Make the most of your outdoor room with these garden seating area ideas!

Of all the pleasures that a garden offers perhaps the simplest and greatest is just to sit  outside and relax for a while on a summer evening. Here are some garden seating area ideas to help give you inspiration for your outdoor space.

Whatever the size of your garden, its furniture should be an integral part of the overall design. An old rustic wooden bench may well look totally charming in a cottage garden but completely incongruous on a modern patio. If it is appropriate wood can be painted to create a contemporary look. Choose the furniture to suit your style.

Match your garden seating with the surrounds

Here, a contemporary grey decking area is complimented by the seating. Good garden furniture can be expensive, so before investing, take as much time to consider whether it suits the surroundings as you would when buying furnishings for the house. Planning the seating areas is as important as planning the plants, both are essential ingredients to the balance of the garden. It’s worth hunting around for pieces that are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing.

 

Using accessories to brighten up seating areas

Use accessories, such as cushions, to compliment plants where possible. Where you place these carefully chosen pieces is equally important and depends when you are likely to sit in the garden. In a large garden there may well be space for several permanent seats for various times of the day. Ideally three seating areas are best; an east-facing spot for morning coffee in the sun, a large dining area, with some shade, for lunch and a west-facing seat to catch the last rays of evening sunshine.

Garden seating ideas – use fragrance

This bench has been placed to make the most of the evening sunshine next to a container of scented lilies. Most gardens are at their loveliest on fine summer evenings in the softer light, when many flowers give off their most delicious fragrance. If you only have space for one seating area in your garden, try to make it in a west-facing position and position the furniture on some permanent paving. This is an ideal place to position containers of scented plants that can be moved according to the season. For the intensity of its late winter and early spring scent, grow Daphne odora ‘ Aureomarginata’ near your chosen seating area. In summer, some jasmine or night-scented stock will fill the air with perfume. If space is limited, try growing pots of lilies or the annual tobacco plants to fragrance the air.

Don’t be scared of colour!

Given the right setting painting furniture, bright cheerful colours can create a great focal point. Here, the timber from the retaining sleeper has been stained to match the furniture.

When dusk falls on balmy nights, use candles or lamps to extend the period of enjoyment in your private seating area. With a glass of your favourite tipple in hand absorb the sight, sound and scent of your garden.