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Rain gardens designed for watershed protection are a popular gardening concept in communities across the country.

With careful planning and design, homeowners can create a rain garden that is aesthetically pleasing and functional. Examples of plants to use in Southwest Florida rain gardens are: giant leather fern, blue flag iris, rain lilies, elderberry, wax myrtle, Fakahatchee grass, buttonbush, yellow canna and cinnamon fern.

The creation of a rain garden can enhance a landscape and help protect waterways from stormwater contaminants. A rain garden is a swale or depression in a yard that is positioned to collect and absorb hardscape and groundwater runoff before it can enter storm drains, ponds, streams and lakes. Rain gardens are planted with native grasses and plants that can tolerate periodic standing water.

As the water collected in a rain garden seeps slowly into the ground, the plants and soil within the rain garden use physical and biological processes to remove and filter potential contaminants.

Rain gardens can be an attractive landscape feature and are easily incorporated into a typical landscape. In residential settings, rain gardens should be located in an area easily accessed by rainwater diverted from gutter downspouts.

Native perennials, shrubs, grasses and trees that can survive standing water are recommended for rain gardens because they generally do not require fertilizer and can sustain periods of drought and rain.

By NANCY KEATES

Nantucket, Mass.

A green chicken. Frogs playing banjo and guitar. A mermaid sitting in a chair.

Those are just a few of the unexpected elements found amid the flower-lined stone paths, archways and hedged-off hidden corners that surround Susan and Coleman Burke’s waterfront home. The chicken is a topiary; a gardener once cut off its head by mistake, but it has since grown back. The somewhat human-sized frogs at one end of a lawn are made of tin; when a sensor is tripped they play recordings of Mr. Burke, founder and managing partner of a commercial real-estate firm, performing songs like “Hello, Dolly.” Made of stone, the mermaid is propped on a chair under a trellis dripping with Concord grapes.

A green chicken. Frogs playing banjo and guitar. A mermaid sitting in a chair. Those are just a few of the unexpected elements that surround Susan and Coleman Burke’s waterfront home in Nantucket, Mass. Nancy Keates has details on Lunch Break.

“A good garden should always have a surprise—and you should have to walk to discover it,” said Ms. Burke, an avid gardener who sits on the board of the New York Botanical Garden. A golfer and pilot who is active in the New York society scene, Ms. Burke is known for her colorful sense of humor: She referred to her mermaid as “very porno.”

While the New York-based couple have extensive gardens at their other homes in Bedford, N.Y., Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Jupiter Island, Fla., their half-acre Nantucket plot was recently added to the Archives of American Gardens at the Smithsonian, making it one of 7,000 U.S. gardens with features considered unusual or distinguished enough to be documented for historical reference. What makes this garden unusual is that it manages to look delicate while only including plants hardy enough to live next to the sea, said Julie Jordin of the Garden Design Company of Nantucket, who works with Ms. Burke.

Panoramic View

View Interactive

Bob O’Connor for The Wall Street Journal

A panoramic view of this Nantucket garden. Click and drag to rotate the image.

With its formal, organized plan and stone walls, the Burkes’ garden could play a role in an English children’s novel. Flowers of different heights and shapes—butterfly bushes, lilies and upright clematis—sprout from bushes and shrubs that line paths. There are hidden nooks and crannies, some outlined with tall hedges, others tucked away around corners, and lots of art and ornaments, like wishing wells, stone fountains and sculptures.

Right in front of the porch is a sunken ditch about 80 feet long and 6 feet deep known historically as a “ha-ha,” a reference to the surprise generated by the ditch’s existence. When standing in the ha-ha, visitors can be surrounded by flowers and plants; at the same time, the garden can be seen from the white rocking chairs on the porch without blocking the view of the ocean. The colors are green, pink, white, black and purple (orange and yellow were omitted, Ms. Burke said, because they aren’t colors of the sea).

Photos

View Slideshow

Bob O’Connor for The Wall Street Journal

The garden is the main attraction at the Burkes’ annual July cocktail party. But when the couple first bought their 13-acre waterfront property for $825,000 in 1992, it was mostly marshland. In 1994, they finished a 3,700-square-foot, three-bedroom, four-bathroom home designed by well-known architect Robert Venturi that cost about $700,000 to build. With its elongated shape, simple lines, weathered wood shingles and understated materials, the house is sited so that the ocean is visible through almost every window in almost every room. Mr. Burke gets to town in a Boston Whaler he keeps off the shore at the bottom of their wooden stairs.

