Home & Garden Blog » Garden Decor

Just because you don’t have much space in your outdoor garden, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy beautiful garden design. It simply means that you have to rethink your garden decorating scheme to accommodate a smaller scale. No matter what size outdoor space you have, you can create a beautiful oasis to enjoy throughout the seasons.

Here are a few garden decorating tips to help make small spaces flourish:

Pots and planters – Even if you don’t have the space for expanses of long flowerbeds, you can still create visual interest and add lots of color by using garden pots and planters. Pots come in all shapes and sizes, as well as many different materials, so selecting a pot that you like and that fits in the space should be easy. Pots and small planters can contain flowers, herbs or even vegetables, so you can make the most of a small space by planting wisely.

Statues and decorations – If you want to make your space truly unique, you can still do so even without owning a lot of real estate. While you may not have room for a bird fountain or garden bench, you can still add your own personal touch by hanging a wind chime along a branch, or placing small garden statues near your flowers, pots, etc. They add just that little extra personal touch, and do not require a large scale to be effective.

Outdoor furniture – No matter how much space you have outdoors, it is always nice to have a place to sit outside to enjoy the view. If you don’t have much room, you can still invest in a small bistro table set so that you have a place to sit, and even to enjoy a meal or a few drinks. Bistro tables are small tables for two and usually come with matching chairs. There are some that are made to withstand outdoor use and they are generally not that expensive. If you don’t want a table and chair set and prefer something else, a small garden bench can be equally as inviting.

Colors – Vibrant displays of color add that special “wow factor”, no matter what the size of the space, so choose some vibrant colors to accent your space. Whether you go with a mix of colors or stick to a more monochromatic palette, you are sure to create an eye catching space with the myriad of colors that flowers can bring. If you want a space that energizes you, consider bright reds, yellows and oranges. If a relaxing space is more your style, then plant blues, purples and whites to create a soothing color palette.

No matter how much space you have outside of your home, it is always possible to create a visually enticing sanctuary with the use of a few garden accessories and the addition of beautiful flowers. Your garden should be the place that you look forward to unwinding after a long stressful day, or a place to sip lemonade on a warm sunny day. Personalizing that space with your own touches will add to the enjoyment that the space provides.

Shop for discount garden decor at Smarter.com.

Image Source: pinknews.co.uk

Remember back in the day when you could customize your desktop to have a cyber friend? Sometimes it was a dog, sometimes a cat, sometimes a paperclip, but either way you had a little friend that told you about updates, software, and gave advice and assistance for the programs you were working on. The cyberfriends have been replaced by stark white search boxes, tool bars, and help menus, and the tasks and tools that these cyberfriends provided have been thoroughly covered and replaced. But what about the need to have a little cyber friend? One that you could care for, feed, water and play with, even for a short time (and even if the cyberfriend didn’t necessarily need it. Let’s face it…does a paperclip really need to have a facelift?)

New on the market: Cyberplants! A real, living plant can be attached to your monitor by the flowerpot and cared for at your leisure. The hardy plants come in patented, artificial soil, and need only 1 tablespoon of water every 2-3 months. But think of all the useful and positive agents of a plant accompanying you on cyber surfing journeys. You can choose from a variety of plants for your pot, from a bamboo plant to a mini palm plant. One catch: this plant item is part of a promotional company and can only be purchased in bulk, the minimum being 125 plants, pots and installation materials. So think of this as a clean, low-maintenance way to make your office space into a greener environment, or maybe a present you can give to your friends for years (and years) to come!

Promotional Cyberplant from Iaspromotes.com: $6.80/each for bulk of 125.

Shop for real plants and seeds at Smarter.com.

Blooming flowers? Check. Lush foliage? Check. A charming walkway with lanterns? Check.

Your garden seems to have it all but just like decorating the inside of your home, your garden is never complete without accessories. Here are my top three pics for accessorizing that garden:

1. Cast iron:

Nothing evokes rustic & charming than these kind of accessories. Find an assortment, from planters to thermometers.

Acanthus Urn: $69

2. Moss-laden ceramics:

These accessories will instantly bring you to an antique garden with it’s magnificent sculptures & enthralling fountains. The weathered look is simply beautiful.

Ceramic Pineapple Finial: $34.50

3. Aluminum:

Amazingly cheap & yet so modern-looking.

