For those in the northern hemisphere, summer is right around the corner. Readers situated in southerly climes may also wish to take note that summer is but a few months away – planning to get your garden ready for summer at almost any stage of the year is advised.
Why? Because gardens are where family and friends can get a little sunshine, share a BBQ perhaps, or even just relax and enjoy a breeze together in the height of the summer’s thermometer-busting temperatures. Let’s look at how you could prepare your outdoor space for the warmer months.
Outdoor lighting
Summer gardens are often enjoyed well into the evening. Or certainly, as late as the lighting levels will allow. That’s where outdoor LED strip lighting from UltraLEDs can help. With outdoor lighting, you can enjoy your free time regardless of whether the sun has fully disappeared behind the horizon.
Not only is outdoor lighting beneficial for entertaining guests during the warmer evenings, but it also offers practical solutions throughout the year, too (including home security). For example, never again will you stumble whilst retrieving something from your yard in the darkness. Never will you wonder if what you heard late at night was a small animal trying to get into your bins or whether it was something more serious like an intruder. Garden lighting holds the answers to fun in the summertime and year-round security. Isn’t it time you upgraded?
Water feature
No garden is complete without some way of welcoming some sort of wildlife onto your property. A water feature is a great way to do that. Whether you would like to install a pond and stock it with fish, or whether you would prefer some sort of fountain that doubles as a birdbath, water attracts life, and that can give your garden a much more natural feel.
People with small children are right to be wary of installing a water feature, of course. However, some child-friendly water features involve only trickling water and no pools. What better way to enjoy the garden with your little ones than to look at the wildlife attracted to the water – when you install a water feature, you benefit from a permanent talking point.
Introduce an interesting static feature
Speaking from experience, the last thing you may want to do is install a three-metre tall chainsaw carving of a dragon at the entrance to your garden. No matter how you intend such things to go, the neighbourhood will likely not appreciate the garden feature as a gesture of friendliness. Instead, you could introduce a tasteful sculpture or statue, an archway, a firepit, or a wishing well.
All of these ideas can improve the aesthetics of your garden and help to create a more welcoming feel for the summer. Get started now before it’s too late and you find yourself wishing you’d put some or all of these plans into action – the summer isn’t going to wait for you, it will happen on days when you’re the most unprepared if you’re not careful!
