How Handmade Wooden Furniture Can Complement Your Garden Plant Life

To fully enhance the sensory experience of your garden’s flower displaysand beautiful aromatic foliage, a handmade wooden swing seat or bench could be just the natural feature you’re looking for.

Over time, the organic splendor of the plant life will complement and visually harmonise with the aesthetics of the natural wooden seat—creating a multisensory feast every time you visit your favourite spot in the garden!

Sweet woodruff and climbing roses

If your swing seat is installed using some simple concrete slabs, you can be hugely creative with your underplanting. 

Shade-loving plants like sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum), Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) and Mind Your Own Business (Soleirolia soleirolii) will live happily under a swing seat. Sweet woodruff will spread gloriously and display its fragrant white flowers in the springtime. All you need to do is sit back, let your feet brush over the snowy blossom, and enjoy the pleasant smell of fresh hay throughout the season. 

It’s a low-growing plant, too, so will only ever provide you with a magical carpet-like ground cover. 

It’s also possible to be really imaginative with your use of climbers, particularly with our range of pergolas. You can produce stunning colour features that intertwine, weave, and naturally fuse with the oak or larch frames. Beautiful repeat flowers, like the Lady of the Lake rose (Rosa Ausherbert) we have planted in our gardens in Lyme Regis—combined with a delightful common honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)—will give you a majestic composition of natural hues and aromas.

Natural shading

We’re often asked whether we build any kinds of shades for our swing seats and benches. The best advice we can offer is: let nature do the hard work! It can take a little bit of time, but vigorous climbing roses like the Rambling Rector will create a glorious scented canopy for your swing seat. While you enjoy the views from your handcrafted bench, you can bask in the wonderful scents and white floral beauty of the rose. There’s really no better shade solution!

So, as summertime approaches, and the vibrant colours and sensory charm of your garden is in full swing, it’s worth considering how a wooden swing seat, pergola or bench might complement the whole experience. We’ve got plenty of examples here at our garden in Lyme Regis for inspiration, why not come and visit?