The great outdoors… top tips for alfresco living

Here’s how to make the most of your outside space this summer

With space in our homes at a premium, even the tiniest outdoor plot provides solace. We’ve never needed nature’s salve more. So, for anyone lucky enough to have a garden, now’s the time to treat your backyard with the same decorative care as your front room. We asked five decorators and designers to share their tricks for creating the ultimate outdoor retreat, from furniture to table settings.

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Gardening tips: read up on how to bring nature into your home

Then plant honeywort and sow seeds with anti-slug protection

Read this Biophilia: You + Nature + Home (Kyle Books, £14.99) will strike a chord for anyone stuck indoors right now. Designer Sally Coulthard shows you how to lift your mood by bringing plants, flowers and other aspects of nature into the home.

Plant this The sound of a bee fossicking about in the bell-like flowers of honeywort (Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’) is one of the most delightful of early summer. This hardy annual will seed itself about in full sun and come back every year with no effort from you. It’s a bit late for seed sowing, but give it a go if you can get hold of some (try Chiltern Seeds) or buy as plug plants.

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'I like a place that feels haunted': a Brooklyn brownstone filled with stories and art

Chilean artist Maria Gracia Donoso employed a shaman to cleanse her home, then transformed it into a vibrant place for art lovers

Brooklyn brownstones have handsome bones, but are notorious for their lack of daylight. Some of their elongated rooms also have a shadowy history. “By American standards, a building like this, from the 19th century, is very old,” says Maria Gracia Donoso, an artist who grew up with six brothers in Chile during the dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. “Part of my Chilean heritage is a connection with ghosts,” she says, walking up a beautiful wooden staircase, alongside a wall inset with screens showing an ever-changing selection of her video art. “I like a place that has a story, somewhere that feels haunted.”

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Easy-peasy veg that keeps giving all summer long | Alys Fowler

Swiss chard, Japanese bunching onions, rocket and mangetout will feed you come rain, shine or slugs

As summer unfurls and the price of fresh food is likely to hike – due to the lack of pickers – it makes sense, and brings much joy, to turn to your garden or balcony or rooftop and say, “What can we do here?” If I can offer any gentle advice to those starting out, it is to choose vegetables that let you harvest all summer long (rather than waiting until the end of July for the first ripe tomato or early September for sweetcorn); that are edible at all stages, so nothing goes to waste; that don’t mind a wet August, can shrug off slug attacks and aren’t desperate for high fertility. Meet the gang that will feed you whatever the summer brings.

Humble, reliable swiss chard can withstand maltreatment, drought, neglect and even slugs to give you abundant glossy green leaves. Sow now, and again in August, and you’ll have plants for winter and a spring supply, too. Sow direct or in modules, spacing 35cm (14in) apart each way, so they can grow deep roots to mine the nutrients below. You need four or five plants for a family of four. My favourites are Fordhook Giant for monster leaves, Pink Passion for neon-coloured stems and Golden Chard to catch the long, slanting late summer light.

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Gardening tips: read up on how to bring nature into your home

Then plant honeywort and sow seeds with anti-slug protection

Read this Biophilia: You + Nature + Home (Kyle Books, £14.99) will strike a chord for anyone stuck indoors right now. Designer Sally Coulthard shows you how to lift your mood by bringing plants, flowers and other aspects of nature into the home.

Plant this The sound of a bee fossicking about in the bell-like flowers of honeywort (Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’) is one of the most delightful of early summer. This hardy annual will seed itself about in full sun and come back every year with no effort from you. It’s a bit late for seed sowing, but give it a go if you can get hold of some (try Chiltern Seeds) or buy as plug plants.

Continue reading...

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'I like a place that feels haunted': a Brooklyn brownstone filled with stories and art

Chilean artist Maria Gracia Donoso employed a shaman to cleanse her home, then transformed it into a vibrant place for art lovers

Brooklyn brownstones have handsome bones, but are notorious for their lack of daylight. Some of their elongated rooms also have a shadowy history. “By American standards, a building like this, from the 19th century, is very old,” says Maria Gracia Donoso, an artist who grew up with six brothers in Chile during the dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s. “Part of my Chilean heritage is a connection with ghosts,” she says, walking up a beautiful wooden staircase, alongside a wall inset with screens showing an ever-changing selection of her video art. “I like a place that has a story, somewhere that feels haunted.”

Continue reading...

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Easy-peasy veg that keeps giving all summer long | Alys Fowler

Swiss chard, Japanese bunching onions, rocket and mangetout will feed you come rain, shine or slugs

As summer unfurls and the price of fresh food is likely to hike – due to the lack of pickers – it makes sense, and brings much joy, to turn to your garden or balcony or rooftop and say, “What can we do here?” If I can offer any gentle advice to those starting out, it is to choose vegetables that let you harvest all summer long (rather than waiting until the end of July for the first ripe tomato or early September for sweetcorn); that are edible at all stages, so nothing goes to waste; that don’t mind a wet August, can shrug off slug attacks and aren’t desperate for high fertility. Meet the gang that will feed you whatever the summer brings.

Humble, reliable swiss chard can withstand maltreatment, drought, neglect and even slugs to give you abundant glossy green leaves. Sow now, and again in August, and you’ll have plants for winter and a spring supply, too. Sow direct or in modules, spacing 35cm (14in) apart each way, so they can grow deep roots to mine the nutrients below. You need four or five plants for a family of four. My favourites are Fordhook Giant for monster leaves, Pink Passion for neon-coloured stems and Golden Chard to catch the long, slanting late summer light.

Continue reading...

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