Susie’s Garden
Don’t skip it – upcycle it! Susie has gathered many decorative and functional ideas from gardens she has visited
I’ve always enjoyed looking at allotments and seeing how people have used their imagination when building sheds, greenhouses and garden structures.
A lot of creativity goes into re-using materials that might otherwise have been thrown away. It’s often done out of necessity but nowadays it is fashionable too, and called recycling or upcycling.
So many things get dumped into landfill that, with a little thought, can find a new use. A good example is a cable drum, a wooden spool made to carry electrical wires. Tough and durable, they can be used to make garden tables. The top can be covered in mosaic, the drum can be painted, or left to age naturally. There’s even a small hole in the centre where you can put a jar of flowers or support a sun shade.
I see lots of interesting ideas when I visit gardens open for charity: heavy weights used as doorstops for greenhouses, old roofing stones used to edge borders, reclaimed bricks made into paths and wood into benches. At one garden, the owner lays carpet on the paths to make them easier to walk on and to keep the weeds down!
Carpet is often used on top of compost bins and David goes one step further in insulating ours. He makes “compost duvets” using sheets of old bubble wrap which he layers inside old compost bags. This keeps the heat in and the rain out and that, coupled with regular turning of the heap, produces good compost in just a few months.
Rusted metal is a reddish brown colour that combines very well with plants. Old tools, cogs from machinery or wheels can become like pieces of art.
When digging my garden I found parts of an old mangle and several large horseshoes, all a lovely rusty colour, and all around them I grow marjoram and lavender.
Set clear and blue glass beads into a path (pictured left) to make decorative patterns. You could do this with sea glass, shells or bits of broken pottery.
So, keep your eyes peeled for things that others may not value but that you can re-invent. It’s creative and fun!