New Trends In Garden Wall Art

Decorating the garden has traditionally focused on how plants and flowers create displays in relation to the garden space and buildings around it.

The recent trend in gardens has been to see them more as an extension of the house as an outdoor living area. The addition of conservatories, orangeries, sun rooms to houses of all sizes are a demonstration of this as people want to get closer to their gardens. The popularity of decking and patios areas kitted out with high quality chairs, tables and lighting for outdoor dining and parties show how people are using their gardens. The theme is based on new lifestyle trend in decorating your garden which is not based solely on the use of plants. Anyone viewing the many TV shows on gardening these days can see that large proportions of the programming is dedicated to how people use the space rather than the particular plants or flowers growing their.

One of the developments of this move towards seeing the garden as an outdoor living space is the use of garden wall art in the outdoors.

Garden wall art is a general term which covers a wide range of purely decorative pieces that can be hung on a wall or fence. Importantly, these pieces of art do not involve any plants or flowers or have a practical purpose as perhaps a decorative planter or urn would. Garden wall art is simply there to decorate the garden in the same way a picture or ornament may decorate a living rooms.

This kind of thing isn't completely new as the use of garden sculptures has been here for centuries. However, the trend for hanging items on a garden wall is relatively new and fits the growth of urban or city gardens. The features of these gardens are, unsurprisingly, that they tend to be surrounded closely by other walls or buildings and have limited light. These type of gardens already make use of container gardening as a way to best use space and create displays where there may be no borders or planting areas. Garden wall art plays a similar role.

The kind of garden wall art that is being produced uses craft materials such as metal, wire and glass. Garden clocks are practical but have been used for many years as a decorative item. Garden thermometers also fall into this category. Outdoor Mirrors with ornate frames are a popular choice and create an immediate link with the type of mirrors used in a typical hall way or dining room. Metal panels and frames are also popular using ethnic themes of Moroccan or Middle Eastern styled pressed metal designs. Nature themed art is another common design and animals such as butterfly, dragonfly, frogs, lizards are commonly used. The lizard and frog designs draw heavily on Mexican themed designs. Aztec sun and moon designs are another popular theme and are available in metal or more traditional terracotta. Other types of garden wall art include abstracts based on natural plants including ferns, palm leaves and other foliage. Mixing coloured glass and metals which has been spot welded together is a common theme throughout the garden wall art you can see and reinforces it's links with craft based roots. Finally, waterproof canvas is being used to produce actual pictures which can be framed and hung outside. This is perhaps the most obvious example of how art from inside is being used outside to help create the feeling of a living space in the garden.

The style people choose is entirely down to them and how they want to style their garden or living space although people can buy this art for others in the same way as any other gift. Garden wall art is a novel housewarming or birthday gift for gardeners who have a large stock of trowels and gardening gloves from previous anniversaries.

The garden wall art is best placed on a brick or rendered wall but can be used to create a contemporary feel or a more rustic or traditional effect depending on the piece and the surroundings. As well as home owners, businesses are also using garden wall art to decorate outdoor spaces and this particularly includes up market Pubs and Restaurants who already have al fresco dining as part of their offering to customers.

In summary, garden wall art is a developing trend which reflects the way people are increasingly using their gardens as an extension of their living space and as a way of expressing their tastes in the same way they would decorate a room of their house. Garden wall art offers some interesting new ways to decorate your garden and will be an important trend in gardening over the coming years.