Photo: @Theresagromski

This snapshot of a patio couldn’t be simpler to achieve. Helped of course by the backdrop of hedging to soften it all. Throw a few outdoor rugs down, add a table and deckchair, a few potted plants with a vase of flowers and string a few solar lights up… et voila! In a palette of black and grey, it’s a beautiful space you want to inhabit, with a few potted plants for seasonal colour. And even the least green fingered amongst you can manage a few pots of summer colour as you only need to water, and add the occasional dash of tomato feed.

Photo: @Stellaandthestars

Another seriously effective seating area.  Okay, so this is a balcony in Dubai, but you can still recreate an effect like this in good old blighty.  In a restrained colour palette again, with a backdrop of greenery for an enclosed secret space feeling which looks oh so chic.  Evergreens would give year round coverage; I like the idea of lollipop bay trees, underplanted with pittosporum golf ball and other similar small shrubs.  Simple to maintain, but very stylish.  The decking is by Ikea and by all accounts, very hardwearing and easy to self-install. It was actually laid over the top of the existing brick patio. You can read all about this particular project here: Stella + the Stars Garden Reveal.

Photo: @Oxfordone

Colour, glorious colour! And it’s all in the accessories here. Vibrant pink chairs, orange and pink pots, and a fabulous rug with colourful pompons lifts the whole setting into a fab smorgasbord of sweetie colours. It doesn’t need anything else. Gone are the days when all you could buy was brown wooden furniture – the choice is endless now so no excuse for you colour lovers not to be brave and go for it.

Photo: @naptimestyle

Another one for you colour lovers and, again, the colour comes from the furniture and textiles which gives a continental feel to the space against a calm backdrop of green.

Photo: @Patirobins

Black looks fabulous in the garden for fencing and sheds etc.  I’ve just painted my summer house black and can’t think why I waited this long to do it, although it took a bit of courage, as I thought if I don’t like it it’s going to take a lot of covering to get rid, but I’m absolutely in love with it – it gives a real sense of the dramatic.  And this is one dramatic seating area!  The black fence creates a stunning backdrop to simple chairs and an array of tables with potted greenery and candles.  A very simple idea which is very effective in its simplicity.

Photo: @Artynads

I had to include this one purely for being a feast for the eyes.  Not what most of us could achieve with it being a large covered space but it’s so fabulous I thought I would let you drool over it too!

That was just a small selection of outdoor spaces that are simple to achieve (well, bar the last one, obvs), without needing to be a green fingered goddess, so decide what you like and go for it.  There is so much choice in outdoor accessories now that you will be spoilt for choice.  And if you want a few pots for colour, be it green, or vibrant, there is always something that’s easy for non-gardeners.  Box topiary are easy to care for and just need a clip twice a year, or pots of cosmos and pelargoniums for some summer colour.  Throw down a rug, grab a couple of chairs, pull up a table, hang a string of lights, crack open a bottle, and enjoy!

Jacqui x

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1.   Lighting

Grey Bistro Set | Antique Gold Moroccan Lantern | Aged Green Garden Urn

Hang lanterns from brackets on walls or fences or place them on tables to create atmosphere for summer evenings with the twinkle of candlelight glowing in the dark. There are also lots of solar lights available now, from jam jar lights to hang in trees to strings of lights to go on a fence or archway.

2.   Rugs

Monochrome Outdoor Rug | The Marseille Garden Bench | Gothic Arch Outdoor Mirror

Who would have thought we would have outdoor rugs? I think they are a wonderful idea and a great way to create a focal point on your terrace and add a bit of colour and pattern to hard landscaping. Put one in front of a bench or under the garden table and it instantly feels like a summer dining room.

3.   Mirrors

Decorative Garden Mirror | Round Chedworth Zinc Planters

Mirrors work in the same way outdoors as they do indoors by reflecting light and creating a focal point. Hang a mirror on a wall, fence, or shed to increase the sense of space and let the reflections enhance the view. It also makes a nice surprise to turn a corner in a garden and see a mirror, something normally associated with the indoors.

