We’re happy to be working with Wayfair again, this time on garden trends that are fast becoming popular. As we’re very visual people, we’ve produced mood boards with two of our favourite garden trends; eco-friendly gardens and vintage industrial gardens.

If you see any garden products that you’d like – they’re all available from Wayfair – simply click on the item image on the slider at the bottom of each collection. Now, scroll down to our selections and why we chose them!

Over the past few years, most of us have been trying to live more eco-friendly lives – attempting to minimise our on impact on the planet. Producing less waste and doing more recycling are simple ways of doing our bit.

Creating an environmentally-aware garden begins with thinking about the wildlife; we want to encourage insects, birds and other creatures to visit. Certain plants and flowers act as magnets for bees, butterflies, ladybirds and other beneficial pollinators and natural pest controllers including:

• Lavender
• Buddleia (it’s nickname is ‘butterfly bush’)
• Sunflower
• Foxglove
• Honeysuckle
• Ivy

To further tempt insects, why not erect an ‘insect hotel’? With a range of holes and crevices, it acts as a safe, dry and comfortable environment to many to live and hibernate.

Many garden birds are seeing a sharp decrease in numbers. Give them a helping hand by providing feeding stations.

Instead of throwing food waste in the bin, items such as tea leaves, coffee grounds, vegetable peelings, salad and egg shells can be added to the garden compost bin. Other household waste such as cardboard, newspapers and junk mail can also be included.

The UK is famous for being cold & wet – use it to your advantage. Don’t use a garden hose attached to the water mains (especially if you’re on a water meter) to water your plants, harvest all that rain in a water butt and use that instead – many plants actually prefer drinking rain water!

Cutting down on our use of, and reliance on, plastic is another hot topic. We can all do our bit to to reduce the amount of plastic littering our land and oceans. Firstly, if you already have plastic items in the garden, get the most possible use out of them – extending their life through re-use and up-cycling before throwing them away. If you’re going to buy plastic items in the future, strongly consider those manufactured from recycled plastic. And finally, source alternative, natural, biodegradable materials such as wood, bamboo, cork and coir for pots, storage, packaging and so on.

shop the eco-friendly garden trend

We blog about vintage industrial styling in interior décor on a regular basis. You can successfully transfer many of these ideas to the outdoors.

We’ve definitely noticed a traditional, functional look creeping into garden design – ‘allotment chic’ we call it! Vintage industrial pieces certainly compliment – or are perhaps essential – to creating this look. In addition to working well in this traditional ‘yesteryear’ style, strong industrial elements are also perfect for an ultra modern, very contemporary urban style space.

Gabions were once the domain of motorway sidings and other civil engineering projects. Now, they’re a fashionable thing in modern garden design. They add strong, structural shape to gardens – the form & colour of the pebbles held within them adding a further layer of interest. Cast concrete is another industrial material that has a multitude of potential uses in the garden – planters, walls and seating are all made possible with this flexible, mouldable material.

Galvanised metal is also very on trend. It all started with the incorporation of genuine vintage pieces such as dolly tubs, buckets, wash basins and watering cans into garden designs. So popular has this look now become, that we’ve noticed lots of modern versions of these traditional old items on the market. As demand for the antique pieces increased, so did the prices. The recently produced items can be more affordable. Also, they allow modern tweaks with specific functions for the containers – or additions such as personalised or bespoke lettering.

We’re using our gardens more and more as outdoor eating spaces. Sales of garden furniture, barbecues and pizza ovens have seen a steady rise in sales over the years. And if you’re wanting to use the garden on a chilly evening, what better than a real fire? In addition to providing heat, chimineas & braziers – and log storage racks too – have the perfect look for this type of garden.

Industrial style lighting is another interiors trend moving outdoors – bulk head lights, hanging task lights, strings of lights on wire. They all have the right style and functional simplicity.

Architectural plants with big, structural leaves and blooms complement a vintage industrial garden. Think ferns, cacti, cordyline, gunnera manicata, rheums, alliums (elephant garlic flowers are very impressive – and the enormus bulbs are edible too!) and tall grasses. They have strong forms, however this doesn’t stop them softening the harder materials incorporated within the garden design.

What garden trends do you find attractive or plan to implement on your own plot?

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