Your garden doesn’t have to be perfectly manicured to look nice—the one thing that makes a garden really stand out is using little quirks of your own to give it personality. Likewise, your garden should not look like your neighbor's garden—so it needs to carry forward your personality and its own quirk within the green. Instead, try to slowly build up a simple backyard, into a garden of your dreams. Here are some simple tips to help personalize your garden to your own aesthetic and make it your own.
Before You Discard That Junk, Place It Outside
Houses have a way of collecting junk. Old tin buckets and cans, broken lanterns and lights, candle votives, or even wrought iron lamp stands and such are things we often donate or trash without a second thought. But what if your garden could use it instead? Create little corners with your junk. An old TV set can hold a big pot, or a worn-out bit of luggage can hold mini planters inside. Gardens are not supposed to be crystal clean places—they teem with all kinds of life, sights, and sounds. Break out of the ordinary and the next time you have a cartload of junk, think where all it could fit in your not-so-secret garden. Bonus? This keeps items out of landfills so it’s better for the environment, too!
Any Furniture You Don’t Want In, Can Be Placed Out
Wonky side tables, a broken chair, or a bench that just doesn’t go with the décor anymore—before you give it away or place it in your yard with a free-to-take sign, wait. Old benches can hold many pots and planters. And a wonky chair can be given a mossy finish in one corner. Even an old chest can survive in your garden with a thick coat of waterproof paint, with its drawers holding little pots filled with aromatic herbs. Side tables can become garden side tables and showcase the most beautiful plant of the season with blooms that make everyone sigh with delight.
Remember To Use Curtains For Shade
There are plenty curtain panels available on the market that are outdoor friendly and do well in frost, sunshine, or even rain. When you plan your seating, create a little gazebo with rebars and run curtains on a few sides to get a little shade from the sun and the heat when you need it. With curtains, the seating arrangement you make will create a warm little space in the outdoors, and the curtains can grant some much-needed privacy if and when you need it.
Broken Bits & Bobs Make For Great Corners
Every time we break a cup, bowl, or plate in my house (which happens a lot because I have two little tornadoes for sons), they go in one little corner of my garden. I file down any broken edges to avoid any cuts and injuries and glue back together what can be salvaged. Then I fill up the container with potting soil and plant a money plant in it—and that corner is one of my most prized locations in my garden. It has ceramic pieces from different stages in my life and each broken little pot contains a beautiful memory, so it’s a walk amidst verdant nostalgia!
Mirrors Add Even More Green Around
Mirrors reflect the surroundings. So when you need to dress up a forlorn little corner or wall in your garden, hang up an old mirror, preferably in a brightly painted or artistically carved frame. The mirror will reflect the trees, the fruits, and the blooms and add even more green happiness around. Plus, when you are gardening and the doorbell sounds, it’s a handy place to check for dirt on your nose!
Get Or Create Some Garden-Themed Pieces
Garden tools have their own life and once they have lived it, they are often trashed into the bin. We suggest you do something different with them. Create a little wall of retired tools—all you need to do is glue or nail them to the wall and then give it all a coat of white or green, or any other pastel shade of paint. The tools get a respectable place to retire and the wall becomes a great conversation starter. You can add little tools to a fence, or glue them to a pot, or create a hodge-podge of a trellis with them to give vines a helping hand.
Create Archways With Metal To Give Vines A Little Help
Garden entry or exit points or even little corners can be given a new life with rebar arches. Not only do they make a great photo op for you and your guests, they add a fairy-like charm to the garden. You can make one at the entrance gate of your garden, or create one in a corner and even place a few chairs and a table around it. The whole effect looks beautiful and mysterious and like a little fairytale. Dress it up with a few lamps, and the evening just gets amped up a whole lot more.
Driftwood Can Make Beautiful Arbors
The next time you go to a beach or even on a little hiking trip, keep a lookout for interesting pieces of driftwood. A twisty log, some really interesting branches, maybe a piece of a trunk that looks like a stool—there are often discarded pieces of wood you can add to your garden. And if mushrooms grow out of it, all the better—just don’t eat these ‘shrooms! Instead, let them add a little pixie-like magic to it all.
Decorate Those Fences & Wall Too
Don’t leave the garden and the fences bare—especially if there isn't enough green cover around them. Hang little pots and pans, old discarded toys, baskets, old bags and jewelry and wherever possible, put little planters in or around them. A creative array looks great on one side of the garden.
Attractive Trellises Always Do The Trick
Finally, do not underestimate the power of a good trellis—be it on a wall, or be it as a space separator itself. Old doors and windows, the frame of an old bed, pieces of driftwood arranged on a wall, an old ladder, and discarded crib sides—the ideas are endless as long as you can put anything up and let a plant climb all over it and work its magic!
So there you have it! Gardening is as much a recreational art (that is very healthy) as it is botanical science. Have fun with your garden and show some love to your plants, and the results will speak volumes.
