Garden furniture ideas – barbecues and pergolas 

BARBECUES

Barbecues can either be portable or built into the layout of the patio or sitting area. If the house is brick then echo this in construction, and make sure the cooking area is of ample size for a good party. Built-in seating can be incorporated to one side while overhead beams can help to define the area as well as acting as a frame for a tarpaulin in showery weather! Site barbecues close to the kitchen for obvious reasons and, if it catches evening sun, then so much the better. 

I personally still think that wood or charcoal gives the best flavor but some enlightened builders now lay on gas to the garden. Bottled gas or electricity is also possible alternatives. Simple barbecues can be built from materials to hand, bricks or even concrete blocks laid dry. Sometimes these instant ones are the most successful, as outside eating can often be a spontaneous affair. 

PERGOLAS 

Pergolas are often a cliché in garden design terms and are sited with little regard to the overall layout and built from unsuitable materials. Any feature like this should be thought about when working on the initial layout, even if it is built at a later stage when time or budget allows. A pergola should always have somewhere to go and is a marvelous tool for directing the feet or eye in a certain direction, around or across a garden for instance.  

If the layout is curved it will engender mystery, if straight, can focus the eye on a seat or ornament of some kind. As a screen they are hard to beat, softening a bad view or leading you away from it altogether. They are also the perfect vehicle for climbing plants that can grow where there is ample light and air, as opposed to close to a building where soil can be shallow and rainfall minimal. 

Construction should be solid and simple. Stay well-clear of rustic timber which rots quickly and has the worst ring of suburbia about it. Timber posts and beams are fine but if you can run to brick piers and the garden is big enough to take it visually, so much the better.