Small Garden Improvements

Summer has arrived and we are finally getting the chance to enjoy the garden. Sitting out with a cup of coffee I started to notice areas that were just a bit shabby looking, needed attention and just needed to be made more interesting to look at.

It's been a while since I spent any real money on the garden so I was happy to invest less than £100 to bring in a bit of cheer. Hopefully what I've done may give you some inspiration for your own green space.

About the space - it's a small back yard, no grass, mainly concrete, with one large planting bed.

Where nothing but weeds thrive:

There is an annoying patch in the garden bed where plants just don't seem to stick, plus our lovely dog seems to like lying in the mud here. So to combat muddy dog bellies, and keep weeds at bay, we laid a single slab to support a new small trough planter. The french lavender looks amazing against the grey and stands out beautifully amongst the greenery that surrounds it.

I've had this Buddha statue for a while, but he was becoming hidden in the wild undergrowth. Pulling him out and placing him on another patchy area of garden again stops the dog laying there whilst adding a bit of visual interest to an otherwise dull corner.

Where concrete rules:

 

When sitting in the garden a big part of what we see is the back of the garage - a "lovely" pebbledash covered wall. Not that great to stare at! So to break it all up and make it a little more interesting we added some inexpensive garden wall art, plus a practical bit of fun for when we have summer BBQs. Gardens don't have to be dull places after all.

When the sun goes down:

You should also think about the garden after sunset. Warmer weather means you can stay out longer after all. There are a tonne of different outdoors lights you can get nowadays. We purchased a couple of solar powered lanterns to use to highlight the garden/steps at night. Lights are a good way of getting more out of your garden space for evenings.

I'm really pleased with our small additions - they really help give the space a bit of personality and make it nicer to just chill out in. I'm sure I will continue to tweak and add to it over the rest of the summer.

My favourite is the french lavender planter - it just looks so pretty in the middle of the bed and was so quick and easy to achieve.

What's the best bit of your garden (assuming you have one!)? 

Right...where is that BBQ?