How to Plant Gardening Containers Or Gardening Pots In Your Container Garden

How to Plant Gardening Containers Or Gardening Pots In Your Container Garden

When you are ready to mix ingredients for your container garden, be sure the soil is damp and workable. To determine this, take a handful, squeeze it and allow it to drop. If water comes out, it is too wet; if it breaks apart, it is too dry. But if the lump of soil retains its shape or cracks just a little when it is dropped, it is in good condition to work into your gardening pots.

Be certain your garden containers are clean when you start. Soak used or new clay gardening pots overnight so they will not draw moisture from the soil after planting. This is a very important step when you are beginning your plants life. If the pot draws off the moisture the new plant will be deprived. Clean dirty clay pots with a stiff brush and hot, soapy water. Clean gardening pots will be much more attractive in your container garden.

Though redwood, cedar, and cypress gardening pots may be left natural, they may also be stained or painted. First clean the surfaces then apply one or two coats of stain or paint. Let dry completely before planting. Concrete, metal, plastic, fiberglass, and similar materials all need cleaning before planting your container garden.

Suiting plants to garden pots is very important in container garden design. Consider the shape of each container, its color, and texture in relation to the color of flowers and foliage, as well as the ultimate size of each plant in your container garden. Don’t choose material that is too small, and if you want a group of plants for a large container, select one tall specimen for the center to give height and scale. Don’t forget that you can plant vegetables in container gardens; try to incorporate them into your container garden design. And, for a tasty addition to your container garden plant herbs in garden containers or even hanging baskets, your recipes will become marvelous.

In low pots or bulb pans and in tubs, use low-growing plants like fancy-leaved caladiums, petunias, verbenas, Iantanas, ageratum and wax begonias. Hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils are also appropriate. In tall containers, plant specimens of geraniums, heliotropes, coleus, balsam, dwarf dahlias, fuchsias, and marguerites. Reserve the larger container pots and boxes for trees and shrubs or roses.

As a gardener, keep in mind the form of plants, particularly the evergreens which stand out boldly in winter. Rounded types, as clipped yews or globe arborvitae, look well in angular containers. Hollies or yews, sheared into squares or pyramids, look better in circular tubs. This contrast of the curving with the straight always gives interest to the garden and those guests that visit your container garden.

The first step in potting for a gardener is to place sufficient drainage material in the bottom of each garden container, allowing the water to pass through freely, but not so much as to interfere with the roots. An inch or two of flower pot pieces (rounded sides up), or chips of brick or flagstone, pebbles, gravel, small stones, or cinders can be used. The larger the container, the larger the pieces should be. Some gardeners spread a piece of coarse burlap and a layer of sand over large drainage pieces. A layer of Vermiculite or sphagnum moss over the drainage material is also fine to keep soil from clogging holes. If the holes clog the roots will drown in their gardening pot.

Above the drainage, spread a layer of soil, the amount depending on the size of the container and the root ball of the plant. Place the plant in position so that the surface of the soil will be an inch (more for big plants) below the rim of the container. This space is needed to hold water.

Fill soil in around the roots, firming gently with your fingers or a piece of wood so as to eliminate air pockets. Add more soil and firm, but do not make the soil too tight for fine feeding roots must be able to penetrate it with ease.

Finally, water your garden container plants well, let them drain. If water passes through the gardening pot very rapidly, press soil again to firm it; that means there are air pockets. If the soil holds water too long, loosen it a little.

Place the container garden in a sheltered spot out of sun and wind for the first week while they make new root growth and adjust to new conditions. This also helps to avoid shock. Once your plants have settled in, you ready to arrange your container garden according to your original container gardening design.

Happy Container Gardening!

Copyright © 2006 Mary Hanna All Rights Reserved.

This article may be distributed freely on your website and in your ezines, as long as this entire article, copyright notice, links and the resource box are unchanged.

Mary Hanna is an aspiring herbalist who lives in Central Florida. This allows her to grow gardens inside and outside year round. She has published other articles on Cruising, Gardening and Cooking. Visit her websites at http://www.GardeningHerb.com http://www.CruiseTravelDirectory.com and http://www.ContainerGardeningSecrets.com or contact her at mary@webmarketingreviews

4 Tomato Growing Tips To Think About When Asking, “when Should I Plant Tomatoes?”

4 Tomato Growing Tips To Think About When Asking, “when Should I Plant Tomatoes?”

Luckily most garden centers are a lot better than the retail stores and s you will not find tomato plants out for sale in the middle of winter. Other tomato gardening supplies and seed packs will be out as soon as all the red Valentine’s Day stock is taken down. The question always seems to be , “When should I plant tomatoes?” You will find that after reading tomato gardening tips in your gardening books and what you find online, it really boils down to 4 basic things.