The couple’s house is in Shimmo, an area with large lots that sit along the Nantucket Harbor and have views of Brant Point Lighthouse and the ferries passing by. A six-bedroom, five-bathroom house on 5.2 acres also in Shimmo is on sale for $9 million.

Although Mr. Venturi built them the house they’d asked for, he didn’t include a plan for a garden. Ms. Burke called her friend George Schoellkopf, who created the Hollister House Garden in Washington, Conn., a project of the Garden Conservancy. When he arrived in Nantucket, the pair drank a couple of bottles of wine and stayed up talking about gardens until 2 a.m. The next morning, Mr. Schoellkopf emerged from his bedroom with a single piece of paper with three lines and a few irregular circles—the essential structure for what emerged.

Unlike the house, which rarely changes, the garden goes through a transformation every summer. Ms. Burke is always adding new plantings, changing things around—plants die or are eaten by rabbits. That constant evolution makes it hard to come up with a figure for how much her garden cost. But gardens can range from a starting capital expenditure of $10,000 to $100,000, depending on the size, and monthly maintenance can cost thousands of dollars, said garden experts on Nantucket. Ms. Burke also has plans for a vegetable garden in front.

“Every year, as I was able to convince [my husband] that it was absolutely necessary, I’d add something,” she said. “I always thought that dress allowances were expensive until we got into gardens,” joked Mr. Burke, an avid boater and gardener.

Ms. Burke speaks often of her nemeses: rabbits. She has a list of what she calls “rabbit tragedies,” including the murder of a treasured black hollyhock. She recently saw rabbits on her porch, which made her very upset. “Soon I am going to find them sitting on the furniture, enjoying the view.”

Write to Nancy Keates at nancy.keates@wsj.com

It may not be the Garden of Eden, but Messiah Lutheran Church in Mandan has created its own corner of paradise with a new fountain and garden, designed and built by members.

Longtime Messiah members Joanne Drevlow and Dick Ames designed and built a fountain that will be dedicated Sunday at the Mandan church, along with its surrounding gardens.

Drevlow, Ames,and about 30 members of Messiah joined to form a trinity of builders — designer, engineer, and helping hands.

Messiah’s landscaping committee began plans for a church beautification project about two years ago. The fountain was an addition to the broader landscaping ideas, Drevlow said.

“When they started to do the landscaping project, I thought we should dedicate an area to a meditation-type garden,” she said.

From there, she came up with the design for a central fountain and the committee accepted her plan.

Drevlow teaches art at Shiloh Christian School in grades six through 12, and sculpture is her favorite art medium. She saw designing the fountain as a way to serve her church and her faith.

The fountain is three-sided with a face sculpted on each side, representing the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Water is constantly flowing over the faces, representing a continuous baptism. One of the faces was cast after Drevlow’s daughter.

Drevlow chose to design a baptismal-themed fountain because baptism is a “meaningful and central part of a Lutheran’s faith.”

“I wanted to incorporate Martin Luther’s idea of washing in our baptism every day,” she said. “That’s why there are adults’ faces on the fountain instead of children’s. We need to remember our baptism even now (as adults).”

Ames is the chairperson of the landscaping committee at Messiah and has been a member of the church since 1974.

He calls himself a “fabricator” because he built special equipment from scratch, although he is now retired. Ames said building the fountain was a good use of his skill set.

He describes the fountain as a sign of the church’s faith.

“It’s a demonstration to the community of what our church teaches,” he said.

Drevlow and Ames said the congregation was “integral” to the landscaping project. Around 25 to 30 congregation members donated plants, seeded grass, planted, and even did such labor-intensive work as building the pond and the piping for it.

“The congregation really did get behind it and were pretty excited about it,” Drevlow said. “They really stepped up.”

Surrounding the fountain is a circle of three benches, each with a mosaic representing the Trinity designed by Drevlow.

“It’s gorgeous. It’s beautiful up there,” Drevlow said of the church and the surrounding area. “I hope the benches will be a place for people to sit and reflect and to pray and spend some quiet time.”

The Rev. Mark Drews hopes the new fountain and gardens will add more than just beauty to the outside of his church. He hopes the new look will be inviting to potential members.

“We’re right on the end of Boundary Road, and there’s a walking trail that goes right past the front of our church and winds around.” he said. “Hopefully, it catches the eye of some people who go by.”

