Recognise how your hot and shady spots come and go

Mar 29 2008 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

‘No matter whether you drink gin or not, it is quite nice to have a warm, sunny spot in the garden’

HAVE you ever watched the path of the sun as it crosses your garden each day and noticed the hot spots, shady spots and cold spots come and go?

After all the recent high winds, you might have noticed that one part of your garden seems to get more of a buffeting than others.

In the depths of winter, you may have spotted one patch of lawn where the frost melts quickest or slowest.

In the height of summer you may have become aware of a small area of the garden that dries out before everywhere else, or doesn’t dry out at all.

I could go on, but what I am identifying are micro-climates, some of which may only be a few square metres in size and these strange little pieces of our gardens are often seen as problems.

“I’ve got a wet garden – how can I drain it?”, is a common question.

My answer will always be “Don’t fight it, enjoy it.”

Recognition of these micro-climates, both above and below soil level, is the first step to getting plants to do well in our gardens, because they are then planted in soils and positions where they are really happy.

Recognising the micro-climates for us humans is a different matter. No matter whether you drink gin or not, it is quite nice to have a warm, sunny spot in the garden after a hard day at work, where you and your partner or family can sit and chat or read the Examiner or have an odd glass of something.

Whatever takes your fancy, those little moments, allowing you to wind down from work, traffic jams, mobile telephones and all the other stresses and strains of modern living are vital to all of us.

So, choose the right time of day to identify this little haven in your garden, watch what the sun does, how long it stays in certain places and how it varies from spring into summer.

Now get some garden canes and mark the area out – this is your spring project – to lay a small 2 metre square or round patio, large enough for a two small wooden garden chairs and a small table, and then to plant one or two special plants around it to enhance your new patio.

Choose plants with soft outlines, passive colours and a little scent if possible and hey presto, your use of the garden has been changed out of all recognition.

You might, of course, choose to enjoy breakfast in the garden, in which case go back to the beginning of this story and study the movement of the sun at that time of day.

If your garden and your lifestyle allow, you might choose to put more than one patio in, in which case check the sun’s movements from dawn to dusk.

Once you have chosen the location and the size of the patio, it only requires you to choose the building materials that you need. Make sure that you choose a material that is suited to outdoor use – old, second-hand building bricks will crumble in their first winter if they are laid flat.

Study the materials and colours of your house and fit the material as closely as you can to it – stone paving set against a red brick house is not always a harmonious relationship.

Ask around the neighbourhood for some old hardcore as a foundation for the patio, putting in at least 100 mm depth of well-compacted hardcore to give a good solid foundation on which you can lay the final surface.

When you do get round to laying the patio, ensure that there is a slight slope (1:200) to shed water from the surface and leave about a 10mm (0.4in) gap between each slab to allow for expansion and contraction.

Point up the gaps with a semi-dry mortar mix of 4:1 Builders sand and cement. After a couple of days of drying out, you can place out the new furniture, crack open a bottle of something sparkling and put your feet up in the spring sunshine.

Visit www.marshalls.co.uk and www.bradstone.com for details, ideas and stockists of popular garden building materials.