How Much Lighting
For typical suburban gardens, one or two small floodlight fittings mounted on the back wall of the house will privide enought light for moving about safely and enable a patio area to be used for barbecues. However, much more can be done to highlight aspects of the garden plan or planting and make the garden more fascinating at night.
Focal points such as sculptures and fountains can look particularly effective when well lit. Remember, though, even when aiming for dramatic effects, subtlety is important. it is very easy to be over enthusiastic and overdo the lighting, ending up with something glaring and uncomfortable.
Lighting The Outdoor Room
Lighting is particularly important where the garden is small and designed to be used for entertaining in the evening, as well as for displaying the plants. Here you want not only to highlight plants seen from the sitting area, which may be at the far end of the garden but also to light the path leading to it. This lighting does not need to be as bright as daylight but bright enough to see where you are going, yet leaving the rest of the garden mysterious.
A collection of small candle-lit lamps can light up a table perfectly adequately, casting a becoming light on both objects and people. There are many different and attractive glass and perforated metal holders for candles and nightlights and the flickering of a live flame creates interesting moving shadows.
Advantages Of Garden Lighting
Ligting adds another dimension to the garden and should be planned into your scheme from the beginning. A well designed scheme can turn your garden into a completely different world at night. You can create subtle pools of light with a general illuminating effect or dramatically highlight particular trees, shrubs and garden furniture.
The eye is intrigued and delighted by small lights nestling among the foliage and flowers of large containers and plants in surrounding beds. it is usually more flattering to light the garden rather than the house unless your house has unusual or striking architectural features that merit special highlighting.
Homebase Telescopic Lopper
If you are after bypass loppers these are a good and unspectacular basic pair but the telescopic handles, using the same technology as the Spear & Jackson County Lopper were slightly less positive. My main gripe is that if you twist one of your hands inadvertently while pruning, the handle lock can quite easily disengage. However the Homebase loppers have coated blades and come with a five year guarantee, you could certainly do worse.
Lighten The Darkness
As nights draw in, make the most of your garden during winter and bring it to life with lights. Entertain friends by candlelight enhanced by subtle spotlights and uplighters on an outside terrace or under the beams of a delicately lit pagoda.
By designing lighting to make the most of paths, steps, patios, benches and planting, you can focus on the best features of the garden, highlighting dramatic and bold structures and trees or subtly illuminating borders and shrubs.
Whether you are looking for practical lighting to show up steps and paths or creative effects, there is plenty of scope for experimentation. With so many lighting types you can create an inspiring effect, whatever size your garden.
Garden Propagators
A heated propagator is of great help to the gardener and if one is available it is possible to do without heat in the greenhouse. Warmed propagators can be used for germinating seeds, rooting cuttings, starting bulbs and tubers, bringing on tender plants and forcing strawberries.
A modern propagator will consist of a container such as a wooden or plastic seed tray or box with a clear plastic domed cover to keep in warmth and humidity. The simplest form of heating is a metal plate warmed by electricity on which the containers are placed.
There are also propagators which are heated by electric air or soil warming cables, an electric light bulb or paraffin. A thermostat will stop the temperature rising to baking point on warm sunny days.
