Credit: HLD Pergola
The concept of outdoor living in this country was once mainly associated with beardy tepee dwelling types or those with subscriptions to Health and Efficiency magazine. These days everyone is acknowledging the lifestyle and health benefits of a little continental-style outdoor time. And why not? Cows obviously thrive on it! But do you actually have to be outdoors to enjoy outside?
Maybe it's a primeval survival instinct, but when we're outside we like to know that shelter is never too far away. The pergola is the illusion of a room, a visual focus for a garden and with its almost subliminal suggestion of the ruination we find so attractive when we visit other countries, it's almost like a piece of our holidays brought home. Dressed up with exotic plants, draped with vines and placed near water, the pergola gives the comfortable impression of four wall security while still remaining open to the best of the weather.
Timber landscaping specialist HLD has launched an architectural pergola range that offers typical elegance but also greater design flexibility than you might be used to from off the shelf versions. The Beckingham and Gainsborough use the company's patented Octawood® system as it sounds a modular eight sided post design - which means components can be attached at increments of 45 degrees to allow combination with screens, canopies or planters for greater individual effect.
The company's timber is European Redwood sourced from sustainably managed forests and vacuum pressure impregnated with Osmose Naturewood with wax additive, which enables HLD to offer a 25-year timber guarantee against decay.
HLD Ltd
Tel: 01427 675 526
www.hld.co.uk
Credit: Lavender Blue
Those of us with the outside space to support it can create a veritable wonderland for our children safely within our own sphere of parental control.
This gypsy caravan by Lavender Blue (dilly dilly) is handmade using traditional skills by clearly very skilled craftsmen. The Blue Bow Top version's generous proportions make it a fine play space for children but also an occasional refuge for adults to enjoy a sneaky glass of Jacob's Creek and a few pages of the latest best seller, as well as a picturesque focal point for your garden.
Steps lead to a covered veranda, where seating provides an inside-outside playspace and shelter from the elements. Inside, the play area enjoys a raised sleeping-seating platform with under bed storage. The decorative rear window is fully opening and has a pole for curtains. The caravan sits on traditional wooden cart wheels with a turning front axle and the roof is lined with 100 per cent cotton gingham and finished in heavyweight waterproof green canvas. The price for a small Bow Top as pictured is £3,500.
Lavenders Blue Ltd
Tel: 01536 373803
www.lavenders-blue.com
Credit: Dandf
Designed and manufactured in Yorkshire, Dandf's comfortably familiar looking range of garden structures are the perfect accompaniment to the typical English garden. Built from Scandinavian Redwood (from a renewable source) and treated and protected to provide 15 years useful life, this traditional playhouse has all the features kids love.
There's a door to open and close ad nauseum, windows to peer through and lots of private space to play and just enjoy being a child in. Today a house, tomorrow a submarine, wherever their fertile little imaginations want to take them, and best of all out from underfoot. The playhouse pictured retails from £500 (without the veranda) and you can find Dandf garden structures at any decent garden centre.
Dandf Garden Products Ltd
Tel: 01977 624200
sales@dandf.co.uk
www.dandf.co.uk
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