IT’S FUN TO fake it!

THINK ARTIFICIAL WHEN THE REAL THING IS TOO DIFFICULT

Sometimes, there are areas of the garden that defy all efforts at beautifying, greening or even just staying alive. Our terrace lawn is a case in point. Over time, it’s been unsuccessfully planted with carex, day lilies, grass and more grass, and covered in lime chip and shells. Now, our latest effort – ready-lawn – has developed something called red thread fungus. Next step – artificial turf. And I’m okay with that.

Faux garden products have come a long way in the past decade or so. I remember back to the ‘90s when we all wanted our gardens to resemble Pacific resorts, a trend that spawned a number of not-very-authentic bures and fales alongside swimming pools with faux beaches and fake rocks. They mostly looked, well, wrong.

But these days, there are plenty of ways you can fake both planting and hard landscaping features in the garden and in the house, on either a temporary or permanent basis.

A couple of years ago, a British newspaper set about creating a garden composed entirely of “fake” plants and blooms. In New Zealand money, it cost about $6000 (the fake bay tree was close to $150) and the plant palette included grass, foxgloves, dahlias, geraniums and magnolia.

The project came in response to an upsurge of interest in artificial garden products, which has continued to grow. Once condemned as kitsch, artificial flowers and plants have reached new heights of popularity, and these days they’re getting pretty close to the real thing. And it’s not just about flowers – you can buy ready-made fake box hedges, vertical gardens and climbing or trailing foliage for screening or covering trellises and fences.

The advantage of fake plants is that you can make them do whatever you want. Plant sun lovers in the shade, move a hedge to a new location, position a tree to hide the neighbours’ garden shed.

And if you want to keep it authentic, you can swap out plants according to the season. Stash your fake camellias in the shed when their natural flowering period is over and replace them with spring blooms.

You don’t need to stop at plants, either. I’ve seen fake birds on the internet with a chip that provides birdsong and very good versions of those old faux rocks we so despised last century. I have to ’fess up to owning a big hypertufa planter, which looks like sculpted sandstone, and our courtyard walls are made from 300 x 200 x 600 blocks of “sandstone” that I can lift with one hand. In the not-too-distant future, I can see myself bringing home a few lightweight rocks to position over badly behaved bits of irrigation pipe and the outside light transformer.

On a simpler level, you can incorporate elements into the great outdoors that will buy you more space. Mirrors hung on external walls will visually expand the size of your outdoor living space. Faux windows or louvres will give the impression that there is more garden beyond. A piece of textured glass will create the illusion of a water feature.

And not all your tricks have to look like the real thing. If you can’t make an artificial stream look real (and who can?), make it look unreal. It’ll draw just as many comments and smiles.

Genuine or not, these red poles add some zing to the bank of palm trunks bordering an artificial lawn. Climbing and trailing plants to cover fences and trellises are available – this one has flowers but never needs dead- heading. A window of textured...

There’s no way these glass chips actually look like a stream, but they create a quirky garden feature. Some people love cutting their hedges, but for those who don’t, how about one that never needs trimming and always looks perfect?