New Gardening Year Goals

January and February may not seem the most appealing gardening months, but the new year offers gardeners a fresh start. The ground may be frosty but this is a great opportunity to prepare for the soon arriving spring. While we wait for the bulbs to flower here are some easy tips to make a big difference in your garden. Now is the time to make your own compost, to sow veg and annuals from seed. While the garden is dormant, it’s also a great time to plan and install elegant balustrades to define your garden design. Read our blog to discover what to plan and do now to make a big impact in your garden for the year ahead.

Get Composting

It’s never to late to save your kitchen peelings and garden clippings to make your own compost. Transform plant waste into something useful to help your garden flourish as the weather warms up. Garden designer and RHS Chelsea legend, Cleve West is a huge advocate for composting as an avid environmentalist and allotment enthusiast who grows much of his own food. You can read his tips in our interview with him here. There is very little that Cleeve doesn’t turn into compost, he’s even found a way to make the weeds useful!

Cleve West by his Centrepoint Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2023.

Composting is fairly straightforward. There are many different types of composters and wormeries available at garden centres or online, or you can build your own. Saving money and making rich compost for your planters and vegetable plots is a win win scenario. Bear in mind that some leaves take longer to break down than materials like grass clippings, so it’s worth considering how you layer your compost heap. There are many tutorials on YouTube offering advice. For those of you who already compost, Monty Don recommends getting outside and warming yourself up by turning over your compost heap now. This allows air flow, which is important for the decomposing process. So arm yourself with a gardening fork and wheel barrow and get busy! Think of how much you’ll enjoy the  abundant blooms and crops to harvest at home later in the year!

Grow your own vegetables for nutrition and wellbeing. Enjoy experimenting in your garden.

Compost heaps also encourage worms and other beneficial insects to your garden to help with biodiversity and feed the local bird and hedgehog population too!

Define your borders

There are a number of ways to define the different areas of your garden, from sectioning patios, to marking your property boundary in both informal ways with staddle stones that have a long heritage in the countryside to classical professionally installed balustrades, in a range of styles to suit your garden design.

Staddle stones

Staddle stones, sometimes referred to as mushroom stones, are an interesting way to define driveway entrances and boundaries. Traditionally, staddle stones were used to raise granaries to protect crops from mould and rats, but they have become increasingly popular in rural culture as decorative features.

A traditional storehouse raised on staddle stones

Now staddle stones are often used as a decorative alternative to bollards for drives. They also make charming garden ornaments, especially as they grow moss and lichen, blurring the lines between nature and the stone patina.

A well weathered Chilstone Staddle stone with a rich patina , dotted with moss.

Place them singularly as a quirky feature or make a boundary between paths and flowerbeds with staddle stones in pairs or rows. Add solar lights around the base to create a magical ambience to enjoy evenings in the garden or to light the way along your driveway.

A traditional mushroom shaped Chilstone staddle stone.

Balustrade

Balustrade makes a beautiful feature around patios, swimming pools and steps. Invest in this classical divide topped with coping stones for a fine finish made to last. Balustrade is an investment, so take your time choosing a style and a professional installer.

Balustrade makes a classic country garden finish to patios and garden designs.

The traditional baluster style is the ultimate in sophistication. We have a wide range of baluster styles including one replicated from the stone balustrading that runs along the Embankment in London, from a baluster salvaged from the old Waterloo Bridge – a timeless classic!

Chilstone raked balustrade, perfect for garden and patio steps

Cast stone balustrade is very versatile. Paint it for that Mediterranean vibe and get the holiday feeling all year round in your garden. Just make sure the water is heated if you’re taking a swim this winter! We deliver globally if you would like our balustrade for a property abroad too!

Add painted balustrading around swimming pools for that holiday feeling in your garden all year round.

While we love a classic baluster there are many ways to create a stylish garden wall. During our seventy years in business we have repaired many damaged sections of balustrade, from Hever Castle’s Golden Staircase to those fronting properties along smart Kensington streets. If a tree or car damages a section of  your feature balustrade, please get in touch. We can send the team to cast a mould from the existing stone, colour match it and blend in the new section. Fancy extending the run of an unusual section of balustrade in your garden to create a larger patio or staircase? Talk to our team. We will work out the most cost effective way to use our stone work and we can supply a free CAD drawing to show you how it will look.

Whatever style you opt for don’t forget to top it with coping stones for the best finish and to protect your stonework from the British weather!

Balustrading restored by Chilstone in a style unique to this Kensington street in a circular pattern with acanthus leaf pattern.

Invest in Beautiful Pots and Planters

Make your pots as beautiful as your planting with an ornate feature planter. A decorative urn can make a wonderful focal point all year round. Raise pretty urns on a pedestal or set them in pairs as finials or gate posts creating a welcoming entrance to lawns, patios, garden paths and driveways.

A pair of matching Chilstone urns create an inviting garden entrance.

Smaller urns with a basket weave design make a beautiful feature all year round, brightening up corners and walls. The wide lip allows flowers to spill over the rim, making them perfect for cascading summer annuals. These petite planters look beautiful in smaller gardens or around patios. They can even be mounted along garden walls and balustrading, adding extra planting space!

A handmade Chilstone Elizabethan urn with basket weave design

While large classical urns with deep root room are ornate and striking, perfect as the centrepiece of your garden design. You can plant large perennials or fill them with spring bulbs for maximum impact!

A large, ornate Chilstone urn makes a striking garden feature.

Or forego the flowers and opt for a lidded urn that the plants in your garden will bloom around, pulling all the attibutes of the garden together with this stylish centrepiece. There are so many ways to use our urns planters.

Stroll around our gardens for some inspiration or take a look through our blogs in our news section to see how garden designers have used our handcrafted stoneware in their work.

A large Chilstone William Kent Urn with lid on a pedestal central to a formal front garden design.

Get Sowing

Now is great time to start a few annuals. Browse seed catalogues and garden centres and make a planting plan. Some seedlings can be started now in a cold frame or heated greenhouse or sunny windowsill. Start broccoli, onions, peppers and chilies now alongside sweetpeas to get ahead of the season. Parsnips and carrots can been sown directly outside, although you’ll have to wrap up warm, it’s pretty cold out there!

A beautifully neat vegetable garden at The Chelsea Flower Show

Plant your seeds, making sure you compliment your vegetable seedlings with companion planting. Growing marigolds and nasturtiums will deter pests and help your crops one the weather warms up!

Always Handmade

For advice and inspiration pop in and see us. Our range of garden ornaments and architectural stone is entirely handmade, the same it has always been since we opened over seventy years ago in 1953. We never use factory machinery, our crafts people can only create the fine details our customers love using hand tools.

Our handmade garden ornaments are currently on sale with a 20% discount throughout January. Treat yourself to a statement planter, fountain or statue. Or why not gift your garden wildlife a birdbath to help them access water through the winter? Ask our team for more info.