sofa or a favourite armchair. I think the garden should have the same two areas.

The dining area needs to be close to the kitchen. You don’t want to be walking backwards and forwards with plates and glasses when the family have all gone home and left you to the clearing up. People often say they want the table and chairs to be in the sunniest place even if it’s miles from the kitchen, but eating in the very hot midday sun can be very uncomfortable, especially when the back of your neck gets burnt. If you like the sun, then lie out in it with as few clothes on as possible and save this place for your sun beds.

Your dining area needs to be easily accessible. If you have extra guests, this area should accommodate them too. Buy a table and chairs big enough for you and everyone in the family who lives at home. Have extra chairs folded away somewhere close by for the extras. If you have lots of kids, think about another table somewhere that seats just the two of you and aim to use it – even occasionally – for a special meal or breakfast just for you. If the two of you sit at a huge table that seats six or eight, it will never feel really intimate and inviting.

Use the end of the garden. If your dining area is up near the house, then put your ‘other’ seating area – the comfortable one – away from the house and give yourself a reason to walk down there. Be contrary. Find the place that you dislike the most and spend all your efforts there.

Plant wonderful things, put a water feature or lighting in that very spot and choose a gorgeous chair, bench or sunbed. We all concentrate on pots on the patio and we leave the rest of the garden to lawn and shrub beds that bore us to death. Make all of the garden exciting!

This is how to live outside – a lovely dining area for you and your friends and family. A small, bijou area for breakfast when you’re alone, and a wonderful seating area for books, the papers and magazines and that most English pastime – the afternoon snooze!

If you need help creating your space, please call us. We’d love to help, and our ideas are free.


Plants

Eremurus – foxtail lilies

I like these plants as they’re a bit like an exclamation mark in the border. Their leaves appear first, and it’s as though they’ve been twisted up underneath the ground, for they come out like a leaf that’s been made by origami. They’re all small and slim and corrugated.

The flower heads appear next – again on a long, thin stem snaking out of the ground, that has the flower buds tightly contained. They gradually open to a tall, elegant and stately wand with flowers all the way up the stem.

Foxtail lilies punctuate lower growing flowers and you only need a group of five or so to really make an impact. If you repeat this a couple of times in the border, the height will break it up. They’re strange things to buy because the best time to plant them is when they’re just coming out of the pot and look like just a couple of boring leaves. You can also buy them in plastic bags – in the same way that you can buy lily bulbs. Plant them up into pots and let them start to grow before putting them into the ground.


Things to do

Cut back herbaceous perennials

As the first flush of flowers die down, don’t be afraid to cut them back as this will make them flower again. Cut back geraniums, alchemilla, nepeta – all those lovely edging plants – and you’ll start off a new batch of fresh, green leaves and flowers.

If you grow lupins or delphiniums, cut back the main flowering stem as it finishes and sets seed, and more flowers will shoot out from the side stems and prolong the flowering season. Sometimes, it’s trial and error. The most surprising plants will produce another set of flowers if you cut them back hard.

Keep dead-heading the roses to produce new buds and if you grow asters for the autumn, cut them halfway down now, and they’ll flower even later, taking you right into the autumn with masses of colour. 

It all makes perfect sense really. The plant is there to produce flowers, get pollinated and then set seed. If you cut off the ‘seed heads’ then the plant will have to produce more flowers. Isn’t nature wonderful?!