Quick Fixes for Your Garden

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For many green-fingered people, their garden is a source of joy and pleasure and a place to spend hours of time perfecting and creating a little haven.

But what if you fancy a quick change? What if you want to do something different for visitors, or a party? What if you’re selling your house? What if you have a spare day or two but want immediate results?

For plant growth and care, the likes of agrarianorganics.com is worth a visit. For further tips on quick fixes, here are a few, just to get you going:

1. Sometimes a simple rearrangement of furniture can add comfort to a garden. For example, moving chairs into a more central position and adding an outdoor table for drinks or food, potted plants in adjacent positions, or placing a fire pit near the centre, become talking points. The furniture doesn’t have to be the same theme either – a quirky chair or outdoor shelf sometimes grabs the eye. RealSimple.com provides inspiration for outdoor furniture, and advises:  “Make over a porch with a few items such as a day bed, potted plants, Chinese lanterns that will make the space comfortable and stylish. Thinking creatively can also help you stick to a budget. There’s no reason why a trunk from inside can’t step in as your outdoor coffee table.”

2. Paving slabs become worn with age or use, so a quick blast with a pressure washer can bring back the colors underneath. If that doesn’t work a big brush and some tile paint can add a whole new dimension, perhaps matching or contrasting with existing furniture. If a slab is cracked or badly worn why not cover it with a piece of furniture, or an outdoor mat?

3. Bare soil patches are rather plain and awkward, so why not invest in colored stones or bright pebbles, scattered near but not too close to the stems? Marbles can brighten up a rockery patch. And the Royal Horticultural Society says that there are many benefits of mulching with bark, not least that it helps soils retain moisture in the summer. Your local garden center can also suggest plants and flowers to fill in the gaps.

4. Those things you have lying in the shed or round the house that you never use? Now is the perfect time to bring them out of hibernation as containers for plants and flowers. Old teapots, dustbins, food bowls, tire buckets, farm equipment, birdbaths, kettles, coal scuttles, and even toilets can easily be filled with plants and ornaments to create unusual and quirky effects, to be placed around a lawn, decking or patio.

5. Sometimes a simple lick of paint can give your old furniture a new lease of life, and if that doesn’t give the required effect, cover chairs, stools and seats with vibrant blankets or funky cushions. A gazebo or parasol can add more colorful depth, and outdoor lights or lanterns can bring it all together in the evening.

6. Why not go bold and brash with some new pots, arranged in different ways? A small pot holding a giant plant or shrub can look underwhelming, so reverse it and buy a fantastic and flamboyant container with a perfectly placed plant inside. Arrange smaller potted flowers around it in different formations

7. They’re nobody’s favorite jobs, but raking, pruning, slicing, cutting and tidying are essential if you want a garden to be proud of. Brown leaves, dead flowers, overgrown patches, errant twigs and bark and weeds have all got to be chopped.