With people regularly spending more time at home, many are looking for affordable and simple ways to create that wow factor in the garden and concrete is an effective way to make an impact without the significant price tag.
Here’s the top four recommendations from Ryan Moss, senior commercial manager at Tarmac, who details how merchants can advise their customers on how to use concrete to make a bold statement in the garden.
Pathways to success
From long country walkways to patchwork paths, concrete is a creative way to create unique designs and add texture to any garden. However, it has so much more to offer than a simple path, as it can also protect the ground in high-traffic areas and cohesively link together all garden elements.
An extremely versatile material, concrete can be coloured and textured to mimic natural stone, tile, or brick. It can, therefore, be easily used to create designs which not only suit your taste but work with the overall design of a home.
For a more formal design, a straight path laid in one direction to create a patten can modernise a garden. Meanwhile, for homes with a more country feel, sweeping curved paths can add an added touch of rustic appeal.
As well as the layout of a pathway, the texture and design of the concrete can transform this into a feature. From rectangles to a minimalist look, to circles creating a steppingstone effect or a bold geometric pattern, concrete can be used to create the desired look of every homeowner. Plants could also be tactfully dispersed to become part of the pathway, bringing it to life and adding colour.
Customers should consider using products such as Postcrete which is a durable, ready to use product formulated for fixing wooden, concrete and metal fence posts, Extra Rapid Cement which is ideal for patch repairs, High Strength that’s suitable to driveways and foundations, as well as Mastercrete, Snowcrete and General Purpose.
Sculptural walls
Walls have long provided a valuable way to create a boundary, define a space or frame a view. For example, a boundary wall can be used to mark the edge of a property or form part of an integral design scheme.
The perfect option for creating zones in the garden, walls can be used to create a standout centre piece and add real ‘wow’ factor to the space. While common choices include timber and bricks, concrete can be recommended as a practical, stylish and easy solution with endless design opportunities.
Walls bursting with life
An increasingly popular trend, living walls can help bring texture and height into a garden. Growing has never been so popular, as green-fingered people take the time in their homes to nurture plants, perhaps more aware of the wellbeing benefits too.
In smaller gardens - where there is not enough space to allocate hard landscaped areas for sitting and entertaining alongside spaces for growing - vertical living walls provide a fantastic opportunity to combine the two.
In its simplest form, a vertical wall can be trailing or climbing plants which are planted in wall-mounted containers or pockets, sometimes with a sheet of polythene behind. Lower maintenance solutions, such as tiered wood shelving planters or vertical frames with hanging plant pots can also be used, providing a cost-effective vertical growing option.
For a real visual impact, however, suggest turning a new or existing wall into a vertical garden to provide additional space to grow flowers. By using complex moulding forms and pouring concrete, trade customers can create incredibly stylish designs for relatively low cost.
Concrete, complete!
Overall, concrete can offer a number of effective solutions for any project in a garden and merchants can add significant value to their service and encourage customers to return, simply by enhancing their product knowledge and recommending the right products.
For more information, visit: www.tarmac-bluecircle.co.uk.
