How to spruce up your garden: Part 1

Here are some quick and easy ways to give your garden a makeover without spending a fortune

3 min readSep 26, 2019

FREE COURSE: Make your own wooden planter

For more hints and tips for sprucing up your garden, find part 2 of this blog post here: https://medium.com/@MakeyourownDIY/how-to-spruce-up-your-garden-continued-5f0e8e09ba7a

1. Upcycled plant pots

All you need to do is search your home for some old containers, some used tin cans, an old bucket or even a car tyre, and voilà, you have your very own retro plant pots.

You might be thinking an old tin can wouldn’t look like much in your garden, but you can spruce it up with a lick of paint, some plastic jewels or glue on some string or rope to make a rustic but modern addition to your garden. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

2. Paint your old garden furniture

Give your tired old furniture a new lease of life by adding a splash of colour. Don’t be shy with your colour choices; be bold. You could even try adding designs to the paintwork; simple things like stripes or more daring designs like flowers will brighten up your garden in no time

3. Build your own planters

One of my favourite ways to add new life to a garden is to build some planters out of wood. Planters really tidy up the garden and they also have the added bonus of making your garden easier to manage. If all your plants are growing in some nice planters, your garden looks tidier and things like weeding become a doddle.

When building your planters, you can keep things simple, or if you’re more adventurous, you can let your imagination go wild.

If you want some tips on how to build a simple planter out of decking boards, you can watch my free course on Skillshare: https://skl.sh/2PThi5f

Once you’re comfortable with the basic process for building a planter, you can apply this to more complex designs such as the planters that surround this patio area.

Let me know in the comments if you have any other ideas for adding a new lease of life to your garden or if you’ve had a go at one of my courses, I’d love to see pictures of what you’ve done.