4 questions and growing tomato gardening tips and suggestions for, “When should I plant tomatoes? “:

If you are lucky enough to live in a year round growing season, it doesn’t matter! You can easily stagger your tomato planting so that you will have new fresh plants replacing the old ones. Juicy tomatoes all year is a luxury to appreciate! For the rest of the people, you can plant when the danger of frost has past. Some places that will mean early spring, others in May or early June. Your garden center will have a chart to use as a guide. If you watch the weather carefully, you can plant a few weeks before that date.

Heavy, clumpy soil will simply not work with tomatoes. You need to cultivate the dirt each year by turning it over, raking, working in compost and fertilizers, and get it nice and loose. You also should not plant your tomatoes in the same place they were last year. Fresh nutrients in the soil are as important as the texture.

The optimum situation for planting tomatoes is two to three days after it rains. The soil will be nice and moist, but not clumpy, and it will be easy to work with, A hot and dry spring will mean you need to gently soak the dirt with a sprinkler for several hours the day before you plant.. Other tomato gardening tips for planting will tell you not to transplant in the hot sun. Seeds love the hot sun, but not plants.. The sun will cause the plants to wilt. If you plant in late afternoon at least give it overnight to adjust or devise some kind of temporary shade for a day or two.

Busy people who are working or have lots of commitments will often just have to do it when they have the time. It is a good idea to have a Plan A and alternate Plan B for when the weather does not cooperate with your schedule. Get the plants ahead of time, keep them watered and in the shade, so they will be ready when you are..

When should I plant tomatoes? Follow these four planting tomato gardening tips and suggestions and you should have a good tomato growing season.

Plant Flower Bulbs For Beautiful Container Gardening

Plant Flower Bulbs For Beautiful Container Gardening

As a group,flower bulbs are outstanding plants—colorful, showy, and generally easy to grow for container gardening. Many have evergreen foliage; with others, the leaves ripen after flowering and the bulbs are stored and started again, year after year. Some flower bulbs are hardy, others, tender, though what is, and is not hardy, in a particular area is a matter of winter temperature averages. In cold regions, tender types—tuberous begonias, gloxinias, and calla lilies—can be treated like summer in container gardens. This gives the gardener a wide variety to grow from earliest spring to late fall.

Dutch flower bulbs include crocus, snowdrops, eranthis or winter aconites, chionodoxas, scillas, grape hyacinths, leucojums or snowflakes, Dutch hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips, the pride of northern spring gardens. Though hardy, they are not adapted to garden containers outdoors where temperatures drop much below freezing. They require the protection of a shed, unheated cellar or cold frame. Gardening Pots can also be dug into a trench in the ground for the winter and covered with a thick blanket of marsh hay or straw. Where temperatures do not go below freezing, Dutch flower bulbs can be left outdoors in gardening pots over the winter.

For best results in a container garden, start with fresh, firm, large-sized flower bulbs each fall. Insure good drainage in the bottom of each garden pot and use a light soil with bone meal added. If in clay pots, plunge during the rooting period in damp peat moss to prevent rapid drying out. If this occurs too often, roots will be injured and flowers will be poor. When weather permits, after the danger of freezing passes, put your container garden outside where they are to flower or in a nursery row until they reach the bud stage. After blooming, move your container garden where foliage can ripen unseen.

For fragrance, concentrate on Dutch hyacinths, excellent for bedding large planter boxes or raised beds. Daffodils look well grouped around trees or large shrubs, as birches and forsythias. Tulips, formal in character, combine delightfully with pansies, violas, wall flowers, forget-me-nots, marguerites, English daisies, and annual candytuft in container gardens.

As already indicated, in cold areas, Dutch flower bulbs cannot be potted or planted in small window boxes and left outdoors unprotected for the winter. They can, however, be set out in large planters and boxes, deep and wide enough to contain plenty of soil. The garden pots should be one and a half to two feet deep and about two feet wide. Set flower bulbs, with at least six inches of soil above them, planting them early enough in the fall so that they can make root growth before soil freezes hard. In penthouse gardens in New York City, Dutch bulbs have been grown successfully in this way, but it is always a risk. It makes no difference whether garden pots are made of wood, concrete, or other material; it is the amount of soil they hold that counts.

