Renovating
How to Create a Rustic Garden, Even in a Tiny Urban Plot
Flea market and salvage finds can give even the most urban of gardens the look and feel of a rural retreat
If you hanker after a more rustic, lived-in feel to your garden, then start by visiting local vintage markets and snap up some wonderful bygone treasures, from old tools to stone troughs, window shutters, metal gates, zinc buckets and worn cobblestones. If you’re feeling creative, look out for discarded pallets or driftwood to turn into handmade furniture or garden ornaments. Rustic gardens are also great havens for wildlife and work well even in the smallest of urban spaces.
Also in this series How to Create Privacy in a Small Urban Garden
Also in this series How to Create Privacy in a Small Urban Garden
Get creative with your containers
Using different styles of container will really help you achieve a more rustic look to your urban garden, balcony or roof terrace. You can use anything as a container for plants, from tin cans and zinc buckets to stone sinks, Victorian chimney pots, old animal troughs or vintage wooden crates. Just make sure you provide drainage holes at the bottom and choose the correct compost.
Containers can also be gathered and made into a small table top collection, much as you might arrange a group of photo frames and other ornaments inside the home.
Get tips on growing a container garden
Using different styles of container will really help you achieve a more rustic look to your urban garden, balcony or roof terrace. You can use anything as a container for plants, from tin cans and zinc buckets to stone sinks, Victorian chimney pots, old animal troughs or vintage wooden crates. Just make sure you provide drainage holes at the bottom and choose the correct compost.
Containers can also be gathered and made into a small table top collection, much as you might arrange a group of photo frames and other ornaments inside the home.
Get tips on growing a container garden
Welcome wildlife
As well as installing bird boxes, a bird bath and bird feeders in your garden, why not try adding an insect hotel somewhere to encourage beneficial creatures? You can buy ready-made ones or easily construct one from old pallets or any other recycled wood.
Fill the gaps with dead wood for stag beetles, wood lice and centipedes. Cut bamboo canes into bundles for solitary bees. Fill other areas with dry sticks, straw and dried leaves for many garden invertebrates, as well as tiles beneath which newts and frogs can hide.
Discover how to design your garden so it will attract wildlife
As well as installing bird boxes, a bird bath and bird feeders in your garden, why not try adding an insect hotel somewhere to encourage beneficial creatures? You can buy ready-made ones or easily construct one from old pallets or any other recycled wood.
Fill the gaps with dead wood for stag beetles, wood lice and centipedes. Cut bamboo canes into bundles for solitary bees. Fill other areas with dry sticks, straw and dried leaves for many garden invertebrates, as well as tiles beneath which newts and frogs can hide.
Discover how to design your garden so it will attract wildlife
Branch out
To create height and add interest, use handmade hazel or willow obelisks. Willow and birch can also be woven into a variety of other rustic features if you have the space in the garden for items such as pergolas and arbours.
Obelisks can be used to support climbers in large pots even if you don’t have a garden. Choose the right-sized pot for the obelisk and push the canes into the soil, so the structure doesn’t get blown off by the wind. Plant clematis, sweet peas, roses and other climbers that do well in pots, although you’ll need very big, deep pots for most climbers to establish a good root system.
To create height and add interest, use handmade hazel or willow obelisks. Willow and birch can also be woven into a variety of other rustic features if you have the space in the garden for items such as pergolas and arbours.
Obelisks can be used to support climbers in large pots even if you don’t have a garden. Choose the right-sized pot for the obelisk and push the canes into the soil, so the structure doesn’t get blown off by the wind. Plant clematis, sweet peas, roses and other climbers that do well in pots, although you’ll need very big, deep pots for most climbers to establish a good root system.
Pick up a pallet
Recycled pallets are such versatile items: use them in the garden to create anything from benches to vertical gardens, vegetable gardens, tables, sunbeds, tool storage and much more. The homespun, DIY element is the opposite of the stereotypical polished urban plot that is often the go-to style for a small, inner-city space.
If you want to use one as a vegetable planter, be very sure the pallet hasn’t been treated with or exposed to harmful chemicals – and be warned that most of them have.
Pallets can be painted or left in their natural state. Be careful with splinters from the wood, which is often rough, and if you’re using a pallet as a vertical planter on a terrace or against a wall, make sure it’s well supported so it won’t fall over.
In order to support plants, you’ll need to get crafty with some garden membrane and a staple gun. Look online and you’ll be able to browse various techniques for using these to create the necessary plant pockets to turn your pallet into a planter.
Remember, too, that when you water the plants in a vertical pallet, you’ll create a run-off at the bottom that might stain pale surfaces.
Recycled pallets are such versatile items: use them in the garden to create anything from benches to vertical gardens, vegetable gardens, tables, sunbeds, tool storage and much more. The homespun, DIY element is the opposite of the stereotypical polished urban plot that is often the go-to style for a small, inner-city space.
If you want to use one as a vegetable planter, be very sure the pallet hasn’t been treated with or exposed to harmful chemicals – and be warned that most of them have.
Pallets can be painted or left in their natural state. Be careful with splinters from the wood, which is often rough, and if you’re using a pallet as a vertical planter on a terrace or against a wall, make sure it’s well supported so it won’t fall over.
In order to support plants, you’ll need to get crafty with some garden membrane and a staple gun. Look online and you’ll be able to browse various techniques for using these to create the necessary plant pockets to turn your pallet into a planter.
Remember, too, that when you water the plants in a vertical pallet, you’ll create a run-off at the bottom that might stain pale surfaces.
