A long narrow garden is perfect to have a relaxing retreat at the bottom. Our patio louvre roof creates an outdoor living space in your garden perfect for relaxing in away from your home. The louvre roof is automated turning the louvres flat to create a fully watertight roof. It is perfect for all year use and great for keeping protecting your garden furniture ready for the summer. This free standing Umbris patio roof below, creates an undercover retreat in their garden. The vertical louvre panels also provide an element of privacy and weather protection from wind also helping to keep the new living space drier in heavy rainfalls, whilst still maintaining transparency to keep the outdoor living experience. Additional elements can be added such as, heating, lighting, audio system all built into the roof profile. We have just had an Umbris installed at our showroom in Amersham at Sky House Design Centre, you can arrange a showroom visit by contacting us on 01494 722 882.

Hi Vanessa, I have written a few blogs with advice about planting for pollinators on my web-site ,Greenwave Design. The main thing would be to reduce the size of your lawn, which is not a very wildlife friendly feature, and put in more trees, shrubs and perennial plants. Wildlife need places to live as well as food so lots of places to shelter in the garden will be helpful. Pollinators want flowers that they can sip nectar from for as long a period as possible. So flowers need to start early, with bulbs such as snowdrops and crocus, and carry on for as long as possible. Another great wildlife friendly feature is a pond, or at the very least a birdbath. If you do put in a pond it needs to have shallow, sloping sides so that wildlife can get in and out easily. There is lots of good advice on the Wild about Gardens web-site.

Hi i am happy you like my little garden retreat, you are right it is nice to add your own touch to your garden and not to be to regimental, it gives you a great satisfaction when you sit back in your garden lounger and think i created that, it also works out a lot cheaper, just adding bits at a time, and if a plant is not working for you, you can dig it out and move it knowing that you have not paid someone a fortune to put them in, i am not saying professional help is not needed as i had to get someone in to do my flag stones but it was someone i knew so that worked out cheaper and my brother did the decking at both side of my garden, he is not a professional he just likes DIY don't tell him but i think he is pretty good at it lol.. it cost me the price of the wood and 2 cans of beer,( i was given a couple or quotes of £450 for a 10ft x 7ft deck and £399 for a 7ft x 6ft deck,) i did paint it big mistake on my part as with being south facing it just peeled off with the heat but is nearly all off now so i will just power wash it once a year and give it an oil treatment, when you get your garden done send us a pic i for one would love to see your project,

Ok, it’s been a little while since we left off on the garden project, however as we’re approaching spring we’re keen to get the space cleaned up for spring. To open up the space we’ve removed the middle two bar fence and relocated the beech hedging to the screen the remaining fencing. The aim being to create more privacy and blend into the landscape behind. To add security we was thinking of adding gravel and rockery / water feature (not pond) to the righthand side near the gate. Opposite create a gravel area for the stone bench and dot a few ball shrubs and a Victorian lamp for interest. Uplighter’s will be used to illuminate the hedge. In the main section of the garden add one or two trees on the section on the righthand side to create some privacy from the neighbours line of sight into the bench area. Thereafter add more ball shrubs, lupine and foxgloves to create height. Apply a horizontal slat fence (painted a muted sage green) to tidy up the bad side of the existing fence. All borders will be edged with a slim red brick to match the house and make it easier for moving. Finally to mask the shed, introduce some rose bushes and lavender.