Beehives full of character
Bee hives can be useful, beautiful and fascinating. Honey is a more nutritious sweetener than refined sugar; apiary is a sustainable means of food production, well suited to cities; bee observation is a subject of great interest. Bee hives can be architectural, ornamental or gaily painted. The art of beekeeping (or apiculture) dates back to Ancient Egypt. The beehive is symbolic of industry and co-operation.
Flat Lodge in Western Cedar by Decorated Shed
Garden sheds used to be only places for tools, flower pots, bicycles, broken toasters and such like. Now you can buy premium buildings for use as guest rooms, home offices, play rooms, design studios and writer’s retreats. Bernard Shaw, Roald Dahl and many other authors have found garden rooms excellent places in which to work.
A garden building is a cost effective and fast alternative to moving home or a traditional home extension. As with other products, there is a wide spectrum of quality in terms of design, durability and materials.
We like Decorated Shed’s products. They make a range of high quality structures, all of which can be adapted to suit your needs and space. Their larger units can be used holiday homes or even as main residences. A great advantage of ready-made buildings is that they can be installed in less than a week. For a conventional building project it might take longer than this just to get the materials and equipment to the site. The other great advantage of manufactured buildings is that the components are put together with great exactitude and in factory conditions – so quality control is better.
Decorated Shed use ethically sourced materials and the choice of materials and design is guided by energy efficiency as well as aesthetics. Their website is www.decoratedshed.com.
A traditional brass sundial on a stone pedestal. The shadow from the gnomon marks the passing of the hours; the greenish-blue patina on the brass marks the passing of the years. Through telling the time it represents timelessness. A sundial of this type can be a symbol of a peaceful garden in which one can think more about the universe and less about the world.
Rising stone writes that “Our stonework is tight. We use no mortar. In size and proportion, they are perfect examples of what a retaining wall should be. In our photos we do not see the majority of the stones used. This wall is four feet high. It is also four feet wide and fifty feet long. It will be here long after all of us. It is a part of the geological record.” But:
This is a pity: well-built drystone walling can be very beautiful.
A lot of people invest money in garden security equipment. But I would rather have a dog and it looks wonderful in the window!
Look how well the yellow rose and green foliage to with the honey brown sandstone, in Oxfordshire.
Sezincote has the best Indian garden in Europe, we think, and it has also has a delightful sacred cow ornament. It was cast in bronze and now has a beautiful green patina. The only slight problem is that Indian gardens probably never had cow sculptures or statues.
Its a pity about the ugly fence but one has to congratulate the RSPB for their near-mastery of the art of topiary.
A security camera can give you peace of mind, I’m told, but it will not do much to improve the aesthetics of your garden. The pictures recorded on the camera can be saved to magnetic media (eg a SD card or a computer’s hard drive) and viewed after a security breach has taken place. But for people living alone and troubled by ‘noises in the night’ it can be more comforting to view the pictures on a TV channel.
Now here’s a handsome product. It is a wooden garden cloche built like a greenhouse. In the photograph it is used for netting strawberries agains birds. But note the slots: they can take sheets of glass instead of netting and the ‘tent’ can take a roof of horticultural fleece.