Aluminum Planters from Grass Roots Modern

Other options of course includes wood & wrought iron. You can mix & match different types of garden accessories, but make sure you stay with one look & you can have a complete garden vignette.

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for more planters.

We all want to make our gardens as beautiful, healthy and eco-friendly as possible, but sometimes it seems like the only way to have a very green and healthy garden is to pay a lot to maintain it:  organic compost, non-rusting chicken wire and garden tools, imported seeds, etc. With Gardener’s Supply Company, though, you’ll never have to worry about over-priced garden supplies again. Take a look at some of their great deals and discounts, and you will be clamoring for a tomato patch or bean stalk of your own!

Top deals and steals:

Bean Tower: $31.99, marked down from $34.95. With sturdy legs and room for storage at the top and bottom, this wire bean tower support structure will have you growing thick, nutritious bean plants in no time.

Deer Fence and Pest Control: $79.99 marked down from $84.95

No garden is complete without it’s pests. While not all of us have to deal with gnomes and garden gremlins like Harry Potter and the Weasley’s, we still have our own pests and no magic to fight them with! With choices of heavy duty wire or lightweight fencing, you can protect your garden from the most destructive of pests.

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for more pest control products.

Since we’re in the throes of the Tour de France, I thought it only proper to take a look at how one of the greatest cyclists the world has ever seen chooses to live his life when he’s not barreling down grueling hills, climbing the Alps, or exercising himself silly on a daily basis.  With some much strain in his life, something has to be a luxury, and for Lance, it’s all about creating the perfect, relaxing home environment.  Calling Austin, Texas his home, let’s see what we can learn from Mr. Armstrong’s decorative choices and how we can implement them for our own homes!  Thanks to Architectural Digest.com, let’s take a critical look at Lance Armstrong’s home and see what we can learn!

Lance’s bungalow style home can best be described as an estate, not just a house.  Why?  Open porches, paths through gardens, tons of greenery all add to the effect of an expansive property, not just a house.  Make your home feel more like a property by adding on porches and gardens for yourself!

If the home is to die for, take a look at the pool!

To gain a house that looks like this, you have to think about ambiance and night time lighting.  What’s the most important factor?  Weather!  For us New Englanders, an outdoor pool can only be used for about 3 months out of the year.  If you’re in the south, though, an outdoor pool is a beautiful and almost necessary addition to the home!  To make a pool this beautiful and ambient at your home, think about tiki torches and underwater lighting, and even maybe some interesting tropical plant life.  It’s all about the greenery and the lighting, and indoor it’s all about the lighting.  Lance knows how to make his place restive and beautiful, gauge your own price range and see if creating an earthy, ambient architectural estate is within your price range.  If not, easy simple solutions would be investing in some potted plants for the kitchen or living room, and some tiki torches or low lighting for the porches or backyard; the plants will make your house feel fresher, and the lighting will save on electricity and create more family friendly spaces in your home to enjoy during the warmer months.

The best advice I can give, though, for emulating Lance’s lifestyle, is to take up biking.  Biking is not just for the rural-dwellers, city-rats benefit more from biking than anyone else.  I’ve been switching between four New England cities for the past 3 years, and cannot stress more the necessity of clean, money-saving, exercise-inducing transportation like biking.  It’s fast, it’s relatively painless (so long as your not in the Tour de France) and you get to see parts of the city that you would never experience underground in the subways or cursing your way through traffic.  So sit back, relax and invest in a stable bicycle; the restful lifestyle is only a pedal away!

While our ancestors threw off the influence of Great Britain in favor of a more democratic and anti-imperialist government, they were thinking in terms of money and politics.  This is important to keep in mind for all those Yanks who still hold the revolutionary American spirit close to heart: taking garden tips from the British is not the same as being ruled by them!  And once you get a whiff of the styles these Brits are sporting, you will never look back.

Designer Spotlights, brought to you from the BBC Garden section, is as aesthetically pleasing as a website as it is with garden tips.  The Designer Spotlights feature many up and coming and highly regarded garden designers from Great and Greater Britain:

The first featured artist is Sarah Eberle, who has a degree in landscape architecture and was awarded an honorary degree from Greenwich University for her designs just last year.  She drew early influences from the Modernist Art period and was classically trained, at first, as an architecture proper student.  She claims she is more of a farmer than a gardener, so her designs reflect this attitude as well.  Her top plants to have in a garden are: Euphorbia wulfenii, cow parsley, hawthorn beech trees in autumn.

