Somewhere To Put Everything

This is a trap that I fell into a few years ago so it is worth reading this article to make sure that you don't fall foul of it, too.

The storage problem
We tend to think of gardens as places to house plants and structures that allow people to enjoy the plants but if you do that you are missing something vital.

I never realised when I began the design of my present garden how much essential junk the garden would accumulate over the next few years. Tools, mowers and the like were housed in a shed attached to the house but it's the other things such as garden chairs, small tables, blankets to sit on and, most of all, children's toys and similar miscellaneous things.

These soon filled the garden and I realised that I had forgotten to make provision for them so they continued to be moved from one area to another.

The storage solution
All I needed to do was to create somewhere that I could put a shed or other structure to house all the odd and miscellaneous things that we need to have in a garden to increase our enjoyment of it. Quite what these things are will vary from family to family but toys, if you have younger children, are often the main problem. Also, more and more affordable garden furniture is on offer and so somewhere to put this when not in use is handy.

Sheds and similar structures exist in many different forms from plastic right through to wood and on to metal sheds and range considerably in price. They can also be quite small or, as in the heading photo, much more substantial buildings.

If you have children then a variety of small child's 'houses' can be purchased in wood and in plastic. These are amazing and I wish they had them when my family was young!

Why it's worth doing it
This form of storage solution will make a big difference to the look of your garden and will also encourage other family members to keep the garden tidy.

As a testament to the folly of not doing this I have in my garden still, in a top corner, a large, plastic dump truck covered in mud and by the house are two small plastic motor cars. They are what are left from the hundreds of other toys and similar miscellaneous junk that has littered my garden over the years!