Garden Living

Features

GET YOUR GARDEN ON TREND

“Garden Living” and the popularity of the “outdoor room” are now an established trend for the current generation of home owners. Today’s hip homes home are not merely measured by the aesthetic appeal and designer flair of their interior accommodation alone. In the Noughties we placed an increasing importance on the need to stamp our style credentials on a home’s outdoor – as well as indoor – space.

So if you want your garden to be sporting the very latest looks this year, we’ve got the low down on what’s hot and what’s not in the outdoor room, from local award winning garden design and installation company Scenic Blue, now part of Marshalls Gardens and Driveways.

Save our planet

There’s no sign of any let up in the nation’s thirst for practical as well as stylish solutions to the problem’s we may face if we don’t take heed of the climate control warnings being spread by the media on a daily basis. The “conscience consumers” label which marks our generation enjoys an increasingly high profile in the outdoor room where a number of steps are being taken to preserve our precious planet.

The use of recycled materials; planting to reduce our carbon footprint; a focus on water wise planting and planting to encourage biodiversity; the incorporation of solar power and the recycling of water / improved access to water via bore holes – all of these are no longer being hailed as radical new initiatives – but rather, a must-have on the design agenda for the majority of gardens today.

Essentially ethical

One of the emerging trends for 2008 will be the responsible sourcing of items which we purchase for our outdoor space. Just as the debate for the ethical production and supply of food reigns supreme in the supermarkets, so too are we destined to becoming committed to restricting our buying for the outdoor room to companies which can demonstrate clear evidence to prove that employees are being treated fairly i.e. companies that pay a fair wage, that operate the appropriate health and safety measures and companies that have eliminated child and bonded labour. Gardens are being created with a responsible awareness of the social and economic conditions within the community’s from which the materials are sourced.

One highly topical example of the growing interest in ethical garden products is the raising of public awareness in relation to the importation of Indian Sandstone from unethical sources. Currently Marshalls is the only hard landscaping manufacturer in the UK to conduct a rigorous screening process to ensure that all its imported natural sandstone is processed and supplied to the highest ethical standard.

Grow your own

The “grow your own” phenomenon continues to gather pace with seed sales rocketing and allotment waiting lists growing! So added to the list of practical functions a garden needs to fulfil – e.g. outdoor dining & entertainment zone, private sanctuary, kids play area, socialising space – is the ability to deliver home grown fruit and vegetables to satisfy the family’s desire to opt for the good life! Whilst growing our own food has historically been restricted to the traditional vegetable plot, contemporary garden design happily merges conventional planting with the planting of edibles, resulting in an eclectic mix of colours, textures and shapes.

Colour crazy

The last decade has witnessed a trend for minimalist planting and mono-chromatic grasses but all this is about to change …. Aubergines, deep purples and blues have been easing their way back into the garden scenery and these shades are being complemented by silver and white hues. Key for this year will be the emergence of a new fashion for introducing stronger, summer colours such as burnt oranges, warm yellows and vibrant reds. And one plant in particular has been earmarked for a comeback – Dahlias are set to become a regular favourite amongst outdoor room trend setters in 2008.