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A tower under construction in
Pittsburgh aspires to be the greenest in the world. I’ve heard
that one before, and I usually don’t buy it.

Yet the design of the 33-story PNC Financial Group
headquarters impresses because amenities come with energy-
conservation tactics that even the most ecologically oriented
companies in the U.S. have largely shunned.

Sliding wooden doors open onto a breezy porch high above
the city. Colleagues can gather to work casually in a sky-garden
atrium offering panoramic views.

Hao Ko, a senior associate and design director at
architecture firm Gensler, has fashioned what is on the outside
a rather ordinary-looking glass box.

Working with Denzil Gallagher, principal at engineering
firm Buro Happold, Ko wrapped the building in two walls. The
three-foot space between them insulates in winter and rejects
solar heat in summer, aided by automatic shades.

Windows can be used to ventilate the entire building
naturally. Staffers also can adjust the temperature with the
sliding wooden doors.

Why does PNC bother? Many experts think energy is abundant
and a lot of people think global warming is a hoax. But Gary
Saulson, the bank’s executive vice president and director of
corporate real estate for the PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (PNC),
has championed energy and resource conservation at PNC since
1998.

‘Right Thing’

PNC has been building green “not because of any mandate
but because it seemed the right thing to do,” Saulson said in
an interview. “It makes sense economically and it boosts pride
in our company.”

The bank, which has 118 LEED-rated buildings, says it has
reduced its energy budget 25 percent since 2009.

I spoke with Saulson about the way the bank uses
architecture in the pursuit of lower costs and higher
productivity.

A wood window wall in a highrise? “It can be sourced
locally,” Saulson said, and is an excellent insulator that also
makes the workplace look more informal.

“We’ve angled the building and configured the interior so
that 91 percent of it can be lit by natural light” alone, he
said. A “solar chimney” on the roof heats air, causing it to
rise, pull fresh air through the building and reduce the need
for fans.

‘Natural Light’

Aside from the substantial savings, “people like natural
ventilation, natural light and views,” Saulson said. “They
like being able to control how warm or cool their environment
is.”

The building will wrap meeting spaces around multistory
west-facing atriums stacked on top of each other. Switchbacking
stairs descend to sky gardens.

“You need a place for quiet work, to make private phone
calls. But you also need spaces for collaboration,” Saulson
said. “We want employees to be able to work in the environment
where they can be most productive, not tied to their desks.”

The $400 million tower, scheduled for 2015 completion,
won’t ostentatiously display windmills or photovoltaic panel
arrays. Neither system delivered enough power for the cost. It
will consume half the energy of a comparable structure by using
about 30 efficiency tactics.

Higher Performance

Politicians argue over the usefulness of renewables. PNC
shows that conservation delivers much higher performance at much
lower cost.

Though no government programs subsidized PNC’s effort,
strategically targeted incentives could rapidly widen the appeal
of the building’s many innovations — creating a diverse array
of jobs.

Dramatic energy savings are easier to do in new projects,
so I asked Saulson which tactics could be applied to other
buildings in the company’s 30-million-square-foot portfolio.

“We can’t rebuild our footprint, but we can take what we
learn from the tower and bring it into those buildings,” he
said.

The bank is planning a branch in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
that will produce all its energy by solar on site.

(James S. Russell writes on architecture for Muse, the arts
and culture section of Bloomberg News. He is the author of “The
Agile City.” Any opinions expressed are his own.)

Muse highlights include Rich Jaroslovsky on technology.

To contact the writer of this column:
James S. Russell in New York at
jamesrussell@earthlink.net. http://web.me.com/jscanlonrussell

To contact the editor responsible for this column:
Manuela Hoelterhoff at
mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

The Plymouth Garden Club recently participated in the Southeast Division of the Garden Federation of Massachusetts “Adventures in Space” Standard Flower Show during the Barnstable Fair, which was held July 21-28, with two days for participants to enter the design divisions and horticulture.

 In the design division on the first entry day, June Aronson and Gerri Williams won a second prize in their design classes. The Plymouth Garden Club’s entry in the club competition, a temporary garden designed by Gretchen Moran, Gail Anderson, Norene Casey and Sara Tallman, won second prize with a 90-plus score (equivalent to a first prize).

 The second entry day, Joanne Nikitas won a second prize with a 90-plus score and Jean Dobachesky and Pat Parker received third in their classes.

