Watching Charlie Dimmock swing her garden tools around on my TV screen is one way to achieve inspiration for getting out in the garden and actually tidying the place up. Yes, the Groundforce team, with good ole salty dog Alan Titmarsh advising just where I should stick my Buddleia for best effect is a veritable tableau of gardening knowledge that would rival the creation of the Garden of Eden. Well, maybe that is taking it a little too far; the garden designed by the omnipotent overseer would probably ditch the decking and go for silver lined clouds with rainbow struts. Jesting about the religious influence on my back yard aside, gardening shows are a wonderful place to pick up new ideas for re-landscaping. However, a bit like tribal tattoos, some of the more aesthetic gardening tips involving landscaping can become outdated and dare I say, a little bit common. For example, back in the nineteen eighties, crazy paving was all the rage. Now there are incalculable numbers of pathways, driveways and patio areas of concrete trip hazards and an uncontrollable weed problem thanks to this landscape design trend. A later, but equally atrocious trend was for decking. Yes, the aforementioned Groundforce programme may have well been known as Deckforce due to the fact that every owner of every garden featured on the show asked for the ultra slippery death platforms to be installed amongst the herbaceous borders! Poor Alan was often left twiddling his thumbs as the owners snubbed the idea of any plants, generally to avoid maintenance, anmd basically wanted the wjhole area paved and decked over to provide a place to drink beer and eat half cooked sausages of a damp bank holiday weekend. It is actually the very nature of Britain's climate that has lead to gardening becoming a hard landscaping and house extension business. In my opinion, and which is generally the advice I give, is to save your money by not flooding the garden with concrete and half the Amazon Rainforest. All you need is a bit of shelter. This will keep the sun from scorching your skin (yes, the chance would be a fine thing I know) and the rain from puddling your pathways. Simply by providing a barrier of sorts from the elements, you will have halted the flight of a whole flock of proverbial birds with a single sling of the shot. Garden shades come in all shapes and forms, and as their appearance on a prime time green-fingered show has been low, are unlikely to ever become a aesthetic faux pas. Traditionally, the good ole tree was the way that gardens achieved their shade, but with the prolific rate of new builds in the country, sometimes it can be 20 years before a sapling provides enough shade for an afternoon Pimms and lemonade. Gazebo's and marquees often make an appearance, but the way these are generally of a fixed nature means that the space of a garden is not taken advantage of. The suggestion I am inclined to make to anyone in this situation is to invest in a garden shade of a more temporary nature. Sail shades for example can be erected quickly and effortlessly and are suitable for any size garden. They also have the benefit of being used as a feature through creative positioning. It is something that Charlie and Alan are likely to keep to themselves, a top tip too hot to share as it were. So hot in fact, that it calls for a small siesta after a sun soaked sangria. Well, we can dream can't we!
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