4.   Seating

The Lille Garden Bench | The Sophia Garden Bench

A table and chairs is essential for an outside room to enjoy alfresco dining with friends and family, or for a glorious sundowner on a warm summer evening a little bistro set in a sunny spot. Depending on the size of your garden it’s a good idea to have various types of seating in different areas. A bench placed where you can sit and have a natter with a friend, or a solo seat just to stop and perch for a minute and admire the view.

5.   Pots and planters

Round Chedworth Zinc Planters | Zinc Effect Planter with Stand

Fill spaces with an array of planters filled with evergreens for backdrop and then add drama with seasonal displays of colour. Unify the scheme by using planters of the same colour or material and then vary sizes so you have a more interesting vignette. A planter on a stand is a great way of adding height to a display or standing alone in a small space (much more interesting at waist height than sitting forlornly on the ground). It’s so easy to ring the changes with the seasons as well so that you have year-round interest. If you are unsure what to plant a quick visit to the garden centre will show you what is flowering at that time of the year for a quick fix of colour.

Well I hope that’s given you a few ideas on how to create the perfect outdoor room. It doesn’t matter how big or how small your garden is, a small courtyard garden looks just as fabulous as a big garden when you add a few indoor bits outside amongst the planting. Even on a chilly day you will want to throw a rug around you and sit outside – so therapeutic to be out in garden with a cup of tea or a glass of wine rather than closeting yourself indoors.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui & Amelia Brooks

Have you ever sat in traffic jams surveying people’s front gardens? I do it regularly because: a) I can’t abide sitting in traffic and always look around me at the view to try and decrease my irritation and b) I’m nosey about other people’s houses and gardens, and it’s always pots dotted about in isolation that I notice the most, and itch to liberate from their lonely solitude! And it’s so easy to rectify and so easy to create a pleasing and harmonious display. By grouping pots of similar materials, but varying sizes, you create a vignette that draws the eye. By using pots of similar colours the group becomes harmonious so that no 1 pot stands out, and by varying sizes the eye roves over and around the display thereby creating a larger more interesting vignette.

White Stone Plant Pots

I have various groupings of pots in my garden – on the top terrace that gets more shade there is a range of various black ceramic planters from very large to medium for shrubby evergreens, with a group of Audenza smaller white stone plant pots and green aged plant pots on the table nearby for planting with a splash of summer colour. Even small pots need to be varied in their sizes for an interesting display, otherwise it’s all just flat and boring and the plants mingle together without contrast.

Round Chedworth Zinc Garden Planters

On the bottom terrace, I have a selection of turquoise ceramic pots that have been added to over the years for bright seasonal displays, and the walkway to the back of the summerhouse is lined either side with terracotta pots (to create a more organic feel) filled with hostas and ferns. My dilemma now is where can I squeeze in our new range of zinc plant pots? I love the shapes, from oval to round, and even a zinc effect planter with stand, I love the range of sizes, and I love that even though they are based on old wash tubs, they look just as good in a sleek modern garden as they do in a romantic country garden.

Oval Chedworth Zinc Garden Planters

I’m not sure how I’m going to manage it but those zinc beauties have got my name on them! Amelia, as always, despairs as she has the job of watering my pots when I’m away, but even she has her eye on them. So watch this space!

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui & Amelia Brooks

1. Incorporate Symmetry

Garden Design & Image Credit: The Garden Builders

This is one eye catching front garden, and so sexy! Go for all evergreen in a very symmetrical design for a contemporary look that’s low maintenance and green all year round – what more could you want from a front garden? The geometric shapes of the paving and planted areas echo the tile and window shapes for perfect harmony in design. Using box topiary gives all round colour and visual interest, and the grass in the centre is possibly fake, which is becoming a viable option now with the exciting new developments in fake turf. The design is so simple but that’s the beauty of it, uncluttered geometry.

