The park’s teeming with sunbathers, suburban pavements are overloaded with deckchairs, and kegs are running low in beer gardens up and down the country – the Great British Summer has arrived.
When the outside world is too busy to enjoy the sun to its fullest, a garden is a luxurious retreat – a serene holiday spot only a few feet from your living room.
But every garden requires maintenance, and it’s easy to let simple tasks like cutting the grass or trimming the hedges slide.
Leave those chores alone for too long and pretty soon your garden will be nothing more than a mass of weeds and nettles.
If all this is sounding eerily familiar then fear not – we’ve assembled this must-read selection of tips and tricks to help you turn your garden from a subsection of Hell to a veritable Eden.
Take a look at those walls
Before you grab your lawnmower and your pruning shears, examine the health of your exterior walls. If they’re cracked, chipped and worn down, then they could be due a rendering.
In essence, rendering is the same process as plastering, but for your exterior walls. And while it’s a necessary aspect of maintaining their strength and durability, adding in colour pigments to your rendering mixture will give them a much-needed dose of pizzazz.
If you plan on tackling the process yourself, silicon rendering can be purchased from suppliers like Direct Building Products – we particularly recommend their K-Rend range.
Get your lawn into shape
One of the easiest and quickest ways to improve the look of your garden in an afternoon is to cut your lawn into a clearly defined shape, like a square or circle.
To do this, mark a shape using some string and pegs, then use a spade to dig out the unwanted grass. Then, use your lawnmower to even out the length of your grass and remove any unruly stems.
Even if your garden hasn’t been tended to in years, this simple process will make it feel habitable again.
Say hello to the birds
Unlike the rest of your home, a garden is a living breathing organism that should welcome all varieties of fauna to complement its flora.
That’s why a bird feeder is a necessity. Many studies have shown that birdwatching can help reduce stress and anxiety, while the hunting instincts of certain birds could reduce the likelihood of unwelcome critters like mice or insects.
A bird feeder can be purchased relatively cheaply from a pet store, although luxury feeders can also be found at outlets like the Garden Gift Shop.
Gusts be-gone
In certain parts of the UK, even the sunniest days can be ruined by strong winds. To make sure your afternoons in the garden aren’t spoiled, we recommend setting up a section of your garden that isn’t affected by the breeze.
You can do this with a few dividers and some chairs, effectively creating a separate room outside. It’ll shield you from a gale and look exceptional.
Those are our green-fingered hints to help you improve your garden. Got some tips of your own? Then let us know in the comments below!
Additional resources:
-Don’t have a lot of time? Here are a few simple tips to care for your yard
–Make your garden work for your whole family
-The science is in! Digging in the dirt makes you happier!
*This is a collaborative post
When we moved into our current house 4 years ago, the garden was completely overgrown with brambles and nettles. This year we have finally finished clearing the weeds, including digging out loads of really stubborn weeds that kept coming back no matter how much we tried to kill them. I am really looking forward to finally having a garden we can actually enjoy.
We have quite a few birds come to our garden so I’m thinking of getting a feeder.