Smarten up your seating

Your garden furniture is for more than dining and relaxing – it also makes a vital style statement. Joe Swift reveals how to set your garden scene

Joe Swift shows how to choose furniture that will enhance your garden

When I design garden layouts I often start with the placing and size of the seating areas and take it from there. They are a key element in forming the ideal ‘destination point’ and, when you’re seated, they also dictate how you view the garden. By definition, seating is for relaxing – after all, who can resist a bench in the dappled shade of a tree on a sunny day? It would seem rude not to sit on it and take a break! The type, size and finish of any garden seating you choose can help to set the overall style of the garden, and the surrounding hard landscaping and planting has the ability to turn it into a design feature in its own right. Over recent years, companies and product designers have produced a wide range of garden furniture, with many now being hard wearing, stylish and, thankfully, comfortable. You can spend a lot of money on fancy furniture but you really don’t have to. There are many affordable products around, while with a little imagination and handiwork you could easily ‘upcycle’ something to make it unique to your garden.