Trees, patios and garden seating ideas

The Giveaway is now closed and I will draw the names out of a (clean) hen feeder later today


After the excitement in the last couple of weeks of the patio build, it is so good to think that soon I can get started on the garden redesign. I am itching to get digging! For now though, I have been looking around on line for more ideas and have pinned more products and ideas onto my Pinterest "Dream Gardens" board (a good use of Pinterest I think).

So far, my pinboard  seems to be mainly garden benches, ponds, greenhouses, cold frames and not much else - I suspect my veg growing habit is having an impact on my Internet searches! Or I just like to sit down a lot when out in the garden? Anyway, a few days ago I spent some time pruning this weeping silver birch tree near the house.

It has become a good place us to sit and have a coffee and a bit of a rest during the day as it is shady and also surprisingly dry when it rains.

After I had a good look at how my pruning efforts came out  I began to think about getting or maybe even making a rustic "round the tree trunk " bench for it. It is a lovely shady spot to sit and will have a good view of the new patio (am still so excited!) and all the new herbaceous flower beds I will be planting up really soon.  It is also near to where the new garden pond is going to be dug ( more excitement!) which we hope will end up looking a bit like this picture on my Pinterest board, only more wild. You can see a few images of "round the trunk" benches on there as well.
  
As the patio work is nearly complete I have also turned my thoughts to what sort of seating we want for it. As I discussed in a post a few months ago, our existing table and chairs are well past their prime, they are more than 10 years old, have had a hard life and have been chewed by Hornets (yes, really) .

So, time for a change. This time I have been looking at slightly more naturalistic/rustic seating. As always we insist that anything made of wood which we buy must be FSC Certified (Forest Stewardship Council)  and ideally made from fallen rather than felled timber. I have not seen many suppliers who use fallen timber, so I was really pleased and surprised to find that The Garden Furniture Centre makes FSC Certified Rustic Garden Benches from fallen rather than felled timber, wherever they can. I was also impressed that they sell furniture made from recycled plastic.

I was particularly taken with this rustic bench and if you go to the website you can see a selection of different locations and surroundings where they have sited the bench for the photo shoot. Some of them could be in our garden or wood!

Image copyright The Garden Furniture Centre

You can also have carving on the bench seat back and I  love the idea of something carved as a memorial or to commemorate a special occasion. You may, if you watch it, have seen one of these on a recent ITV gardening makeover show.

I know I said I was going to go for metal garden furniture because of the Hornet damage, but I just love wood so much! I will have to think hard about this as it IS quite a lot of money but our Wedding Anniversary is on the horizon so perhaps a bench with some commemorative message would be nice. I would justify spending the money on something so very special to commemorate that :).

Obviously I have not yet bought anything from The Garden Furniture Centre so I do not know how good they would actually be,  but the website is impressive

As regards the patio, we have to clean up the slabs this weekend (using a pressure washer and brush) and then, on the first dry day next week the builders will return to finish off the pointing :) I love pressure washing things :) I find it very satisfying, in a probably strange way.

I can't wait :)




Disclaimer - I am writing a series of posts about my plans and hopes for our garden redesign - this post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

My love of woven things.

I am still feeling groggy and full of face ache so, rather than work outside, I have been searching online for more inspiration for the new garden layout. I have been adding ideas to my Pinterest "Dream Gardens" board and watching the new ( to us) pair of Buzzards wheel and call over the fields outside the house.
 

Today I have mainly been looking online for wicker garden furniture. I love the texture of wicker and I have always been keen on weaving with rushes or reeds or flexible sticks. One of my earlier memories, aged about three, is of us stopping the car in a layby in Wales (so my brother could be car sick). I got out with my mother and we walked to a boggy area by a stream and picked green rushes.

I remember being fascinated when my mother showed me how the green rushes could be plaited, twisted and knotted together, without breaking apart. Later on, I learned how to plait my own long hair and I also learned how to plait rushes and later still to make make coiled, sewn baskets and mats out of the rush plaits. My mother taught me how to do this also, she could make hats out of plaited straw and I remember her making several summer hats for her, and for me.

I don't know if that is where my love of  wicker comes from, but I do like making baskets and twig stars  and willow structures and little corn and lavender favours and garden obelisks...

I also have lots of storage baskets and boxes made of various natural materials - willow, straw, raffia etc. I like the different textures on display.

 


I am looking for new garden furniture because ours is getting really rather old and tatty.  I am interested in new furniture which can live permanently on the newly redone patio (whenever that will be). I found some rather nice metal and some FSC wooden sets last week, this week I have been searching for wicker garden furniture.

  
I have always liked the look and idea of natural rattan wicker furniture  but in my younger days all the sets I saw, in other people's gardens, seemed to rapidly go brittle - I have painful memories of getting splinters and I suspect they were not really weather proof! My memories are also mainly of big, cane three piece suites and big flowery cushions in very bright colours. 