In the horticulture division, Gerri Williams won 22 blue ribbons for her horticulture specimens, 11 on each entry day, for her Stargazer lilies, which also won the award of merit, the award of horticultural excellence and the Roberta Clark award for outstanding horticultural quality. Her lisianthus also won an award of merit.

Jean Dobachesky won two second-place ribbons and Pat Parker won two blue ribbons and two second-place ribbons in horticulture.

The Plymouth Garden Club meets the second Wednesday of the month at 1 p.m. at the Chiltonville Church, at 6 River St. If you are interested in becoming a member, call Judy Tessin at 508-224-4046, email wtessin@comcast.net or visit www.plymouthgardenclub.org.

 

 

 

 

 

Jamie Durie must be superhuman. A normal person can’t even read his resume without getting exhausted. Author of nine books; international garden designer and owner of a design firm in Los Angeles; host of multiple TV shows, including “The Outdoor Room” and “The Victory Garden;” recipient of fistfuls of awards; and now the man behind the mobile app “Garden Design with Jamie Durie.”

So if you see a good-looking Australian guy asleep in the plane seat next to you, don’t wake him.  

View full sizeJamie DurieThe iPhone app ($2.99) appears to accomplish as much as he does. Features include a information-packed plant finder that lets you search by location, light exposure, water needs and other parameters. Tap a button and up comes the closest garden center that sells Monrovia plants, which make up the date base. Share photos of your garden and see those submitted by others. The gallery of Durie-designed gardens can keep you occupied for hours. Lots of ideas to cull there.

Oh, and don’t neglect his most-recent book, which echos the name of his television program and focuses on his passion for creating and teaching others to create outdoor rooms. It is gorgeously useful.

How Durie found the time to answer questions is beyond me, but he did, and here they are.

 Answers are edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: What is the climate and flora where you grew up?
A: I grew up in the Pilbara region. My dad worked the Hamersley mine, and we lived in the town of Tom Price. It’s Australia’s richest iron ore belt and one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world where extreme contrasts sit together like scenes from science fiction — from the jagged red mountains of the Hamersley Range to the gorges and lush waterholes of Karijini National Park. The scorching summers defeat almost all living things there, though ghost gums, river red gums and the Sturt’s desert pea survive. When the rains come, the ground turns to a thick sea of red mud. This is not a landscape for the faint-hearted, but it’s the one I grew up in and I still find such harsh environments thrilling.

Q: In “The Outdoor Room,” you say you’ve always loved being outside and tell the story about running barefoot through the bush. What was that like?
A: For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the outdoors. Throughout my childhood, I swam, surfed, water-skied, went camping and hiking, built cubby houses, dams and even the odd go-kart. It seemed like an endless summer where I would spend my days running around barefoot with just a pair of shorts on, playing imaginary hunting games with my dog My favorite book was “Storm Boy” by Colin Thiele. It was a story about a special friendship or connection that a young boy has with a wild pelican. In my imagination, I was Storm Boy. Instead of a pelican, I had my trusty dog, Sherry!

Q: Where do you live now, and what does your own outdoor room look like? How much time do you spend there?
A: I am mainly based in Los Angeles these days. I have a wonderful garden there that I love spending time in. It’s a great-looking outdoor room space with a pool, daybeds, lounging area and dining and cooking areas. It’s perfect for entertaining. It even has a veggie garden. I wish I had more time to spend in my garden … at the moment I’m so busy that I rarely get a whole weekend off.

Q: How much sleep do you get?
A: If I stop, I fall asleep. I can’t remember the last time I watched a whole movie. I sleep a lot on planes, train and automobiles.

Q: How does gardening fit into your definition of outdoor spaces?
A: I think gardening is “best mates” with outdoor spaces. They go hand in hand. No outdoor space would be complete without plants; it’s the connection to nature that’s the most important part. Plants being a living and growing part of the space means they need care and maintenance to thrive and flourish, so gardening is an important part of it. You could have a low-maintenance garden full of cactus and succulents if you really feel gardening is a drag, but I find it to be quite therapeutic and rewarding.

Q: I’ve read you’ve “changed the face of landscape design.” What does that mean?
A: I think people say this because I have helped make gardens much more about extending your living spaces from inside your home to the outside. Extending your living and your lifestyle by designing your outdoor space with shapes first and plants later. Backyards are not just having a pretty garden to look at, but a functional, beautifully designed space that enhances your lifestyle and lets you do all the aspects of living that you love.

Q: You’ve achieved so much. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
A: Being a father to my daughter, Taylor, and earlier this year I received the Medal of the Order of Australia. To receive an honor from the country I cherish is humbling to say the least.