Actually, it is not the freezing of the soil that injures flower bulbs (this occurs in open ground), but it is the pressure and counter pressure exerted by frost on the sides of containers, which are firm and do not give. As a result, flower bulbs are bruised and thrust out of the soil, their roots torn. Where there is no hard freeze, but sufficient cold weather, hardy flower bulbs can be grown successfully in garden containers of small size.

Here is a partial list of flower bulbs that thrive in container gardens. They will help you with your container garden design

Achimenes are warmth-loving trailing plants with neat leaves and tubular flowers in blue, lavender, red and white. Related to gloxinias and African violets, they are nice in hanging baskets and window boxes or in garden pots on tables, shelves, or wall brackets. Start the small tubers indoors and give plants a sheltered spot with protection from strong sun and wind. Achimenes, an old standby in the South, is worthy of more frequent planting.

Agapanthus or Blue Lily of the Nile is a fleshy-rooted evergreen plant, with strap leaves, often grown in tubs and urns on terraces and steps during the summer, when the tall blue spikes unfold. Culture is easy, but plants require a well-lighted, frost proof room or greenhouse in winter. This is an old-time favorite, often seen in the gardens of Europe. It is a perfect flower bulb for container gardening.

The Calla Lily is Showy, and outdoors in warmer regions, but a tender pot plant in the North. Most familiar is the white one with large, shiny, heart-shaped leaves. Start bulbs indoors in February or March in rich soil and, when weather settles, transfer to large gardening pots and take outdoors. Calla lilies do well in full sun or part shade, are heavy feeders and need much water. There is also a dainty yellow one with white-spotted leaves. Rest your flower bulbs after foliage ripens and grow again.

Colorful and free-flowering Dahlias provide bounteous cut blooms. Tall, large-flowering kinds can be grown only in large planters and boxes, but the dwarfs, even freer flowering, are excellent in small garden containers. Attaining one to two feet tall, they grow easily from tubers in average soil in sun or part shade. They may also be raised from seed sown indoors in February. If tubers are stored in peat or sand in a cool, frost proof place, they can be grown for years. Check bulbs during winter, and if shriveling, sprinkle lightly.

Gladiolus, the summer-flowering plant has spear like leaves and many hued spikes. Corms can be planted in garden containers outdoors after danger of frost is passed. Set them six inches apart and four to six inches deep. The best way to use these in container gardening is to planting a few every two to three weeks, giving you a succession of bloom in your container garden. Stake stems before flowers open. After the leaves turn brown, or there is a frost, lift corms, cut off foliage and dust with DDT to control the tiny sucking thrips. After dusting, store corms in a dry place at 45 to 55 degrees F for future planting.

Gloxinias, another Summer-flowering plant and tender with large, tubular blooms of red, pink, lavender, purple, or white, and broad velvety rosettes of leaves. Start tubers indoors and don’t take outside until weather is warm. Since the leaves are easily broken or injured by wind or rain, put plants in a sheltered spot. The low broad eaves of contemporary houses, with restricted sun, offer an appropriate setting for rows of pots or window boxes filled with gay gloxinias.

Now you have some great ideas for your container garden design. It’s time now to start planting your flower bulbs.

Happy Container Gardening!

Copyright © 2006 Mary Hanna All Rights Reserved.

This article may be distributed freely on your website and in your ezines, as long as this entire article, copyright notice, links and the resource box are unchanged.

Garden Vegetables – How to Know Exactly When to Plant and Harvest Them

Garden Vegetables – How to Know Exactly When to Plant and Harvest Them

You don’t have to rely upon the vague seed harvesting times predicted on seed packets. They’re based upon an ‘average’ garden. Your garden is not average. Your plants will mature at different times from the same plants in the next county, or even garden.

Solution? Try this clever gardening tip to grow more vegetables. Measure the Heat Units (HUs)!

HUs are one way that commercial growers know exactly when to roll out the harvesting machines. Do they read seed packets? No. We can easily use their method too. All we have to do is keep a detailed log every year of how much heat our plants get in a given area. These records will be different for every garden and every crop.

Keeping a garden log is the first step

The first thing you do is set a Base Temperature and thereafter take note of the average temperatures each day. For cool-season crops like lettuce and brassica, fix the Base Temperature at 40oF. For warm weather crops – like tomatoes, beans, squash, sweet corn – set it at 55oF.

