Are your design tastes a little out of the ordinary? If they are, good for you. The world would be a pretty boring place if we were all the same. The garden is a great place to show off your personality. Some people take gardening very seriously, but it is your garden and if you want to make it a fun place to be, you should.
If you are looking for inspiration, we will suggest some useful features here to help get your creative juices flowing. I am not suggesting that you follow these projects exactly as I write them; adapt and use the things that interest you, and leave the rest.
Here are some quirky garden design features for those who dare to be different.
Bottle Walls
Introduce colour into your garden by building a wall from empty wine bottles. (They don’t have to be wine bottles, but they are the best kind to empty). Here is how to build one.
- Build a strong foundation by digging a trench six inches deep and filling it with concrete
- Lay a mortar bed two inches thick
- Lay bottles onto the mortar, each one facing 180 degrees to the previous bottle so that the base of the bottles are showing on either side of the wall
- Cover the bottles with more mortar and start work on the second row
Throughout the day, the sunlight will make the coloured glass glisten. Bottle walls are ideal for creating raised flower beds.
Make a Grotto
Are you away with the fairies? Build your own magical grotto and add some unique garden accessories to it.
This project makes use of either render or natural stone to make a rock cavern. The rock gives the best finish, but a blockwork cavern, with a rendered surface will do if you are on a small budget.
Just outside the cavern, a pond with the sound of trickling water will add to the impression that this is a mystical place.
Cover the walls of your cave with glass beads or sea shells to give the impression that it is home to fairies or even mermaids.
Make Faces
Garden lawns are boring features.
Jazz yours up by removing the straight lines and making faces instead. It is quick and easy to do. Use rope to mark out the shape of the face on the lawn band cut around it with a kitchen knife.
Don’t forget to mark out the features too. When you have cut the outline, use a garden spade to remove the turf you no longer require. Not only do you now have a very interesting lawn, but there is more space available for planting flowers.
Use small flowering plants to add colour to the eyes and red foliage for the lips. Making faces is great fun.
I hope these ideas have inspired you to get out into your garden and do things your way. It is time that gardens stopped being so generic and took on the personality of their owners instead.
Until next time, enjoy yourself out there.