Green roof made with sawn branches

Here is a really easy way to make a green roof: keep your old branches, arrange them on a frame and place turfs on top. This idea works particularly well if you have a coppice tree in your garden – which is both a traditional and a beautiful idea, as Monet and Van Gogh showed in their paintings.

recycled bottle garden shed

Many gardeners are talking about recycling and sustainability. Not so many are doing anything about it. So were were very pleased to see this shed made out of plastic bottles. Think of all the advantages (1) sustainability (2) insulation (3) permeable to rain (4) gentle ventilation (5) super!

Recycled steel garden fires thriftily recycle garden wastes - instead of wasting butane on outdoor space heating

This blog and this website are about high quality designer products for gardens. In the long term, high quality provides the best value because it gives the most use and the most pleasure. We are therefore attracted to thrifty garden design, with ‘thrifty’ meaning ‘a reluctance to spend money unnecessarily’. If we have to spend money, we do it. But if we can do things in a thrifty way –  we like it. Thrifty garden design is related to 

• recycle garden design
• green garden design 
• sustainable garden design

But it is not the same as any of them and it has a very distinghished pedigree. Composting is an ancient garden practice and was done for thrifty reasons. Using local materials was often for thrifty reasons. So was using local plants. Though happy to do what what we can to recycle materials, support a green agenda and save  the planet, we are even happier to work as our gardening predecessors have always worked: thriftily, conscientiously and with restrained good taste. So look at the below  photograph. It shows a thrifty use of garden ‘waste’ to make a beautiful pavilion. We like it. The above image is of a garden firebowl, by Ungers, which recycles garden wood.

Crinklecrankle Fibreglass Planters  are elegant, durable, good for water conservation and a thrifty choice in terms of value for money.

Please let us know of any other beautiful and useful items – we would  be pleased to sell them!

Thrifty and sustainable garden design - recycling branches, rushes and reeds

Trompe-l’œil (French for ‘trick the eye’ it a way of making a 2D object look as though it is 3D. The term comes from the  Baroque period  but the idea can be seen in frescos from Pompeii. Trompe-l’œil trellis work was used in Baroque gardens eg to make trellis work tunnels look longer than they are by distorting the perspective.

Combining mirrors with Trompe-l’œil is a really good idea. My congratulations to the designer.

Download photograph of trompe l’oeil mirror

So there are three ways of getting rid of duckweed, two bad and one good. The worst way is herbicides. We don’t want nasty chemicals in our gardens and we don’t want to waste money on chemicals. The next way is mechanical removal. It easy and you really feel you are doing something. But the duckweed grows back in a few days. The best way is biological control. If you have a biologically balanced pond you will not have a duckweed problem. And to balance you pond you must stop fertilizers from leaking into the water. Then you make sure you have oxygenating plants and some nice fish.

Download garden pond duckweed photograph

Hamish Mackie bronze garden sculpture

Hamish Mackie’s ‘Bronze Leopard Life Size Coming out of tree’ -  display at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2009. It reminds me of some of the earliest garden sculpture ever made: the Mesopotamian bas relief carvings from Babylon. Animals and drama have long been components of garden design, and long deserve to remain so. Hamish specializes in wild life sculpture.

We put this photograph of her on Flickr.

The first comments were:

“Oh how absolutely cool.”

“Wow! Fab!”

“Very Cool”

The photograph was taken at the Chelsea Flower Show.

It looks nice and warm and crisp in the photograph. But put it in your garden and wait five years and what will have happened? A little rot; a little twisting; stains, lots of moss – and a great need for timber decking cleaners, stains and preservatives.

So look at Japan and learn how best to use timber decking: under the eaves of a roof. It then becomes a delightful surface which can be swept clean and is always a pleasure to walk or sit on.

Download photograph of timber decking

But how should pebbles be chosen? Is is like going to a wallpaper shop and choosing the nicest pattern and the nicest colour? Well it could be. But the first thing is to find out if a  local stone is available. It is likely to harmonize with your soil but more than this it gives a uniqueness and sense of belonging to your garden: granite in a granite district; slate in a slate district, flint in a flint district. This is the sustainable choice, the green choice and the best choice. Go for it!

Download photograph of pebbles in garden centre