2. Create an Outdoor Room

Image Credit: Layer Home

A great look if you want to make your garden an extension of your home, especially if you aren’t green fingered – and don’t want the job of looking after plants. The mirrors and pictures on the walls in this picture don’t look like they are very outdoor friendly but there’s loads of options out there that are weather proof, in fact, we are launching some gorgeous outdoor mirrors for spring. I love the idea of a room divider, planted with box balls, that separates the dining from the lounging area. It’s a really good way to add interest and break up the space in a small courtyard garden.

3. Create a Private Oasis

Garden Design & Image Credit: Jenny Bloom Garden Design

This is a fabulous way to add height and drama to what is essentially a small courtyard garden, and the sense of privacy gives a feeling of a secluded oasis. The concrete slabs are used to make a retaining wall that is deep enough to be planted at head height giving the garden a real sense of enclosure and privacy. Imagine how boring it would be if it was all on one level with just a stark backdrop. Another great idea is to use contrasting fencing materials to give character and contrast to the hard landscaping.

4. Incorporate Raised Planting Beds

Image Credit: Boscolo Interior Design

All the hard landscaping in this garden creates a very modern, minimalist look, but interest is added by varying the heights and shapes of the raised planting beds to create a sense of movement. By raising the planting area, you get a feeling of being in amongst the plants, and there is lots of places to perch with a glass of wine while you admire the flowers, and of course maintenance is a lot easier at that height. Another good idea is the bench that runs along the back wall for yet more seating.

5. Create Impact with Tiling

Garden Design & Image Credit: The Garden Builders

And the last garden to drool over has a patterned tiled area beneath the coffee table that looks like a rug, even down to a border of contrasting tiles and then a border planted with succulents. What a cool idea – creating a border of living plants!   It’s a great way to bring impact to a small space and daw the eye to the lounging area. The raised planting beds add height and create visual interest, again without too much maintenance needed.

If you’re looking for more inspiration for a small urban garden the ‘Modern Gardens’ magazine has plenty of design ideas, with plenty of planting tips as well. As regular readers of this blog will know I’m passionate about my garden, and whilst there are more ideas to steal from my garden, labour saving it aint!   All these courtyards have one thing in common though – effortlessly chic but easy to maintain. I can imagine sitting there with a sundowner, enjoying the sun, no weeding, and certainly no grass mowing – what more could you want?

Jacqui x

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I’ve posted before about the progression in my garden from its conception and promised more photos for this season, so Amelia took a few shots for me of my favourite bits – mainly seating areas as I do like a vignette with a seat – even though I don’t sit down often as I’m too busy deadheading etc. When I do sit down its usually to decide how to change the planting and improve the vignette.

This is the terrace next to the house with box hedged borders that I change seasonally from tulips in spring to dahlias, and whatever else takes my fancy in summer. It’s quite labour intensive to do this but I love dahlias and tulips so much it’s the best way to really get my fill of them. And a lovely metal chair to sit and admire the view.

A close up of the garden mirror my mother gave me for my birthday – doesn’t it look fabulous with the flowers reflected in it?

The other side of the terrace with yet more seats! A bench for displaying my lovely cushions and a little grey bistro set for that morning coffee.

Further down the garden is the larger table and chairs for when we want to eat alfresco – or just sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the view.

Another chair hidden away at the bottom of the garden behind the summer house. You can’t have too many seats I say! There are more tucked away in the garden in odd places in case I want to sit and contemplate life for a moment. What do you think, too many seats or do you have even more? And what do you think to Modern Gardens? Even my girls enjoy looking through it for ideas and they are not gardeners so I think it appeals to quite a broad range of, shall we say, design savvy people.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks

No cake provided but I think my mother’s garden is worthy of a mention here so Amelia took a few photo’s for you to peruse.  It’s a small plot and there isn’t any grass (my father hated cutting grass) but it’s lush and verdant and very stylish.  Lots of sitting places to admire the view with a glass of wine in the sun – which really is my mother’s main criteria for a garden! 

