Garden Design Inspiration | BBC Gardeners' World Live Highlights

I've just got back from BBC Gardeners World Live where there were some interesting ideas for our gardens. It's a very relatable show, it's relaxed, it's friendly and it does really have ideas that work. It's Alexandra here from the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel and blog and here are the five ideas I think we might want to try. The first thing is shu-sugi-ban, Japanese burnt wood, and burnt wood was a standout theme this year. It's a Japanese term called shu-sugi-ban which actually literally means burnt planks and I have to say I find it easier to say burnt wood and I can't help wondering if subconsciously we're all responding to the wildfires making headlines across the world. But here burnt wood is used creatively and beautifully in garden structures, ornaments, seating and even sculpture. In Nick Bailey's Make a Meter Matter garden there's a burnt wood pergola inspired by a burnt out barn he passes on his way to work. There's also a clever frame made from the same charred wood designed to support netting over brassicas. It's practical but it's elegant too because when you don't need the netting over the brassicas it just looks rather a nice stylish way of having a vegetable patch. Burnt wood also appeared in other gardens as an upright sculptural element in Anita Rose's One to Three Border, decking made from burnt scaffolding boards in Carleen Osborne's Just a Garden which was very pretty and even in a striking black sculpture in Victoria Benjamin's Putting Down Roots. The next idea is sort of an extension of that burnt wood. It's the black or dark or partly dark garden buildings like pergolas, like sheds, like gazebos and these have got smart modern lines like for example this soft grey, soft dark grey one in the Botanical Gardeners 2050 garden. This garden was imagining a future where water would be scarce so in fact the fountain is full of succulent plants. The Midlands Air Ambulance garden had a room with a mix of dark and natural cladding and it was striking and it was stylish and in the Nectary garden Kate Patrick designed a black framed greenhouse with stained glass panels which I think is a nice little variation for a greenhouse although of course if you wanted to maximize light you probably wouldn't want panels of stained glass. The next very strong theme that came through was natural and plant-based materials and this is allied with craftsmanship and handmade you could see wood and wicker and hessian and willow everywhere for example in Nick Bailey's Make a Meter Matter garden. Even the anti-insect mesh was made from sweet corn, the furniture was made from wicker and the gazebo was made from willow and hessian. Other gardens leaned into this look as well. The Vihara meditation garden by Sarah Coe used beautifully weathered wood and stone and all these materials were reclaimed or handmade. Karleen Osborne's garden was made entirely by her and her husband. The screening they made from roofing battens, they made a homemade but very contemporary looking chair and table and they burnt the scaffolding boards for the decking dark themselves. So that is a big theme for today's gardens, rustic reclaimed and real. Water features and ponds were bigger than I've seen really in any show gardens recently. The idea I think is that to support wildlife every garden should have a pond and many of these show gardens had several ponds. There were a lot of very natural looking ponds and waterfalls with stones but also there were raised ponds. A garden for all weathers by August Ponds had both a stream and a raised bowl and the QVC garden by Kitty Kovacs featured a waterfall and pond combination and that had also a lovely ball sculpture at the end which was also a water feature. The natural rock pond is really popular at the moment as seen here in Where There's Water There's Life by Rachel Bailey showing decking over a natural style rocky stream and even small ponds make a difference. Deborah Moles Creating Connections had a very shallow bowl pond. It's not a pond for wildlife to live in but it's helpful for them to drink and Beth's Sunflowers had a water feature. The point is wildlife needs water and show gardens are making it central. Another idea that came across quite strongly is the idea of raised beds for planting everything not just vegetables and also raised beds themselves have become much more stylish. You could go rustic like in Nick Bailey's garden where he's alternated the burntwood sleepers with the natural wood sleepers or you can take traditional stone and turn that into a raised bed and I also thought it was interesting that in the Midlands Air Ambulance garden they had what was effectively a raised mound of soil with a rock and that created a raised bed in that it raised the planting to a level which you could enjoy. And if you'd like more show garden ideas that you can try out in your own garden then don't miss the RHS Chelsea video coming up next and thank you for watching, goodbye!