12 garden products to transform your garden space
With the summer knocking at the door, it’s time to start spending more time outside in our gardens. If you plan on spending a lot of time outdoors, you may want to find ways to mix things up. We’ve picked out 12 garden products that will add some style, flair and sophistication to your outside space.
1) A flow of water
The first garden product you should consider for transforming your garden is a water feature. Aside from looking great, a water feature provides some great benefits. The most significant of these is its calming and soothing effect.
The sound of flowing water can be a great way to calm yourself and relax, helping to improve your mental health. Water features can also attract beneficial wildlife to your garden, reduce noise levels for city dwellers, and they are easy to maintain.
Plus, most water features reuse the same water avoiding nasty spikes in your water bills! Consider adding a water feature to your garden for this summer. Find out more about the benefits of water features.
View our range of water features available at Hilltop.
2) Create a stepping path
Another way to transform your outdoor space is by adding some stepping stones. Stepping stones come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours giving you plenty of options to match your garden design.
Consider creating curiosity with a stepping stone path that leads a trail to the bottom of the garden. A sprinkle of stone or slate around them (or a shallow pond) and your good to go. Natural stepping stones such as sandstone, slate, or limestone are good choices for a rustic feel.
The beauty of stepping stones is that you are completely free to lay them out how you wish. You could put them in a straight line, place them in an irregular layout, or make shapes. You could create a hopscotch board if you so wish.
3) Pergola up!
Another garden product that will transform your outdoor space is a pergola. Pergolas make a great addition to any garden, by providing a shaded sanctuary and extending your living space.
Depending on your preference, pergolas come in a wide range of materials, including wood, aluminium, and vinyl. Aluminium pergolas require much less maintenance while wooden pergolas feel more natural. The choice will depend on your preference and your garden design.
Adding a pergola to your outside space will allow you to spend more time enjoying the great outdoors. They provide shelter from the wind or a nice shady spot if you’re starting to burn. You could also set up a cosy outdoor dining area under a pergola too.
4) Plant high up
Another fantastic garden product to consider is raised beds. Raised beds can make a huge difference to your garden and provide plenty more planting space. And they're practical too, providing space underneath for more plants or storage.
Raised beds will also give your garden some height for a more interesting design. And for those Greenfingers out there, you could also start growing veg in a raised planter too.
5) Hot tonight
Looking to spend the evenings out in the garden but are put off by the chill? A fire bowl, firepit, or chiminea is the perfect solution. Traditionally made from terracotta clay, but they now come in cast-iron, aluminium, and steel. No matter the material, the addition of a fire bowl will give you the warmth you need to continue relaxing outdoors well into the evening!
Check out our range of fire bowls and chimineas available at Hilltop.
6) The walls are alive
Another way you can transform your outdoor garden space is through the addition of a live wall. A living wall (or green wall) can be achieved by simply planting climbing plants and wall shrubs onto a cladding. You can partially or completely cover a wall this way to suit your tastes.
Live walls are a great idea for those with smaller gardens where a lack of space can limit your plant numbers. If living walls are a tad too much, perhaps try vertical planting. Instead of dedicating a whole wall to plants, add a few plant pots here and there on the wall.
7) Beekeeper
The next way you could transform your garden space is by setting up a bee garden. Don’t worry, we’re not suggesting that you start keeping bees! But by creating a bee-friendly environment that can help these essential pollinators. You don’t need to give up too much space either.
All you need do is set up a bee-friendly plant area that provides a rich source of nectar for the bees. Alternatively, you could think about adding a bee hotel. While the bees won’t be paying customers, placing a bee hotel in the full sun and a meter off the ground can give these little fellas a safe home.
8) With the fairies
Spending nights out in the garden? For those who may not get to enjoy their gardens during the day, we have a solution. By adding some hanging lights or outdoor fairy lights you can create a cosy and comfortable feel to your garden.
Consider adding different layers of hanging lights around your garden furniture to set up a cosy atmosphere. Alternatively, wrap some fairy lights around a tree or through the inside of a parasol. You could also create hanging lights in a jar to dangle from your pergola roof!
9) Not the butt of the garden!
It may be a tad late in the year now (although the rain never seems to hold off for long!), but a water butt is another garden product to transform your outdoor space. Gone are the days of the bland or unoriginal water butt designs.
You can now get water butts that come in a beehive design, a large plant pot design (complete with flowers), or even a lookalike tree trunk. Water butts are a good choice for fixing to your guttering downpipe to collect rainwater for use in the garden.
Even if you can’t get a decorative water butt, there’s nothing stopping you from decorating or painting it? That way, you have a feature that’s both practical and aesthetically pleasing. You can use the collected water on your plants, to clean your garden furniture, or in a water feature.
10) A secluded spot
Ever thought of adding a garden room to your garden? A garden room is a standalone room set up in your garden. These unique spaces are usually finished with natural materials to blend stylishly into your garden space.
With a garden room, you have a space that not only looks good but provides seclusion for you to relax and focus. If a garden room is not for you, consider blending the inside of your home with the outside to create one seamless transition.
11) Red and yellow and green and…
Traditionally, gardens have followed a natural colour pallet using greens and browns. Nowadays, you can get creative with any colour in your garden. Whether it’s painting a fence blue, coating a bench in black, or going for tropical-coloured scatter cushions, your garden’s colour pallet has no limits.
12) A drink anyone?
Our last garden product to transform your outdoor garden space is an outdoor bar. If you spend a lot of time entertaining outside, an outdoor bar will be a welcome addition for your guests. Cheers!
For those with smaller gardens where space might not allow such a luxury, fear not! You can install a fold-away bar. Adding a pull-down bar to a wall can give you the best of both worlds. When the bar is closed, you can fold it back up and save space.
There are so many great and unique things you can add to your garden to transform your outdoor space this summer. With plenty of ideas above, there is surely something that will suit your garden design or preference. So, time to get creative!