After the long months of winter and lockdown, everyone is wanting to get out in the garden once again! Gardens have never been so important as they are now and an attractive garden can add real value to your property. Your garden can be like an outdoor living room, giving your family extra space. There are some major garden projects to consider, such as installing a decked area or a garden office. Home working is likely to be an option for many months to come! Having your garden professionally landscaped is not as expensive as you think and is a great way to achieve the garden of your dreams!  Here are some great ways to improve your garden yourself – without denting your wallet!

 

Cut the grass and prune all the trees & bushes

 

The first step in creating a lovely garden for the summer is to get it in shape!  Cut the lawn and trim the edges. If the lawn is looking in poor condition, plenty of lawn nutrients will make a real difference.

Prune all your hedges, bushes and trees – you will be surprised how much they have grown since last autumn and they will be much more manageable! 

Paint all the fencing

Painting all the fencing definitely makes the biggest single improvement to your garden because the fencing will suddenly look like new again and add act as a natural backdrop, emphasising the colours and textures of the various plants and bushes. 

If you use a wood staining preservative, it will definitely prolong the life of the fencing. Repair the garden gate and oil the hinges and then apply a couple of coats of wood stain to make it look smart! If you have a wooden bench or garden chairs, they will benefit from similar treatment!

Create an al fresco dining area

Eating outdoors make an ordinary meal taste like a banquet! Is there somewhere you can easily transform into an outdoor sitting area? You will find that it will quickly become a popular place to relax with a good book. If you have an area of concrete next to the garage wall, this can be quickly adapted by painting the garage wall, adding some wall planters and decorating the area with fairy lights for the evenings.

Alternatively you can  create a sitting area. First, clear the area of weeds,  before covering it with the special plastic matting you can buy. Stack the matting down before covering it with shingle. Large terracotta pots filled with colourful flowers will give the area a real Mediterranean feel – even if the weather doesn’t! Solar lanterns around the edge of the area look lovely too and create a lovely ambiance in the evening.

 

Bring color to your garden.

 

It is fashionable to choose a colour scheme for your garden which can be highlighted by flowers as well as your garden furniture. The garden centres are full of colourful annuals right now and these are a quick and cheap way to bring instant colour to your garden. Different shades of lilac and white look very pretty and can be accentuated with a hanging basket suspended from a tree branch.

Creating a focal point with an array of terracotta pots in different sizes and shapes works well too. You can fill the pots with a variety of flowers in your chosen colour scheme or else an interesting collection of plants with leaves in different  shades of green and with textured foliage. The terracotta pots are perfect for a collection of herbs too.

 

Create a vegetable patch.

Vegetable growing increased in popularity during lockdown and

!will continue to do so as more and more people have found that it is a fun way to get a supply of organic vegetables. Once again, having a vegetable patch can add real value to your home. If you have a large empty flowerbed, why not consider converting it into a veggie patch? It is amazing how many vegetables you can grow in a relatively small area. To save space, butternut squash and courgettes both grown really well in a large terracotta pot and happily will trail over the lawn or concrete.

If you just have a small area, why not change it into a herb garden? There is something special about picking your own fresh herbs for your cooking.

●https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/hgen/plant-herb-garden.htm

Build a rockery

This is the perfect solution if your soil is not good quality or you want to add interest to your garden. You can build a rockery in just a few straight forward stages and incorporate some interesting chunks of stone. Adding peat in the crevices between the stones will give nourishment to your new Alpine plants.

● https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-build-rock-gardens-2132674

 

At each stage of your renovation plan, it is a good idea to assess how much maintenance work will be required and wherever possible, opt for easy-care plants and vegetables. If you really do not have too much time at all, an increasing number of people are choosing to have just grass with a variety of large terracotta planters and those who are not ‘green fingered’ at all, will never admit it, but they are planting artificial plants in the planters – and the effect is simply stunning!