Q: What do you see as the biggest trend in outdoor living/gardening?
A: Several things:

— Vertical gardens, which are great for urban and small spaces and also for greening our concrete jungles.

— Strengthening communities through gardening with shared urban spaces for growing food, such as community gardens. Work is shared, food plants and harvests are swapped, there’s cooperation with councils and organizations.

— Natural habitat gardens; turning our backyards into pockets of biodiversity and wilderness, letting nature take its course and welcoming creatures to use our gardens as habitats.

— Gardens continue to reflect awareness of how our landscapes enhance and improve the environment around us and it is something we can all do to have a positive impact for the earth, right in our own backyard.

Q: From the feedback you’ve gotten about your new iPhone app, what feature/features do people like most?
A: I think it’s that no matter where you are you can find your nearest Monrovia Garden Center by clicking the “Find Your Nearest Garden Center” button. Also, I think people like getting ideas and tips, seeing different styles of gardens to help them with ideas for their own designs. The app really demystifies the process of designing an outdoor living space, to make the ideas and the “how to” accessible for everyone to work with and enjoy.

— Kym Pokorny

 

It’s so hot I can almost hear my plants screaming. It is a sound similar to the one I make when I open my DWP bill.

With the outside temp at 101, I’ve turned into a zombie. Other than to “clomp” “clomp” out to the crybabies to water them, no other work will get done. What’s a garden junkie to do?

Read.

The crop of gardening books released this year largely addresses the trends du jour: growing your own vegetables, eco-friendly garden design, xeriscape. The highest profile entry was Michelle Obama’s American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America (Crown), which kick-started many on the sidelines to start a backyard vegetable patch.

This July, as drought began to grip the nation, many of us scoured the public libraries and bookstores for tomes offering “green” design ideas and recommendations for drought-tolerant plants.

So for whiling away the hours when the sun is tortuous, here is our Top Ten List which includes a few oldies but goodies.

Find a working AC and happy reading!

1.The New Western Garden Book: The Ultimate Gardening Guide (Sunset Western Garden Book). In the venerable magazine’s latest edition you’ll find 2,000 full-color photos, an all-new and invaluable PlantFinder guide, and no-fail gardening tips geared to our climate.

2.From Seed to Skillet: A Guide to Growing, Tending, Harvesting, and Cooking Up Fresh, Healthy Food to Share with People You Love (Chronicle Books). In this indispensable resource, Los Angeleno landscaper/ farmer’s market guru Jimmy Williams and writer wife Susan Heeger serve up edible garden ideas with cultivation and cooking tips using vegetables, herbs, and fruit seedlings you can grow in a small backyard.

3. A Year in the Life of Beth Chatto’s Gardens by Rachel Warne and Fergus Garrett (Frances Lincoln). A year in the life of British garden icon Beth Chatto’s gardens with inspirational and gobsmacking pictures of her dry, damp, woodland and gravel gardens with tips on how to take a difficult gardening situation and turn it into something gorgeous.

4. Succulents for the Contemporary Garden by Yvonne Cave (Timber Press). Published several years ago, this pricey book is enjoying new life as succulents–with their great variety of color and shape and well-deserved reputation for drought tolerance–are making grand statements in Valley gardens. Here Cave offers en masse, specimen and container plantings in the garden as well as info for hundreds of species and cultivars.

5. Counting in the Garden illustrated by Patrick Hruby written by Emily Hruby (Ammobooks) is a great start for young children. Whimsical illustrations are the hallmark of this chunky board book aimed at teaching toddlers to count to twelve. Every other page introduces a new plant into the mix until finally all plants pop up together in the lush garden. Lessons of ecology combine with fantastical graphics sure to spark a kid’s imagination.

6. Fairy Gardens by Betty Earl (Mackey Books) is for the kid in you. The latest rage, fairy gardens use live mini plants arranged in a dollhouse-sized garden setting. This how-to book helps you create these miniatures, while delving into fairy lore, and introducing the plants and accessories to make this offshoot of garden enthusiasts a success.

7. Small Green Roofs by Edmund C. Snodgrass (Timber Press). Garden Clippings had a green roofs feature earlier this year. If you were inspired, this paperback is a how-to on turning the roof of a garage or changing rooms by the pool into ecological cooling stations. It shows more than 40 projects of everyday homeowners targeting water conservation, energy savings, and storm water management. From studios to sheds, there are details for each project.

