Decoration Archives - Primrose Blog

Decoration, Decorative Features, Gary, Indoor, Planters, Scott, Water Features

Bringing The Outside In

One in eight British homes has no access to a garden or private outdoor space. Being outdoors is great for both your mental and overall health. So, how do you get all the benefit of having a garden when you don’t have one? Here are some of our top tips for bringing the outside in.

Add More Houseplants

This is a quick and easy way to liven up your space. Houseplants come in all shapes, sizes and colours and a good combination of succulents, trailing and upright plants will have an immediate effect on bringing a space to life. You can easily find a plant suitable for every room in your house and when compared to outdoor plants, houseplants can be easier to look after. Combine this with some pots that match your decor and you have an easy win.

Grow Herbs

If you want to grow plants that are a bit more functional then herbs are a great place to start. Not only do they live longer indoors, but they can be used to add new flavours to your cooking. They also look great and if you plant thyme or rosemary will add some great scents into your home.

Be Creative with Planters

You don’t just need to limit yourself to terracotta pots, and there are loads of options you can use to make the plants in your house a design feature.

Wall Mounted

Taking your plants off the floor or tabletop is a great way to add green without taking up a lot of space. There are lots of varieties available from simple glass vases to trellis-style planters and they come in all styles and designs. These planters can be used to house all kinds of plants, but look particularly great when used with succulents.

Hanging

Wall-mounted planters might not be an option if you are renting, but if you still want to add a green feature to your space then consider a hanging planter instead. These planters can usually just be attached with a D-ring and don’t cause any damage. These are a great option for trailing house plants like the devil’s ivy or a monkey leaf monstera.

Balcony Planters

A balcony planter or is a great option if you want outdoor only plants and you have a small or Juliette balcony. These planters are easy to install and either just hook onto the railing or slot over the top. This is a perfect way to grow herbs if you have limited space or bring the smell of some traditional flowers into your house.

Make Use Of Mirrors

Using mirrors to make space seem larger is a cornerstone of interior design. They bring more light into the home to make it feel fresher and more inviting. Placing mirrors where they can reflect greenery is a great way for making your space feel bigger, fresher and more vibrant. It’s also a great way to work with a limited plant budget; you can double up for the price of a single mirror!

Install A Water Feature

The sound of running water is incredibly relaxing and water features don’t have to be limited to your outdoor space. In fact, having running water inside has a host of benefits:

Relaxing sound to make a calm atmosphere
Better circulation of air in your home
Help tackle any noise pollution from the outside

Not having a garden doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy nature and the benefits that the natural world brings. These tips are just the start – we’d love to see what you’ve done to bring the outside in on social media: Instagram, Twitter or Facebook

Decoration, Gardening, Gardening & Landscaping, Plants

Our Favourite Fast Growing Climbing Plants

Fast-growing climbing plants are a great tool for prettifying parts of your garden that you may not be so fond of. Within months, gardeners can see walls, fences, trellises, and pergolas transform into botanical displays.

All hardy, and with beautiful foliage and flowers, read on for our favourite fast growing climbers for your garden.

What is a Fast Growing Climbing Plant?

A fast growing climbing plant is a vine that will quickly envelop a large surface with their stems and foliage. With some varieties capable of growing over a dozen feet per year, climbers are a favourite amongst those with a passion for decor and gardening.

How Does a Climbing Plant Climb?

To avoid the sun, a climber will initially creep along the ground. However, once a climbing plant touches a new surface, chemical changes will prompt a new growing habit. From this point onwards, these vines will grow in an upwards direction.

Climbing genuses can have differing methods of climbing, such as:

Twining: Twining plants, such as a Clematis, will twist around surfaces via their stems or leaves.
Tendrilling: Tendrils deriving from the plant’s stem will wrap around a surface, mirroring a coil.
Clinging: Stems produce clusters of roots that cling to a variation of surfaces; examples include Hydrangeas.
Scrambling: Scrambling plants, such as vigorous Roses, have long, vine-like stems that require a degree of support in order to climb.

Chinese Wisteria

Characterised by their pendulous flowers, Wisterias are one of the most popular climbing genuses. Commonly called Chinese Wisteria, Wisteria sinensis is a particularly vigorous variety, which can exceed 40 feet in height. As such, this variety will happily reach the second story of a home, and can blanket a fence within a single growing season.

Visible during spring and early summer, a Chinese Wisteria’s flowers will give passers by a treat with their delightfully sweet scent. With this sensuous feature accompanied by swaying movement, these flowers will add a romantic touch to a wall-side border.

Chinese Wisteria is a non-fussy climber, where it will tolerate most well-drained soils, and will thrive in full sun or partial shade. Drought tolerant, this climber will make a reliable addition to your outdoor space.

Style Tip

Chinese Wisteria is a long-living plant, and if you are meticulous about your garden’s planting schemes, you must put careful thought into new additions for the years to come. When flowering, Wisteria will become a focal point, so keep nearby shrubs well-pruned to avoid a busy look.

