Our gardens are more important to us than ever before. People are creating sanctuaries where they can take time to rest and recuperate, enjoy nature and spend time with friends and loved ones. Trends in garden design and planting change year on year, and this year has been no different. In this post, the team at Garden Room Sanctuary, the garden office specialists, advise on the top garden trends in 2020.
Let’s take a look at six of the biggest garden trends that caught our eye this year.
The outdoor room
Sometimes alternatively known as ‘The Fifth Room’, people are increasingly thinking of their gardens as providing an extra room in which to relax. Now more than ever, garden rooms that minimise the transition from the house to garden are being used to make it easier for people to spend time outdoors. Weatherproof furnishing, good weather soft furnishing, lanterns and other lighting can all be used to make a comfortable space for people to enjoy. Low level focus planting can be used to create a sense of intimacy. Shrubs and hedging can create a cosy space, slightly removed from the rest of the garden but allowing easy access to the rest of the garden.
Grow your own
More of us are growing our own fruit and vegetables. Seed merchants have reported a massive increase in sales, and the sales of specialist planters and raised beds have not been far behind. As a nation we’re increasingly opting for healthier, more natural and organic diets with the number of people following purely plant-based diets increasing by 360% over the past decade.
The latest grow your own trend is all about digging an allotment or aiming for self-sufficiency. It’s all about incorporating some home grown produce into your diet, be that easy to grow salads, herbs or soft fruit. Even if you only have a window box to spare you can still grow produce in containers.
What could be more satisfying than looking out from the comfort of your garden room at an abundant vegetable patch full of healthy produce for your family?
The bolder the better
Over the last couple of years planting has been all about impact. Think bold, striking colours that really have the wow factor. Hot heleniums, colourful cosmos, vibrant rudbeckias and fiery salvias are all making their presence felt. Growing seasonal annuals on a dedicated cut flower patch is another way of introducing a vibrant dash of colour into your garden. Opt for pollinator friendly flowers and your garden will soon be alive with bees and other pollinating insects.
Bold planting can have real impact but it’s important to ensure things don’t get too chaotic. Clashing colours are more likely to give you a headache than soothe, so choose a palette of a few complementary colours and plant in large blocks. Plant catalogues are full of great ideas that can radically transform your garden planting.
Go native
Go back a couple of decades and the trends in gardening were all about hard surfaces and planting that gave little thought to the origins of the plant. Increasingly tidy spaces hosted plants that had origins from all over the world. This had a detrimental effect on our native wildlife.
Over recent years, the role of our gardens in creating a bio-diverse environment has become better understood. This is now having an impact on what we plant in our gardens with the demand for native shrubs and perennials increasing. Native perennials like Pasque flowers and Campanula add colour, bright yellow primroses can quickly colonise a lawn. Trees such as the rowan are great for wildlife, as too are shrubs such as cotoneaster.
Sink a pond and plant with pollinator friendly native plants like purple loosestrife and marsh marigold. In no time at all your garden will be attracting birds, bugs, hedgehogs, frogs and countless other wildlife visitors.
Time to light up the garden
Garden lighting has really come of age over recent years, with LED lighting increasingly available in a range of different designs and configurations. Cafe style lighting and extendable chain lighting have been illuminating gardens this year, as too have spot lighting marking out garden paths.
Use lighting to highlight planting or aspects of the garden architecture. Atmospheric lighting such as vintage lanterns can help create cosy seating areas. The emphasis is on every day back garden magic and using lighting to help create wonderful spaces to enjoy.
Make a meadow
Once upon a time, every gardener dreamt of the perfectly manicured lawn. These days increasing numbers are letting their grass grow, turning their lawns into meadows. Meadows give a garden a romantic, rustic feel and rather than look unkempt, can really complement more structured garden elements.
You don’t have to let your entire lawn run to seed. Instead, allow a section to grow and keep mowing the rest. To help wildflowers establish themselves you can plant yellow rattle plug plants into the section of lawn you want to become a meadow. This so-called ‘pioneer’ plant will restrict the growth of grass and allow other flowers to establish themselves. Over time the non-mowed section will gradually become host to a range of wildflowers such as ox-eye daisies, cornflowers and poppies.
Alternatively, you can lift the turf and sow a meadow seed mix to speed up the process. During the first year the meadow will need to be mowed every couple of months. Keep the blades on your mower high, and don’t cut too closely. This will allow meadow perennials to establish themselves and encourage fuller growth. In latter years, your meadow will only need to be cut a few times every year depending on how vigorous the growth is.
If you really want to go the whole hog, why not buy yourself a scythe and do things the traditional way?
Gardens to the fore
Our gardens have really come to the fore during 2020. People are spending more time in them and more money on making them into magical spaces to be enjoyed. Garden rooms are another way to transform how you use and enjoy your garden. Work, relax and entertain in an attractive, sustainable space in the middle of your garden haven. What could be better?