In Partnership with Lights4Fun

With restrictions in the UK easing this week, and socialising in gardens and outdoor spaces back on the menu, I wanted to show how a few little touches can get your garden ready for hosting.

For those that don’t know, we recently moved house and although we upsized in house, we downsized in garden. For the location and the style of house we wanted, there was always going to be a compromise and we have inherited a lovely little courtyard garden. Instead of fighting it, I’ve decided to embrace it and channel the cute little European courtyards I love. Manchester weather permitting of course.

We have a lovely big Sycamore tree which I wanted to make the most of as a feature and the previous owners had some landscaping done so we already had a few outdoor lights, a water feature and some fairly established plants (very, very good for us as we are no green fingered geniuses).

Having been a huge advocate of fairy lights, festoon lights, lantern lights throughout my old house - I wanted to apply that treatment to the garden so I teamed up with Lights 4 Fun to showcase some of their fab outdoor products.

First up were the Pro Connect Festoon Lights to wrap around the Sycamore. We needed 15m to wrap enough times around the tree and then to carry across like a canopy to reach the mains plug. You can buy different lengths of these which are fab if you have a teeny tiny balcony or a huge sprawling lawn. Then we hung the White Miami Solar Lanterns off the easy to reach branches to channel that holiday vibe. These come in packs of threes so I got two packs to fill up the space.

Last but not least are the lovely Porto Solar Garden Lanterns which replicate that candle flickering without having to light them every night. These look so nice when the sun goes down and I’d fill the whole space with them if I could.

The Other Details…

We already had the Willow Summer Chair from the old house (previous collaboration in 2019). It used to be in the bedroom but there was no way we were ever going to get it up the old Victorian hallways so we decided to treat it with a clear weatherproof paint and use it outside.

Next is the most random but probably best purchase I’ve made in a while. I went into B&M for cleaning products and came out with this hanging chair. It was an absolute bargain at £30 and a couple of lasso’s later we got it hanging from the tree. My inner child loves it!

The other bargain buy for this garden makeover were the Elysia champagne glasses from Dunelm. At £5 for 2, I took the online purchase risk and was very pleasantly surprised. They’ve upped my fizz game massively, but note they are not good for dancing and drinking. The spillage is real.

Because space is a premium in my garden, I didn’t want to fill every inch with furniture. There is quite a reasonable amount of decking which has two steps and it’s perfect for a couple of seat pads for people to sit on. I got these from H&M (affiliate link) and love that they are so semi permanent. I just bring them out for guests.

We christened our garden over the Easter weekend when restrictions were eased and I hope you get to do the same. Don’t forget the blankets, the cushions and the little touches from inside when entertaining and of course the old BBQ no matter what the weather!

GARDEN GLOW UP by Joanne Thelwell