From Lights To Garden Mirrors: Making Your Garden Beautiful

As summer approaches, your garden becomes an outlet into the natural world. An outdoor space can be utilised for relaxation, al fresco dining and a hub for wellbeing, where you can choose decor to cultivate a garden that’s personalised to you.

Once you’ve decided on a basic design and layout for your garden, you can begin to consider additional accessories that will help to make the space even more attractive. Elements of interior design such as lighting, storage and decoration can all be extended to an outdoor space in order to create an aesthetically pleasing environment.

Read on for an extensive guide to choosing your garden accessories, with an insight into lighting and space saving decisions that will help your outdoor area to feel like home.

Thoughtful Accessorising

Once you’ve selected and positioned your key pieces of garden furniture, you may wish to consider what other accessories could be used to improve the space. These can be placed purposefully to avoid clutter whilst emphasising favourable outdoor features. Some options may include:

Lighting

As with your indoor space, outdoor lighting is an excellent way to complement existing furniture and create an ambient feel. Choose a string of fairy lights to light up a dining platform or to highlight elements of trees and shrubbery. These add a touch of whimsy and fun to any style of garden. Hanging illuminations or spotlights can be used to make the most of existing arbours or architectural features, whilst outdoor lanterns can light up pathways or routes through the space.

Planting

You may already have a clear vision of the planting in your garden based around practicality and yield, but you can also plant for aesthetic purposes to accentuate your outdoor features. Hanging baskets can make the most of exterior walls and boundary fences, where these can also be decorated with climbing plants tied to a trellis or frame. Plant pots can also be utilised to add some interest to your garden, where patterned or painted planters can complement your flowers or act as a colourful statement accessory.

Mirrors

Mirrors are another accessory that work just as well outside as they do indoors. Like your interior mirrors, this garden accessory can be used to create an illusion of space, as well as to exaggerate colourful flowers or structurally exciting planting. These mirrors are designed to be more resilient than the indoor variety, where you can secure them to exterior walls or utilise a sturdy fixture to keep the panel in place. Reflective plant pots and lanterns can also make a space feel bigger whilst serving a practical purpose.

Arches & Arbours

In addition to your standard garden seating, you may wish to accessorise with the help of an arch or arbour. These structures come in a wide variety of styles, where they could consist of a wooden, painted or metal frame. Arbours can also feature a shaded seat or bench, perfect for adding an additional resting point to your outdoor area. Some arches or arbours come with trellis details, where plants can be grown to climb around these decorative structures.

Wall Accessories

Plants and mirrors are not the only accessories suited to outside walls. You can also choose purpose-built wall ornaments that fix onto fences, walls or furniture. These come in a wide variety of styles, often in the form of fun bees, bugs and butterflies. Outdoor prints and artwork can also be used in this way to brighten up neutral areas of fencing and boundary walls.

Wildlife-Friendly Decor

In addition to accessorising for aesthetic reasons, you can also choose products that attract and support various types of wildlife. Wildflower planting attracts vital pollinators to your garden, whilst a hedgehog house or bird nest box will provide essential shelter for these species. Providing bird food and a water source can also help to bring birds to the garden, where these can help to keep your plants free from pests. Choosing items that are decorated with eco-friendly paints and varnishes can also help to protect your local ecosystem.

Sensory Details

Thoughtful accessorising in your garden can also be used to add layers of sensory experience to your outside space. Consider a decorative wind chime to create a subtle and soothing garden soundscape. This can be complemented with a tasteful water feature, where these can be aesthetically pleasing whilst also providing a hydration source for wildlife. Planting strong smelling shrubs or flowers along pathways and near seating can also help to create an ambient, relaxing atmosphere.

Top Exterior Design Principles

Just like inside the home, there are a number of key principles that can help you to design and decorate your outside space. Not all of these have to be adhered to, but deliberate and purposeful design generally results in a more aesthetically pleasing garden to enjoy. General points to consider include:

Deliberate Lighting Choices

Once you’ve decided what lighting style you’d like to use, there are several other factors to consider. Lights should be purposeful and directed to where you want the illumination to land, rather than being placed randomly. Their usage should also be controlled, where dimmer switches can help to adjust lighting levels in order to appeal to different moods. You can also consider the kinds of bulbs you’re using – LED options represent an environmentally friendly choice, whilst warm coloured bulbs can help to create a pleasant atmosphere.

Smart Storage

Just like inside, you may wish to incorporate space saving storage into your garden area. This could include concealed cabinets and cubby holes under decking or within purposeful free-standing furniture. You may also want to select discrete storage for your waste and recycling bins, as well as your compost unit. In addition to this, storage can also come in the form of a garden shed or summer house, where these can combine shelving with a shady seating area.

Working With Levels

You may wish to add levels to your garden to improve drainage or break up a large outdoor space. This can help to create areas of concealed seating whilst also making a garden look more interesting. Equally, you may have a tiered garden that you wish to modify, where slopes can be disguised with planting, or levels can be customised with wood panelling and smooth paving stones. Lighting can also be added in the form of spotlights or cascading string lights to emphasise architectural features.

Purposeful Pathways

It can be easy to overlook a pathway when revamping your outdoor space, but this is an important design feature that can easily help to improve the look and feel of your garden. Paths can be used to carve out different areas or to draw the eye through the space, where angles or curved lines can be used to change the dynamic of the landscape. There are many different materials to choose from when adorning a walkway, where pebbles, slabs or a rope walkway can all improve the aesthetic appeal of your garden.

Distinguished Areas

One of the most important principles to consider when redecorating your garden is to think about how you’re using different areas. Creating a different atmosphere for seating, dining and gardening can help you to make deliberate decorative choices that will ultimately result in a more usable space. This principle can still be applied to smaller gardens, where thoughtful planting and decoration can help to produce the illusion of space.

Woburn Sands Emporium: Everything You Need To Create A Beautiful Garden

At Woburn Sands Emporium, we can provide a comprehensive range of garden accessories to help you boost the aesthetic appeal of your space. Choose from our selection of arbours, wind chimes and decorative pots, where all our outdoor accessories are designed for style as well as practicality.

In addition to this, we sell a broad selection of garden furniture, including dining sets, lounge chairs and scatter cushions. If you’re looking for an outdoor cooking experience, you can also consider our array of gas, charcoal and electric barbecues.