Here is a photo of Sarah Eberle’s submission to the 2007 Ellerslie Flower Show

To recreate her look, check out some of these products:
Heronswood.com for “unusually great plants”: Euphorbia ‘Jessie’ for sale for $13.95.

Modernist furniture at a modest price: Ellis 3-Piece Sitting Group for $449.00, a total of $180.00 knocked off the original kist price.

On to the second favorite designer of the BBC Gardening Section: John Brookes, a legendary designer with over 50 years experience in landscape designing!  While Sarah Eberle brings a fresh, modernist approach to landscaping, John can help build your knowledge of the basics of landscaping.  Interesting enough, when John first started out he was considered ahead of his time and labeled–a Modernist!  To him, that means using concrete skillfully in your designs.  His designs are often described as “handsome” rather than “cute” or “pretty”.  Understandable, when you observe his hearty, large plant life, sleek pathway and furniture design, such in the Denmans, one of his favorite gardens:

To channel John Brookes’ classic, handsome designs, here are some garden products and plants to consider:

Lavender buds for your garden, sold by the pound or in bulk by the San Francisco Herb Company

Ranging between $8-15 a pound, the San Francisco Herb Company gives you several different options of Lavender plants to customize the product for your garden needs. You can’t resist the smell of Lavender in the summertime!

The other product I would recommend to emulate John Brookes’ design would be concrete.  While I can’t exactly recommend exact places to buy concrete since it is a very localized process and unfortunately not conducive to the Internet, I do want to say that concrete for pathways or walls is not as disgusting and stark as you might think.

Some tips:

1. Always draw out a map of the landscaping plan beforehand, and make sure it is to scale and you have the measurements of your land and the projected width/ height of any plants, walls, fountains, etc you plan on putting into the garden.
2. Think about how you will water the garden and keep it healthy: will there be an underground watering system? Hoses?    Do you have the adequate soil and water supply to support the type of garden you want to create?
3. Think about the aesthetic of your home and how you can compliment it with a garden.  Old colonial?  Do some brick pathways.  Modern bungalow?  Concrete paths and maybe some bamboo.

Best of luck with your designer tip of the week!  Don’t forget to check out the BBC Gardening page itself, there are plenty of other designers to discover!

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for garden decor and flowers.

I hope your garden or patio is ready for summer because it’s definitely here!  If outdoor furniture is the first order to get your summer abode ready, then accessories are the ones that complete it.  From finials to planters, centerpieces to statues, but to create instant warmth, you have to have outdoor lanterns.

I’m in love with polished nickel ones.  Here are three of my favorite shops & their different takes on this accessory.

Amalfi Square Lanterns Restoration Hardware $15-$129

Arched Metal Lanterns West Elm $39

Seaport Lanterns Pottery Barn $39

I’m still trying to choose which ones to get, but whichever I choose I’m sure it’s going to be incredibly chic!  More summer outdoor decorating tips to come….

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for more lanterns.

Ready for a mini vacation in your own home?  Not every one of us can jet set for the summer & lounge in a hammock overlooking a white, sandy beach in Aruba or sip cafe au lait at a lovely courtyard with a view of the Eiffel tower, or better yet, dine out in a cabana with flowy, white curtains in Santorini.  Try these outdoor oasis ideas & take a mini vacation just a few steps away from your living room.

1. The Bistro: Just two chairs and a table, a great book & maybe a nice glass of aged Spanish wine.   Accessorize it with a few candles & of course the lush garden you’ve been working hard on since spring.

2. Hang patio drapes: Your porch will feel like a summer getaway with outdoor panel curtains.  Summer’s hot but it shouldn’t be that hot!

3. Outdoor dining:  When the weather is beautiful, you can dine out anytime.  Weather-resistant furniture such as teak if you would like to go modern or cast iron if you would like to go romantic is so refreshing.  Have a pergola or trellis?  Hang chandeliers, lanterns, empty picture frames with ribbons above the dining area.  Lovely!