Forming drooping clusters of delicate white flowers, Wisteria senensis ’Alba’ is great for a particularly colourful garden, where its luminous white flowers will harmonise with every shade, whether warm or cool. If you are worried about your Wisteria clashing with other plants, this is the climbing plant for you.

White Passion Flower

Native to South America, the Passion Flower will flourish in tropical climates, yet withstand freezing winters. Due to this hardiness, they will make a resilient choice for your garden. If you want to swiftly cover areas of your garden with exotic blooms, why not opt for Passiflora ‘Snow Queen‘?

Snow Queen is a highly vigorous climber that will bear white flowers, adorned by green and purple stamens. The complex scent of these flowers encompasses a mix of sweet, earthy, and tropical notes, which will capture intrigue from friends and family.

Flowering from summer through to autumn, Snow Queen can quickly grow up to 20 feet long, and will make a beautiful addition to walls, trellises, and fences. This variety is particularly perfect for enhancing a Mediterranean garden, or adding tropical edge to a cottage garden.

Clematis ‘Pink Fantasy’

With an abundance of stellate flowers, each etched by darker stripes of purple across their petals, ‘Pink Fantasy’ will prove a pretty addition to your garden. Able to quickly reach 8 feet in length, this Clematis will form gorgeous cover for trellises and pergolas. Throughout early summer to early autumn, Pink Fantasy’s flowers will gradually mature from deep pink to near white. As such, you can enjoy a plethora of seasonal colour.

Clematis plants are esteemed for their generous flowering periods, which often last a full season. Therefore, if you are after a long-running display, Clematis is the genus for you.

Shade tolerant, this Clematis is a great option if your garden is north-facing. Despite being fast growing, this climber also requires relatively little maintenance (mostly deadheading and regular pruning to maintain neat growth).

Bluebell Creeper

A quickly growing climber, the Bluebell creeper is wonderful for embracing cooler tones in your garden. The nodding, campanulate-shaped flowers boast a vivid blue colour, which stands out against their dark foliage.

Present all summer long, these vibrant flowers will become your floral fairylights for archways and trellises. However, even when these flowers disappear, your outdoor space will benefit from pretty foliage all year round. The lance-shaped leaves of this climber create a gentle silhouette, yet are organised compactly to provide generous concealment; covering areas with greenery even in winter.

Due to its noteworthy qualities, the Bluebell Creeper has achieved the Award of Garden Merit; assuring you that you will be planting an easy to grow, hardy, disease and pest resistant, and beautiful climbing plant.

Decoration, Flowers, Gardening, How To, Planting, Plants, Watering

How to Choose and Care for Bedding Plants

Bedding plants are a wonderful way to add liveliness to your garden and make it your own. They can transform beds with their differing colours, and will help support our precious pollinators. With so many bedding plants to choose from, you may feel unsure of where to begin; read on for all of the advice you need for choosing and caring for your bedding plants.

What is a Bedding Plant?

A bedding plant can be an annual, biennial, or tender perennial, that is planted into a flower bed to build a seasonal arrangement. After a bedding plant’s season of interest has ended, they will likely be replaced by another plant, and put away or discarded.

Bedding plants will happily grow in hanging baskets, pots, and raised beds. They are therefore suitable for all forms of outdoor space, ranging from a small balcony, to vast grounds.

How do I Choose the Right Bedding Plant?

Before identifying the best bedding plants for your garden, pay close attention to your chosen location, and perhaps ask the following questions:

How many hours of direct sun does the location receive per day?
Are there deciduous trees that might limit sunlight come spring?
What is the state of the soil? Is it damp? Are there lots of stones?

Our guide below will help you decide what degree of shade your location receives:

Preparing your Soil

If you are planting into your garden’s beds, carefully rake through the soil to remove stones and large clods. This will make sure that evaporation isn’t prevented, and a good amount of moisture is kept.

Whether you are planting in pots, raised beds, baskets, or directly into a flower bed, you should always opt for multi-purpose compost. Multi-purpose compost will form a nutrient rich environment for a range of bedding plants, and will also absorb and retain moisture.

What Colours Should I Choose?

Before deciding which colour scheme to embrace, consider how intricate you want your display to be. Mostly done professionally, carpet bedding requires a large range of shades to be planted closely together, however, a simple hanging basket will look beautiful with as little as one variety. For a flower bed, we recommend that you choose four varieties for each season.

Cool Colour Schemes

If you wish to evoke a tranquil atmosphere, light blue, lilac, pastel yellow, and white are excellent for doing so. Paler Petunia varieties, such as ‘Blue Vein’ or ‘Beautiful French Vanilla’, can feature subtle, darker markings, which can help break up your colour scheme, without drawing focus away from other plants.

Warm Colour Schemes

For a bold colour scheme, choose shades that lie opposite to one another on the colour wheel. Possible pairings include purple and yellow, red and green, and blue and orange. Presenting trailing, funnel-shaped blooms, Surfinias are available in an array of colours, so will make an unfailing choice for your garden.