She’s a very well travelled lady, so picked up a fair few decor bits on her travels.  She bought the lanterns when she used to live in Hong Kong (which needless to say is how she came to get her nickname ‘Hong Kong Granny’ from the kids) and she’s often keen to let people know that apparently Prince Charles has the same ones!  

I think her garden is a fantastic example though of what can be done with a smallish suburban plot, don’t you think?

Of course, having that many pots to water is by no means low maintenance, so that’s definitely something to consider when designing your garden, but it certainly makes for a beautiful and peaceful place to sit with a glass of wine. 

Well hopefully you’ve enjoyed this little garden tour?  I’d love to know which is your favourite part in the comments below.  

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks

My garden was built from scratch 3 years ago and is now maturing and looking luscious so thought you might like to see some photos of its progression, although I need to take more this summer to see the current changes.   A garden should fit in with your lifestyle and your capabilities so plan out how you want to use the space, how much gardening you want to do and how much entertaining you want to do in the garden. My 6 top tips when redesigning your garden are:

September 2012

1. Position your terrace (or terraces) to make the most of the sunshine for alfresco dining. Check out where the sun rises and sets on your garden. Mine faces south east so I get sun from early morning until about 4pm and then it starts to move around the side of the houses so in the evening I only get sun at the bottom of the garden.   To be able to eat outside in the sunshine I have two terraces, both with a table and chairs – one by the back door and one near the bottom of the garden so I can catch the sun at any time. I don’t think there is anything more distressing than eating in the shade in this cold climate.

September 2012

2. Check out your fences! I made this mistake as I knew one of my fences wasn’t very sturdy but ignored it, to my cost. I now have to have a new fence put in and it will create havoc in my flower beds and will have to be replanted with climbing plants that were starting to establish.

January 2013

3. Add height to your garden – a flat garden is a boring garden. Trees, pergolas, arches and trellis all add height and create more interest. If you are going to plant trees it’s essential to do the research and plant appropriate sized trees, my son the tree surgeon spends a lot of his life cutting down overgrown trees due to their unsuitability for their allotted space. Another pet hate of his is ivy, which I have to say I love for its ability to clothe walls and fences which makes for a gorgeous green backdrop, but again, choose wisely. There are so many varieties available online and if they are kept in check there is nothing more attractive than a green wall. A mistake I made was to plant two climbing roses over an arch that grew too big for the space so we could hardly get through the middle of the arch (and they had wicked thorns) so they have just come out and I will have a small climbing rose and a clematis to flower through it instead.

May 2013

4. I think every garden should have a summerhouse, not only because it’s more available space to grow climbers up but for their peaceful retreat feeling. My aunt and uncle play scrabble and drink wine in theirs in the evening sunshine – isn’t that lovely? Again think about positioning for the sunshine, there is nothing worse than a dismal shady summerhouse.

May 2014

5. Plant plenty of evergreens otherwise your garden is going to look desolate in the winter. A good back drop of carefully chosen evergreens gives a green structure to a garden all year round and allows perennials and annuals to glow against the green. I have a boxwood parterre that has finally grown enough to look stunning planted with tulips in the spring and annuals in the summer and it’s still a joy in the winter.

May 2014

6. Research your terrace materials carefully. Mine is Chinese sandstone (I think) and looked stunning for a couple of years with a golden glow to it but is now so porous that everything marks it – even a muddy footprint can’t be washed off! Consequently I have to pressure wash it several times a year which is only increasing the problem and still I can’t remove algae from the shady areas. So the moral of the story is buy the best you can afford but make sure it’s durable. And to me decking is a no go as it has a short life span, is slippery in the wet and needs constant recoating of varnish or paint.