The base temperature is not critical. It’s just an arbitrary reference point. But whatever it is, it must remain uniform in all subsequent measurements you make, so that you can keep and compare meaningful records. Now calculate your HUs.

On the day you sow a crop outdoors, record the daily high temperature and the daily low. Add them and divide them in half. Now you have an average temperature. Subtract the base temperature from this number to obtain the HUs for that particular day.

How to know when to pick organic garden vegetables

Let’s imagine you have planted tomatoes in early summer. On day one the temperature is 70ºF at its height and 60ºF at its lowest point. The average is therefore 65ºF. Take away the Base Temperature 55ºF you have determined for tomatoes and you’re left with 10. That’s your Heat Units for that particular day.

Some beefsteak or other late tomatoes might demand as many as 1000 HUs to ripen outdoors. Early tomatoes will need fewer than 600 HUs. But your own records over the years will tell you precisely how many HUs which crop and variety needs, in your own garden.

For example, a gardener might set out modules of Alaskan Fancy ultra-early tomatoes on 1st June, the typical day after the last frost date for a region in zone 8. From experience, s/he knows this variety needs no more than 490 HUs before the first fruit is ripe.

A big advantage of the HU system is that it lets you plan ahead. If you’re sure from your records that you can harvest, say, spinach in your garden by the end of May you’ll be able to get plants ready to replace it the moment the crop is pulled. You no longer have to rely upon the vague dates suggested on seed packets.

A lazy gardening way to check garden temperatures

Do you need to rush out each day to check the temperature? No! Hang an electronic high-low thermometer outdoors that you can read from a lounge chair in your house, using bird watchers’ binoculars. Then set up an automatic watering system. And relax. You won’t even have to step outside to crop your first tomatoes, or any other plant, until they’ve reached the desired Heat Units.

Your Heat Units will be different even from your neighbors’. Yet despite even wide temperature fluctuations, month by month, in your garden you can be fairly sure of when every crop will be ready – just by doing the math. That’s a great benefit for every busy gardener!

Related Garden Tips Articles

Climbing Plant Options for Gardens

Climbing Plant Options for Gardens

Most homeowners beautify their houses to make a better abode for their family. Some also do it as a form of self-expression. Home designs commonly include the house’s exterior, interior and outdoor areas.

The exterior of the house is installed with protective devices that also serve aesthetic purposes. The interior of the house is decorated with furniture, accessories and other things to make it more appealing and comfortable.

Some homeowners give special attention to their house’s yard, lawns and other surroundings. Patios and gazebos are popular outdoor design choices, as well as water features like fountains and waterfalls.

Others turn to gardening and cultivate plants to improve their property’s outdoor aesthetics. There are also some who tend a garden for consumption and medicine purposes. If you want to develop a garden, it is important to know which plants are appropriate. This depends on certain factors, such as soil type and climate.

It is important that an aspiring home gardener learn some garden tips to help him. For instance, if you want to put a trellis in the garden, you must know about climbing plants. A trellis is an architectural structure built to support climbing plants. It is usually made of interwoven pieces of wood, metal or bamboo. A trellis can add visual appeal to a garden, for example, when placed in pathways.

One climbing plant that can goes well with a trellis is sweet pea. It is a climbing plant that can grow to around 1 to 2 meters in height where support is available. It produces flowers that are usually purple in color. Another popular climbing plant is ivy. It does not exceed 20 centimeters in height when creeping on the ground, but with supporting structures, it can climb 30 meters above the ground. One must study good garden tips and ideas to take care of these plants.

Other garden trellis ideas suggest the use of honeysuckle. This plant comes in several varieties with strongly-scented flowers in colors of pale creamy white to vibrant red. They often thrive in lightly shaded spots. The Russian vine, another climbing plant, grows fast; it can grow 5 meters in one season. You must exercise caution when choosing plants for a trellis to ensure you can take care of them.

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When Should I Plant Tomatoes If I Have A Busy Family Life? – Some Helpful Gardening Time Management Ideas

When Should I Plant Tomatoes If I Have A Busy Family Life? – Some Helpful Gardening Time Management Ideas

For many families their problems growing tomatoes center around their busy family life and finding the time to prepare the soil and get the tomatoes into the ground as close to the last projected frost date as possible. They tend to worry about, “When should I plant tomatoes?” when they should be worrying about designing a gardening time management plan that will help them. Any busy family who truly enjoys growing their own vegetables needs to understand that organizing their time plans are is just as important tomato gardening tips as caring for them once they are in the ground.

