24-07-2025
How to style up your garden for a summer party
It's the season for hosting outdoors. Google searches for 'garden party' have surged by 128 per cent in the last three months, and more than half of us use our gardens for hosting, according to a new report by the furniture company Barker & Stonehouse. But what to do if you've sent out the invitations and then realised, on surveying your back garden, that it's not up to scratch?
This is the situation I found myself in recently ahead of a birthday party I was planning. But although we may all have a long list of jobs we'd like to do outdoors, I found it's possible to transform your garden quite quickly with a few expert tips, by repurposing things you already have, and the odd judicious purchase.
Set the scene
The first step is a tidy-up: those basic jobs like mowing the lawn, sweeping the patio, deadheading the roses and trimming any large hedges make the garden look instantly more cared for. I had already gone a step further: sick of the sight of my lawn several weeks before, I dug it up and laid a new turf. Any equipment needs to be put away: I had all my exercise equipment scattered across the patio, so I bought a neat wooden storage unit from Garden Trading to stow it away.