Pave your way
For a really rustic touch, mix paving with old bricks, worn cobbles and irregular flagstones; hunt for a good mix at local salvage yards. Old bricks and cobbles will soon become home to moss and lichen, especially if the joints aren’t filled with mortar. Make sure the bricks you choose are frost-resistant, otherwise they’ll soon start to crumble and your path or paved area will become dangerous.
Gravel also works well for a rustic mood and looks good mixed in with bricks and among clusters of scented plants, such as thyme.
For a really rustic touch, mix paving with old bricks, worn cobbles and irregular flagstones; hunt for a good mix at local salvage yards. Old bricks and cobbles will soon become home to moss and lichen, especially if the joints aren’t filled with mortar. Make sure the bricks you choose are frost-resistant, otherwise they’ll soon start to crumble and your path or paved area will become dangerous.
Gravel also works well for a rustic mood and looks good mixed in with bricks and among clusters of scented plants, such as thyme.
Let your plants wander
Self-seeding plants drive some people to distraction, but for a rustic feel, they are to be encouraged – as long as you don’t mind where they appear!
Varieties of self-seeding plants include Verbena bonariensis, Aquilegia vulgaris (granny’s bonnet), Eryngium giganteum, linaria (toadflax), Myosotis sylvatica (forget-me-not), Digitalis purpurea (foxglove) and Papaver orientale (poppy).
Consider, too, introducing plant such as Soleirolia soleirolii (mind-your-own-business) between the gaps in paving and soon it will naturalise, creating a soft, verdant mat.
Self-seeding plants drive some people to distraction, but for a rustic feel, they are to be encouraged – as long as you don’t mind where they appear!
Varieties of self-seeding plants include Verbena bonariensis, Aquilegia vulgaris (granny’s bonnet), Eryngium giganteum, linaria (toadflax), Myosotis sylvatica (forget-me-not), Digitalis purpurea (foxglove) and Papaver orientale (poppy).
Consider, too, introducing plant such as Soleirolia soleirolii (mind-your-own-business) between the gaps in paving and soon it will naturalise, creating a soft, verdant mat.
Weave in natural seating
There are various ways of creating a rustic seating look in your garden. You can pick up old metal or wooden garden tables and chairs with a wonderful aged patina from car-boot sales or vintage shops and fêtes. Or you could find local craftsman-made wooden benches, tables and chairs. For a quick idea, why not use some large tree trunks for stools, as seen here? Don’t be afraid to mix and match different types of chairs.
To enhance the seating area, add galvanised containers or vintage metal dolly buckets – once used for washing clothes – and plant up with standard trees or perennials.
There are various ways of creating a rustic seating look in your garden. You can pick up old metal or wooden garden tables and chairs with a wonderful aged patina from car-boot sales or vintage shops and fêtes. Or you could find local craftsman-made wooden benches, tables and chairs. For a quick idea, why not use some large tree trunks for stools, as seen here? Don’t be afraid to mix and match different types of chairs.
To enhance the seating area, add galvanised containers or vintage metal dolly buckets – once used for washing clothes – and plant up with standard trees or perennials.
Step up your displays
Repurpose an old ladder as a plant stand to add vertical interest to your garden. Painted or left untreated, ladders are great for displaying many different plants and work just as well indoors as outside. Plants will get more sunlight and air circulation, which will help with flowering and avoid diseases.
Scour vintage fairs and flea markets to find old metal gates, shutters, windows and all sorts of similar pieces to add to the rustic feel. You can easily pick up galvanised buckets and watering cans, which work well on ladders, too, as decorative items, or can be used as planters with the appropriate drainage holes drilled into the bottom.
Repurpose an old ladder as a plant stand to add vertical interest to your garden. Painted or left untreated, ladders are great for displaying many different plants and work just as well indoors as outside. Plants will get more sunlight and air circulation, which will help with flowering and avoid diseases.
Scour vintage fairs and flea markets to find old metal gates, shutters, windows and all sorts of similar pieces to add to the rustic feel. You can easily pick up galvanised buckets and watering cans, which work well on ladders, too, as decorative items, or can be used as planters with the appropriate drainage holes drilled into the bottom.
Go modern-rustic
For a real rustic garden, you’d normally look to use discarded old mirrors, sash windows, painted wooden shutters, old doors and metal gates to create focal points. For a more contemporary take on the rustic look, however, use furniture with clean lines and sawn paving, as seen here.
Add the other touches by decorating a green hedge or fence as you would a wall in the house, by hanging outdoor pictures and mirrors and stained-glass panels, giving the feeling of an outdoor living room.
What touches do you think add that lived-in rustic look to a garden? Share your ideas in the Comments below.
For a real rustic garden, you’d normally look to use discarded old mirrors, sash windows, painted wooden shutters, old doors and metal gates to create focal points. For a more contemporary take on the rustic look, however, use furniture with clean lines and sawn paving, as seen here.
Add the other touches by decorating a green hedge or fence as you would a wall in the house, by hanging outdoor pictures and mirrors and stained-glass panels, giving the feeling of an outdoor living room.
What touches do you think add that lived-in rustic look to a garden? Share your ideas in the Comments below.
A rustic fence made from chestnut palings will not only look great, it will last for many years. This type of fence is made from split chestnut and attached either by taut, twisted wire or nailed directly to horizontal bars. Chestnut is a hardwood and so is naturally resistant to rot.
Using coppiced timber from a sustainable source, and from a well-managed wood that has no need to use pesticides, also ensures the health of our woodlands, which are a great haven for wildlife.