The main thing that needs done is preparing the soil. Actually planting your tomatoes doesn’t take long. It should not be too hard to devise some gardening time management schedules to get these things done so you can get tomatoes planted as close to the optimum planting dates as possible.

The soil can be turned over any time.
There are no tomato gardening tips that say it has to be worked the same time you are going to plant.
If your time is limited, you must start thinking about all of this early in the spring and spread out the tasks.
With daylight saving being moved back to early March free up more daylight hours to work outside. You can turn the soil over the first time in March if that is when you have the time!

There is also no official tomato gardening tips that say the whole garden needs worked at one time.
Do what you can in the hour or so you have on nice day after work while your spouse cooks dinner, and then the next time you have some free moments go back and do some more.
There might be a weekend when you can put more time in.

Everyone knows once something is on the calendar, it becomes a priority and when conflicts arise it will be re-scheduled.
An effective gardening time management idea is to put two options right on your calendar for preparing the soil and another two for the actual planting. You need one main plan and a back-up for rainy weather.
As those dates close in, you will figure out the best options, based on the weather, and your schedule.
It will allow you to concentrate on your more important problems growing tomatoes and reading up on the latest tomato gardening tips and advice.

“When should I plant tomatoes if I have a busy family schedule?” can be easily handled with some advance thought and organization. You need to be able to concentrate on the effective maintenance and the problems growing tomatoes that involve pests and drought, not planting issues!

food plant organic gardening?

GregMason asks: food plant organic gardening?
If you could only grow 3 different kinds of food plants. Which 3 would you choose and why?

The answer voted best is:

Answer by greeneyes51572
beans (high nutritional value), wheat (so versatile) and tomatoes (love them)

Add your own answer in the comments!

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Solve The Time Crunch For When I Should Plant Tomatoes By Practicing Gardening Time Management

Solve The Time Crunch For When I Should Plant Tomatoes By Practicing Gardening Time Management

The fact of the matter is there is only so much free time left when you have an active life and busy family. What people learn to do is fit the things they have to do in first, and then figure out how to work the rest in. When it comes to gardening time management for a busy family, the same principals are involved. Most families can figure out ways to get the things done they want or like to do most, and leave the others behind. There is no use fretting about when I should plant tomatoes, or flowers, or anything else all those tomato gardening tips books tell you about. You will either make the time or not. Whichever way it turns out it will be OK.

One gardening time management piece of advice is to think about if your time is limited, is to start dealing with all of this early and spread out the tasks over time. With daylight savings being moved back to early March, it frees up daylight hours to get things done on a nice day when you get home from work. You can do a little here and a little more then and before you know it, the garden is turned over and fertilized and ready for transplanting some plant or growing tomatoes from seed. This takes the fretting factor away in a jiffy.

When it gets closer to the no more frost time, when all the tomato gardening tips and advice you have read tells you is the best time to plant tomatoes, you again can only do what you have time to do, when you have the time to do it. You might even think about renting a tiller or paying someone to turn over the garden to save yourself sometime.

It is not worth fretting about the actual date for, “when should I plant tomatoes?” If your tomatoes to not get in until a week or two after you hoped, so be it. All it really means is you will not be growing tomatoes from seed, and you will have to transplant tomatoes. It may end up being a week or two later before you get a nice juicy tomatoes for your burgers and salads.

If the only time you have is a week or two before the suggested last day of frost, so be it. Just plant them when you can. There really should be no problems growing tomatoes that were planted too early if you watch the weather carefully and cover the plants if a late frost is predicted.

By stopping to think through some gardening time management tips like starting early, not growing tomatoes from seed, and not fretting about the actual planting date, it will allow you to concentrate on the more important problems growing tomatoes once they have started to grow by reading up on the latest tomato gardening tips and advice. Yes, there is an optimum time for when should I plant tomatoes, but it is certainly not the end of the world if you miss it by a week or two.

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The Right Way to Plant Flower Garden

The Right Way to Plant Flower Garden

The Right Way to Plant Flower Garden

The beautifully maintained flower garden can make your yard look beautiful and attractive on the other hand the poorly maintained garden will give ugly appearance to your garden. If you are planting a flower garden, it is imperative to follow the flower gardening tips to take proper care of your garden and flower plants. Flower gardening is an easy and rewarding task if you follow all the tips carefully.

Flower garden can look best in all seasons. The only thing you need is to take proper care of your garden. If you are a beginner in flower gardening, you will have to learn some basic things about gardening. You should know the right way to plant the flower garden. Below are some tips that will help you in achieving your goal of planting a flower garden.