5. Copa Cabana:  Nothing evokes a vacation more than a cabana.  This wooden one instantly takes me to a tropical place.  Scatter colorful pillows, the more the better!

6. The Beach Chaise:  Get a comfortable outdoor cushioned chaise & matching umbrella in a wonderful pattern & vivid colors, sip an ice cold lemonade & you’re in your Caribbean getaway.

Any other mini vacation ideas? I’d love to hear about them…

Image Source: fromhousebeautiful.com and flickr

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for affordable patio furniture.

Here I am, once again, bringing you a great choice to “pimp” your garden, keeping in good taste and looking for the best prices.

Today we are going to talk about wooden furniture.  Although some people say wood is not the best choice for outdoor spaces, I have to say that I disagree.  Every wooden piece of furniture made for a garden has gone through a process in order to make it resistant enough.  And besides, doesn’t wood look amazing surrounded by nature?  I think so.

The first thing I want to show you is this lovely classic bench, made of clear western red cedar.  This is, in my opinion, one of the best materials for outdoor furniture, since its fibers have oils that work as natural preservatives, making it resistant to any kind of weather.  But the wood this bench is made of is not the only good thing about it.  Its design is great.  I particularly love it for being so simple and refined at the same time, which is really hard to find (sometimes furniture looks too boring or too fancy).  Finally, let me tell you that not only will it look incredible as a decorative piece, but it could be really useful.  I bet you can see yourself, sitting or laying on it, maybe reading a good book and enjoying of a beautiful day.

Cedar Garden Bench : $173.99

What do you think about outdoor table sets?  From my point of view, putting one for your garden means having more space to welcome your guests, and allows you to spending lovely evenings having some coffee and and nice conversation outdoors.  But there is one problem: A nice and comfortable table set can be really expensive.  Don’t worry my friends, there are always good opportunities to take advantage of, like this beautiful set on the right which is on sale!

This set includes two classic and comfortable armchairs and one end table.  How can you be sure they are so comfortable?  Because of the ergonomic curve of their backs, which would definitely not be the cause of those awful back aches.

Made of Shorea wood, this set is weather resistant.  Over time it can naturally turn to a warm grey color (which I think looks great), but in case you don’t agree with me, this can be easily avoided by using teak oil which would keep its original color.

Classic Chair Set - $1,815.00 $726.00 (60% off!)

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for more wooden outdoor furniture.

Spending a spring afternoon in your garden, surrounded by beautiful flowers, feeling the warmth of the sun, is definitely one of the most pleasant things ever. I’m going to show you today how to create an amazing atmosphere in your garden, being smart and saving money.

Flowers!  There is nothing like a garden full of colorful flowers. In my opinion, the best plants to get are the perennial ones. Why? Because not only do they look great, but they last at least two years. Perennial plants resist every season, and you can be sure that if you get them this spring, they will be blossoming the next one too.

Here are some of my favorite choices:

The first one, called Rudbeckia Laciniata ‘Goldquelle’, stands out for its intense dark yellow blooms. Their size is 3 1/2 inch, and they begin flowering in midsummer lasting until well into fall. Butterflies find these flowers extremely attractive, so your garden would be full of them.  Perennial Plants - Black-Eyed Susan ‘Goldquelle’ - only $6.95

My second choice is this amazing Blanket Flower Collection.  It includes three different varieties of flowers: Burgundy, Arizona Sun and The Sun.  Their long-lasting 4-inch blooms can make any garden look full of life because of their brilliant colors:  the wine red of the Burgundy, the reddish orange of the Arizona Sun and the strong bright yellow of The Sun.   It’s very easy to take care of this plants since they resist any kind of weather.  Perennial Plants - Blanket Flower Collection - $19.95

Now, what do you think about fountains? I personally love them!

As soon as I thought about garden decorations, I knew a fountain had to be included.  Picture setting all this plants with their beautiful flowers making a circle, and placing in the middle this stone water fountain, that works with solar energy.  It would look totally classy and it would bring beautiful birds into your garden!

Let me tell you another great thing about it:  The sound of the falling water is relaxing, so it would definitely help to create the atmosphere I told you about before.

Grandin Road - York Solar Fountain - $199.00

Decorate your garden, create your own space and enjoy!

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for more flowers.
Discounts on fountains.