Junk-shop chic moves outside

Occasional GardenerOld furniture, including a Stanley, can be used creatively in outdoor rooms, writes Sarah Marriot

Doesn't mid-summer's day seem to come very early? Schools close for the summer and we've just got used going out without a scarf but the year is half over. Lots of the shrubs in my front garden weren't even flowering when my neighbours celebrated the longest day with a traditional bonfire - and now the seasonal rollercoaster has started on its downward spiral to the darker days and nights of autumn.

Dwelling on the inevitable is pointless; the only thing to do is to make the most of the summer we have left. In our climate - where planning a barbecue for three hours' time is a risky business - it's impossible to transform your lifestyle for summer. Other Europeans have it easier: in Portugal, whole families decamp to the beach for months - taking the TV, kitchen sink and even the black-clad granny who sweeps the paths around the tent compound and takes care of the toddlers.

Although we can't shift lock, stock and barrel, we can all learn from the Portuguese and create outdoor rooms in gardens or even on apartment balconies. Home and garden magazines are full of inspirational ideas and shops are full of garden furniture, fragrant summer plants and atmospheric lighting.

My outdoor room is in what I grandly call the courtyard - originally the farmyard. Bordered on three sides by the house, a ruined cottage and scruffy stone sheds, it gets sun for most of the day and is near the back door (handy for sudden showers). Rather than go crazy, Diarmuid Gavin-style, I opted for a room which blends with the rural environment.

To start, I smothered the couch grass and weeds with plastic ground-cover, laid a flagstone path and took what seemed to be the cheap and easy option of surrounding it all with gravel. But the survivalist nature of weeds means I have to spend an hour or so every few weeks to keep it couch-grass free.

For an idiosyncratic look - and because I'm a fan of recycling - I've gone for junk-shop chic with the garden furniture.

A 1960s' Stanley range is the site of the herb garden: with its moss-covered terracotta pots of parsley, chamomile, chives, rosemary, lemon balm, mint and oregano plants which seem to thrive on neglect and come back every year. This is surrounded by containers of wild flowers and annuals like redbeckia, lavender and poppies which don't do well in my boggy soil.

A 1950s' school desk and some old kitchen chairs are stacked in the shed waiting to be given a coat of waterproof paint and then covered with more pots.

I haven't got to grips with lighting yet but midges descend in June so I haven't been able to sit out after about seven o'clock. White fairy lights strung around a tree, wall or trellis look lovely - though I'm not sure about the flashing Christmas lights I saw in a garden recently. Candle light is atmospheric on a calm evening - last year I placed night lights in small jars around the courtyard and this year I'm thinking of somehow using mirrors to enhance the effect.

You can pick up great outdoor-living bric-a-brac on foreign holidays but sometimes what looks wonderful against white walls in bright sunshine can look cheap and tacky when you get it back home.

Another place for ideas - and shopping - is the Garden Heaven Show, at the RDS until Sunday. This year it has more than 200 exhibitors, nine show gardens - including one from Chelsea winner Paul Martin - and, for people who don't mind queueing, the ever popular design clinic.

smarriott@irish-times.ie

This column appears fortnightly.