8. Small-Space Container Gardens by Fern Richardson (Timber Press) is a nod to modern life where many who live in condominiums, apartments and on small lots have limited green space but would love to garden.

9. The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques (Timber Press) by Tracy DiSabato-Aust This expanded edition is a tell-all on perennials. For anyone just getting started, it’s a must have read about designing from scratch, how to prepare beds, deadheading, pruning, cutting back. And more experienced gardeners will find tips galore about perennials and soil conditions, height control, and design.

10. Swoon over the cottage garden in these old and new classics soon to be dog-eared: The Cottage Garden by Christopher Lloyd and Robert Bird (John Wiley Sons, now in paperback) is my dog-eared classic with paradise-found photos; Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden by Judith B. Tankard (Rizzoli) an intimate look at the gardens of Jekyll, the most important garden designer of the twentieth century who upended formal orthodoxy in favor of an informal, naturalistic look; English Cottage Gardening: For American Gardeners, Revised Edition (W. W. Norton Company) by Margaret Hensel, a reverential look at the humble cottage garden, this book discusses architectural elements such as an ornate gate or a brightly painted arbor; the tending of roses; mass plantings of  herbs; a guide to getting the plants to work together; and an extensive appendix of resources and index of cottage perennials with photos to drool over!

The August bank holiday is so often ear-marked as a time for home improvements and with this in mind, we have put together a collection of accessories from some of our favourite designers and shops that we hope will inspire you to make those small but effective changes to your home. So, if that big DIY project doesn’t materialise, at least your home will be looking new and improved!

 

Lighting: Changing your light fittings will make a huge difference to your home. Add lamps where you can and select pendant lights that are beautiful in a room and give the right kind of light for the space.

Single glass shades with black fabric twisted flex and dark bronze ceiling rose in purple, smoked olive, sky blue and yellow ochre. £262 www.rockettstgeorge.co.uk

 

 

Rugs: A new rug will add comfort and style to a room and is a great place to add colour or pattern or both. Keep the rug as large as possible and don’t be afraid to sit the sofas and chairs (or other furniture) on it.

Niki Jones Lattice Rug Hand knotted in 100% New Zealand wool. Available in two colourways, shown here in Ash Grey and Chartreuse Green £1250 www.niki-jones.co.uk

 

 

Flowers: Fresh flowers are a lovely accessory in any room and will bring a welcoming, well-loved feel to your home. Try to pick flowers and vases that fit in with the style and colours of your home but most importantly, pick flowers you love!

Wild Garden Bouquet in Jug. Forget Me Nots, Anemones and Rambling Clematis. £65 plus delivery www.wildatheart.com

 

 

Cushions: I am a very big fan of a cushion or two as I think they add a luxurious finishing touch to a space, not to mention a splash of colour and pattern. Try to add a selection of different cushions and avoid over co-ordination of fabrics.

Vintage Daisies and Roses Cushion Cover Approximately 50cm x 50cm, envelope back fastening with chunky shell buttons. £57 www.paleandinteresting.com

 

 

Bed linen: A new set of bed linen will not only make your bedroom look ship shape but will also be a wonderful reason to get an early night when the bank holiday weekend is over. I think some colour or texture (or both) in your bed linen ensures that the bed is the centrepiece of your room but, if you prefer plain white, a bedthrow will do just as well.

Andrew Martin Arrowstripe Duvet Covers, Multi from John Lewis £99 – £125 Duvet cover for the duvet cover www.johnlewis.com

 

 

Mirrors and pictures: I am always amazed at the difference hanging pictures and mirrors make to a room – they not only personalise a space but they also draw the eye upwards from the furniture to make a room seem bigger. If you don’t have a great art collection (or even if you do), well framed family photos, mirrors, prints and wall hangings will dress your walls in style. Think carefully about where each should hang considering the background (paint or wallpaper), the lighting and the height that each piece is hung.

Graham and Green Grand Daisy Mirror 97 diameter £395 www.grahamandgreen.co.uk

 

 

Bath towels: A great way to get a bit of colour and luxury into the smallest room in the house is to splash out on some coloured towels. Remember to get a selection of sizes from little hand towels to big bath sheets and check to see if you need additional hooks or towel rails to save them from all being piled onto the towel warmer or radiator.

Designers Guild Saraille Lime Towels £5-£45 www.designersguild.com

(01223) 479434

www.angelandblume.com

info@angelandblume

By Cate Burren