How things have changed! From my on-line searches I have found that the modern outdoor wicker/rattan sets are mainly made of woven resin on an aluminium frame, rather than rattan, so I guess no more splinters now, which is a relief. 

My search came up with the usual garden superstore sites but I also found a lot of interesting independent suppliers. I liked the garden furniture sets displayed on the Bents website - they are a  third generation family business based in Glazebury, Cheshire. I was very impressed with their Our green credentials pages as well, where Bents itemise the things they do.

 
Looking at the selection of wicker garden furniture on the Bents website there is a wide range of prices, styles, colours and materials to chose from - all of the furniture is made from resin weave so the splinter/rot problem has gone away :-)

I called the Bents customer helpline to ask about the resin material and if it could really live outside? The answer was, yes, resin rattan weave  furniture really can stay outside all the time, although the fabric cushions need to be brought in out of the rain. I was impressed with the customer service I received when I called Bents and I was even more impressed that you can also wash the furniture, which is handy to know with the Ginger Gang of incontinent chickens hanging around us all the time. 

I am a bit concerned that synthetic resin rattan is made from HDPE (so made from oil) but on the other hand it should last a very very long time and not have to be replaced as often as wood (especially if the Hornets are around!) and is recyclable at the end of its life. That is an aspect I will have to take into account before deciding what to finally buy. 

Of course what I could also do is make a living willow chair for the garden - something I have been thinking of doing for a long time now, ever since I made various willow wigwams and domes. But not really very portable and also not likely to survive on the patio! 

Anyone else have a patio set made from either resin or real wicker? Or a living willow chair?

Disclaimer - I am writing a series of posts about my plans and hopes for our garden redesign - this post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Hornets and replacing the garden furniture

It was wet and dull here yesterday, so I spent a bit of time online getting ideas for our future garden layout. I have created a new Pinterest "Dream Gardens" board and have been pinning various products and ideas on to it. I have also been looking around at various on line suppliers of gardening products to get ideas and also some feel for the cost of things.

So far my pinboard  seems to be all garden benches, greenhouses, cold frames and not much else - I suspect the cold start to this growing season is having an impact on my Internet searches!

At the moment I am looking for Garden furniture, mainly because ours is getting really rather old and tatty and, if we ever get a Summer, I would like to sit outside and enjoy it now and them!

I last bought some FSC (Forest Stewardship Council  - all our bought wood must be FSC unless we have seen it grow and felled and made!) chairs and a table in the year Compostgirl was born and she is fast approaching teenage hood this year ( eek! where does the time go?) And it had lasted well until a couple of years ago. It came from our local Co- Op,  I cleaned it and now and then it got a fresh coat of wood treatment BUT unfortunately it has been severely damaged in the last couple of years from a most unusual  source.

Hornets! (Vespa crabro)

They are welcome here,  they are a lot less aggressive than their cousin the Wasp (nasty things, I do not like them at all) Hornets eat all sorts of insect pests and, as long as you stay away from a Hornet nest , they really will not hurt you unless you squash them.  BUT they make their nests out of paper made from chewed up wood - and they LOVE to scrape/rasp/chew the wood from our garden table and chairs! More than anything else! I mean, we have a thousand trees for them to choose but oh, no they have to eat my tables and chairs! And they have BIG jaws and make BIG nests (which actually are very beautiful)

All those white marks? Hornet jaws did that. I know it seems incredible but honestly we have watched them do it, time and time again and would YOU try telling a Hornet to "shove off my table"? No, me neither. So, the table and chairs are going to have to be replaced sooner rather than later.

I have been looking around for ideas on the web and also in local Garden centres.  As I said, if it is wood it has to be FSC wood, but after our experiences with the Hornets I am going to go for metal this time! See if you can eat metal, you Hornets. Chew on that!

There are possibilities both in B & Q and Homebase but from my on line searches I have also found a number of new to me suppliers to be a candidate for my money. Hayes Garden World in particular stood out, they are a family owned business that has been in existence, in one form or another, since the early 19th century and are based in Ambleside, Cumbria. I particularly liked their Environmental policy.

If you look at the outdoor furniture from Hayes Garden World , they have some lovely metal table and chair sets (I pinned one here a couple of weeks ago)   and also now a lot of  garden benches and, indeed, a number of the FSC benches on that page are on significant offer ( half price!) this week. I am very tempted to buy another bench as well as table and chairs! Except for the Hornet problem, of course.

 

Obviously I have not yet bought anything from them so I do not know how good they would actually be,  but the website looks good. I am seriously considering their products and will let you know what I do.

 I will try to add some more summery picnic images and summer flower garden ideas soon! We surely MUST have a Summer here, this year? Please?

Disclaimer: There is some paid for content in this post, but I had already visited Hayes Garden World website and was considering buying from them anyway. As always, the words and ideas are mine, all mine :-)