Planting a Flower Garden

When planting a garden, you should decide on what type of plants you want to grow in your garden. According to it, you can purchase either the seeds of the plants or buy the readymade plants to plant in your garden. These plants are grown at green houses. Hence, it is important to choose the plants grow well in your area’s climate.

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Choose the planting area according to the sun and shade requirements for the plants you purchase. Most of the flower plants grow in full sunlight while some require shady conditions for proper growth. Hence, plant the seeds in the area according to the sunlight requirements.

While preparing the soil bed, dig the soil up to 12-18 inches deep all around the planting area. If the soil is too dry or hard, you can amend it with peat moss or compost to improve its texture. You can also make use of the clay soil in your garden that holds too much water and smoothen roots. This type of soil can be packed tightly around the root.

You can also add fertilizers in the soil if necessary. This will help the plant to flower briskly. If you purchase the ready plants from green houses, they already have the fertilizer or beads in the soil. The best fertilizer is the organic compost that can boost up the growth of flower plant. But make sure that you do not over-fertilize the plant or it may burn the roots. Provide water immediately after fertilizing the plants.

When you are buying a plant from the nursery, if the plant is root bound, the roots are tightly wrapped around the root-ball. Take a sharp knife and tear the side of root ball on four sides. Dig the hole in the ground twice as large as diameter of flower’s pot. Position the plant in the center of the hole and spread the roots smoothly under and around the plants.

Mulch the soil about two inches with the thick mulch. Avoid mulching next to the stem to reduce the possibility of rodent and insect activity. You can add organic compost in the soil to increase the nutrient contents in it. This will help to enhance the growth of flower plants.

Make sure to water the plants regularly. Follow the entire flower gardening tips to make your garden look stunning and eye-catching.

The Extra Room – Gardening Tips For Plant Assassins!

The Extra Room – Gardening Tips For Plant Assassins!

Spring is on its way … the birds are tweeting, blossom buds are starting to bloom… its time to start planning for a beautiful Summer of long balmy evenings spent outside in the extra room that is your garden. Except it looks more like a concrete jungle than an urban oasis. That’s if you’re anything like me and your other career is a plant assassin. So here is a quick guide to using simple tricks and great new products like wall stickers to create a desirable space on a budget.

It helps to think of the space as you would a room in the house. So before you look at the finishing touches you need to think about the walls and the floor covering. Fences can be be painted with special treatments available at any DIY store. There are beautiful colours available now. A candy – striped fence can look very beautiful and reminds me of beach huts. If you have an ugly concrete wall this would look great rendered and painted. you may need a plasterer for the rendering but the effect will be really crisp and modern. For the flooring take a look at all the amazing decorative aggregates available. The beauty of these finishes is that no skilled labour is required – simply shovel it all over! Personally I love the dark slates that give a groovy modern look to any space. Or if you prefer a beach theme then there are lovely Norfolk pebbles.

Clear away all the beds of weeds and tired looking plants. Only keep those that you really like. Think of adding low maintenance plants. A personal favorite of mine is Bamboo. I have found it almost impossible to kill, it is evergreen and it makes a beautiful sound when it rustles in the wind. I particularly like the black cane variety as it looks very dramatic. Eucalyptus is another evergreen that looks great in an urban space.

I would choose some modular dark cane furniture with white cushions to compliment a contemporary Asian theme. For a more Parisian aesthetic there are pretty coloured metal chairs and tables. For a beach feel you could choose stripey deck chairs and a hammock. Don’t forget the lighting. There are some beautiful options available now and many are solar powered so need no complicated electrics; pretty asian lanterns and twinkly fairly lights to name but a few.

Once the basics have been sorted out it is time to start having fun. Wall stickers have been written about a lot lately but few people seem to realize that they can be used outdoors as well as inside. They are guaranteed for five years but in my experience they last much longer. Made from self-adhesive vinyl they are the same product that is used for exterior shop signs and I have had one outside my shop for 15 years and it is still in good condition! There are some great graphics for the garden. You could add a Balustrade to a plain wall. There are beautiful Asian inspired blossoms and trees that would work really well with the dark slate aggregates. For a little urban garden you could use a trompe l’eouil of Parisian rooftops – trees chic! They are extremely good value and they will transform your new space into a groovy extra room for those long summer nights. Now after all that hard work, pour yourself a well deserved glass of wine and enjoy.

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