August 2014

August 2014

Well that concludes my little lecture for the day. I have plenty more to say, particularly about plants, but I’ve been told not to write another essay so I hope you enjoy the photos of my garden progression and I will post more later in the summer as it’s maturing.

Otherwise, if your garden is already a bit more mature and you’re looking to furnish it, do have a browse of our garden decor and furniture.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks

Gardening has changed dramatically over the last few years – it used to be the case that you were either a gardener and obsessed with plants, or you weren’t and just had a lawn with a few shrubs, but now we want a garden that we can use as an outdoor room and that we can style accordingly without having to become the next Percy Thrower! My garden is very labour intensive and that is my choice because I would actually like to be the next Percy Thrower, well a female version of, of course, but for those of you who want to actually have time to sit in your garden as well as enjoy it as an extension of your home then this is the mag for you. It’s full of inspirational design and style ideas for creating an interesting outdoor room without being overly horticultural.

This month’s edition (April 2016) has a feature on how to set up a garden cinema for a fab summer party, everything you need to know about tulips (well not quite everything but enough to make a great display, did you know you can eat tulip petals? I didn’t), how to create a garden kitchen for alfresco parties, planting a purple corner that bees will love and lots more style ideas to create a garden to be proud of.

You can subscribe here: Modern Gardens. Needless to say, I’ve already subscribed.

So what you think?  Is it just the garden mag you’ve been looking for?

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui & Amelia Brooks

The book is broken up into six chapters that lead you through the design process and also the necessary thought processes for getting the garden you want, and a garden that suits your lifestyle. The image below taken from the chapter on ‘Texture & Surfaces’ shows the inspired use of different materials in the garden that complement each other and create harmony. Also the idea of ‘rooms’ in a garden – one area for dining and another for relaxing. Who would have thought to make a rug effect under the table with an inset panel of timber decking?

Another image from the same chapter reveals a suburban plot with large scale pots for drama, and again divided into rooms, which creates more interest and the element of surprise. Both of these gardens still work well in the winter because of their architectural quality and the use of evergreen’s helps to soften the winter starkness.

Now this is a terrace to die for is it not? Simple and uncluttered urban living at its best.   Not that I could ever leave it at that with my propensity for more is best! I am too much of a plant person to be able to simplify in such a way but I can admire the sheer beauty of the design.

These gardens are not your average plot but there is much that can be taken from them to be used by us lesser mortals. And it’s not just a coffee table book as the text is informative and thought provoking, as in helping you to understand the design process, and to make you think about what you want to achieve. I am particularly inspired by the use of different materials and how you can achieve texture and interest with hard landscaping.

Jacqui x

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Images from‘Garden Design Solutions’ by Stephen Woodhams, published by Jacqui Small.

Image 2 by Heiner Orth. Image 3 by Stephen Woodhams. Image 4 by James Merrell.

Walking around my own local area I have noticed so many front gardens turned into dismal and depressing grey carparks. It’s detrimental to our mental health as well as our physical health. Gardens, plants, greenery, – they add so much pleasure visually that surely they have to be worth the effort? Do we want our streets turned into carparks with no visual joy to be had? When I redid my small front garden a couple of years ago (shown above) I used gravel for the car standing area (which allows rain to soak away) and then a small area of soil filled with shade loving evergreens which take very little work to maintain, plus a couple of large pots under the front window to add seasonal interest. It can be as simple as a window box or a tub by the front door to create some green in our urban areas; surely we can all manage that?

The campaign started with the launch of Britain in Bloom, whereby the RHS has set a three year target to transform 6,000 unloved grey spaces into thriving planted up spaces. We can all contribute to this campaign by considering our own front gardens and what we can do to add greenery and joy to everyone’s lives and help the planet as well. Take a look at the RHS if you want some ideas about how to green up your own space and get some more information on the environmental issues.

Jacqui x

‘Greening Grey Britain Campaign’ written by Jacqui Brooks

Photo credit: Amelia Brooks