Should I Buy Plug Plants or Seeds?

Seeds and plug plants each come with their positives and negatives. Seeds can be considerably cheaper than plug plants, yet they are harder to grow. They require more time and care, and unfortunately germination isn’t guaranteed.

Unlike seeds, plug plants can be expensive; this particularly applies to larger plants, as their roots are more established. However, plug plants can fill a flower bed with pretty blooms within a matter of weeks; making them a convenient option.

How do I Grow Bedding Plants from Seed?

To successfully grow bedding plants from seed, you will need 10cm pots, peat-free compost, bedding seeds of your choosing, and vermiculite or finely sieved compost.

Fill each pot with your compost, and delicately pat it down.
Sow your seeds over the compost, ensuring that they are distanced equally.
Apply a layer of finely sieved compost or vermiculite. This will provide gentle cover for your seeds.
Label your pots so you can cater to any unique requirements that a variety might have.
Once each pot has had a nourishing drink, place them into a heated propagator to allow germination.
When seedlings have developed, prick out those of the largest size, and re-plant into individual containers.

How do I Grow Potted Bedding Plants?

If the risk of frost has passed, larger plugs can be planted straight into your garden. To ensure continued growing, smaller plug plants should be re-planted into containers or pots. For this you will need a pencil, multi-purpose compost, perlite, a dibber, and 7- 8cm pots.

To remove your bedding plants from their containers, carefully push them upwards from their base with a pencil.
Fill 7 – 8cm pots with a mix of multi-purpose compost and perlite.
Employing a dibber, make a hole in each pot that slightly exceeds the size of your plants.
Taking great care, tease out your plants’ roots, and then place them into their holes.

How do I Care for my Bedding Plants?

Watering: If your bedding plants are in pots or baskets, they will benefit from daily watering. Even on a rainy day, this advice still applies; a bedding plant’s foliage can provide impressive shelter. For flower beds, a weekly drink will be sufficient.
Deadheading: Any flowers that appear spent should be removed from their base. This will stop your plant from wasting energy by producing seeds.
Flower feed: Supplement one watering a week with a potassium-rich feed. Most composts contain a finite amount of food, so we recommend that you start using feed a month after they were planted out.

Decoration, Decorative Features, Garden Design, Garden Furniture, Gardens, Outdoor Living, Scott

Starting Out With Garden Furniture

Is your garden a space you haven’t had the time to really enjoy before? Perhaps this is the first time you’re wondering how to make outdoor space work for you and your family. Below we have a basic guide to garden furniture for anyone looking to get started with creating a living space outside for the first time.

Finding A Use For Space

The first thing to think about is how your space will be used. Don’t be put off by thinking your garden is too small. A lot can be done to make a nice spot to relax, dine, play or grow. If you want to be eating outside with the family, for example, invest in a good dining set and some cover like a gazebo or parasol. If space is limited maybe consider a bistro set? You could be enjoying breakfast and coffee surrounded by plants taking in the morning sun; a good start to the day for most of us!

Bigger gardens can have multiple functions sitting alongside one another. For smaller spaces, it’s best to pick one main function and create your design around this. Start with the primary function of the space and invest in something that will deliver just that.

Details That Make It Your Own

Look at the rooms that fill your home. What are your favourite things about them? What bits spark happy memories or facilitate something you love doing? Is it a comfy chair in the corner of the living room where you love to settle down with a book? Maybe the crate full of games you dive into with the kids each weekend? Or the kitchen table where you serve up dishes to family and friends?

Think about the items of furniture which allow these moments of happiness and how they can translate outside. You could create a reading nook for warm summer evenings filled with weather-resistant cushions, or a play area dedicated to mayhem filled games with the kids, or maybe a fire pit where you can take your cooking in new directions. Find the items that will transform your outdoor space into an extension of your home.

Decorative Flair

Final aesthetic details can really make a space feel special and this doesn’t need to be anything expensive. A simple set of solar-powered fairy lights are cheap, hassle-free and can add a new layer of interest. So when looking for accessories for your outdoors try to keep in mind the temperamental weather and shop for items that are weather resistant. Items that can stay outside year-round or quickly packed away are ideal and will make life outside that much easier.

There are so many things you can add to help inject your personality into your space and make it special to your purpose. Mirrors, lights, wall art, water features, screening and garden ornaments are all things you can consider when setting up outdoor space. When picking anything out, think back to the original function you identified and think about how this accessory elevates that experience.

I hope this quick guide has got you thinking about your outdoor space. Continue to explore the blog for more resources on getting the most from your outdoor space.

Scott Roberts is a copywriter currently making content for the Primrose site and blog. When at his desk he’s thinking of new ways to describe a garden bench. Away from his desk he’s either looking at photos of dogs or worrying about the environment. He does nothing else, just those two things.

See all of Scott’s posts.