JOIN USFor all her green thumb and the flourishing garden around her home, homemaker Latha Shashidhar was beginning to feel a sense of boredom while tending to her outdoor greenery.
The garden didn’t seem to need much more than the one or two hours of work that she and the gardener were putting in everyday. lt was only when she visited a friend’s farmhouse that she discovered that a garden could be more than plants, trees and a lawn. It could be accessorised with wind-chimes, statues, lamps, gazebos, pergolas, lawn-edgings, little cascades and ponds, etc.
There are many like her who have discovered that a great garden is not only about luxuriant foliage, but can be enhanced in as many ways as your creativity will allow. Given resources of time, space and money, the only limit is your imagination. You can either have a professional landscape artist design the outdoor space including the garden or you can do-it-yourself with some assistance from family and your gardener.
How about a rock garden?
A rock garden in one corner of the outdoor space makes for an unusual element. A rather common but always appealing element is a water-body. You can have a concrete pond in which you can grow waterplants, lilypads, and the ever-popular lotuses besides, of course, a few fish if you fancy. Pink/purple and blue lotuses are available and look truly beautiful, floating gently in the placid water of a well-designed pond.
A bridge over a pond?
These ponds can be made to suit the size/space you want and you can further enhance them with a bed of rocks at the bottom of the pool and some plants around it. If you choose the plants carefully, the pond will attract birds, dragonflies, and such-like creatures adding to the ambience and cleansing the air of many pollutants. A large pond can be further enhanced with a handcrafted bridge over it. A little cascade in a corner of the garden beside which you can place a table and a few chairs around for teatimes or al fresco meals is another interesting option.
For those who cannot afford the space or expense of ponds and cascades, there are urlis –– terracotta, concrete, or porcelain –– which can be filled with jasmine flowers, temple-tree flowers or those from the bougainvilla tree. These are among the most aesthetic and easily-installed components of an appealing garden.
Homemaker Yashoda Joglekar suggests having old-fashioned hurricane lanterns hanging from the low branches of a tree. This gives the garden a quaint beauty and when the lanterns are lit at night, it gives the space a special charm. Yashoda adds that wind-chimes hung from tree branches not only accessorise the garden, but the tinkling sound when breezes blow can be very pleasant and is especially loved by kids at home.
In fact, lamps of all kinds––cast-iron or terracotta––can even be placed in corners of the garden or alongside a walkaway. Since this is the outdoors you must choose materials which don’t corrode easily.
Lawn borders
How about a lawn edging? This not only performs the utilitarian function of separating the garden area from its surrounds but it also frames your landscape and imparts a shape and structure to it.
Lawn edging can help you design walkaways, borders and other landscape areas. Picket fences, granite, sandstone, gravel, etc, can be used.
The space between plants or bushes can be accessorised with statues in porcelain or terracotta. In fact, many homes flaunt artwork or garden sculptures. Made in terracotta, bronze or iron they can be simple ones that are picked up from design stores or customised ones from famous artistes.
The latter are signed works of art, much like original paintings, only instead of hanging on your walls, they are standing in the garden. You can also have panels with murals on the compound walls lining your garden.
Artistically designed benches at different points in the garden or a small seating area complete with chairs and a table created in a leafy or shady area of the garden could serve as a utilitarian element. Some homes sport a series of tree-stumps where the wood has been treated, slightly chiselled and then sold for use as chairs. These serve as stools or chairs and are often placed around a table which could also be a larger tree-stump. This then becomes a great place to sit and read during the mornings, do some writing, or for that al fresco lunch or dinner whether with family or a small group of friends.
A gazebo is a more concrete arrangement and works wonderfully as a place for informal gathering of family for tea, mealtimes, and an outdoor-cooking day, say Neelima and Sudhir Acharya who have one in their home. They have also found that their guests love to hang out there during the parties which the couple often hosts.