How I turned a drab garden into the perfect hosting space
Jess Alavi-Ellis had only ever been a balcony gardener until she moved to a house in north London with a 98ft-long garden. 'I'd really wanted to grow stuff, but had struggled to keep things alive,' admits the journalist and designer. The outside space she inherited was severely neglected; half concrete, half dumping ground, it was the ideal blank slate for her to start from scratch and give gardening a serious go.
A keen traveller, she wanted to bring in Mediterranean influences to create a holiday feel in the suburbs. But with a gut renovation and a costly kitchen extension under way in the house, she and her husband Darius had to roll up their sleeves in order to make over the space.
Five years on, it's now a lush retreat that's perfect for entertaining, with a games area and multiple spots for al fresco eating; and it also provides an abundance of fresh produce for the family to eat. Here, Alavi-Ellis explains how the transformation took place.
Plotting, levelling and making good
'The garden is long and thin, but it feels really big for London and I feel so lucky to have it,' says Alavi-Ellis. She decided straight away not to entertain the idea of a lawn: 'We didn't want the maintenance of mowing and thought we could do something else.'
Removing the concrete was a must, but a Herculean task, so she took advantage of having builders on site while the house renovation was being done, and paid them to break it up and remove it. She then hired a rotavator and spent a month clearing and levelling the land as much as possible.
The self-build shed
One of the first things the couple did was build a shed – from scratch. It started with a set of uPVC doors which someone locally was giving away, and which Alavi-Ellis spray-painted black. They bought a pair of cheap windows, bags of concrete, and timber from a local yard, and set about erecting what is more akin to a garden office.
'Before this renovation, my husband would go on [home services marketplace] TaskRabbit to find someone to put up a shelf,' laughs Alavi-Ellis, 'but out of a financial necessity we watched YouTube videos and learnt to do all sorts of stuff.' The shed is watertight, provides invaluable storage space and cost around £4,000 in materials, compared with the tens of thousands an off-the-peg design would have cost.
The fun factor
'We love playing petanque on holidays in France and so we thought having our own court would be really fun,' says Alavi-Ellis. Actually creating the court, or piste, was less fun, however: 'It was a huge undertaking because we had to dig out drainage so that it wouldn't flood, as that area was quite waterlogged.'
The piste required varying sizes of gravel, and as there is no side access through the Victorian terrace house, it meant bringing 18 tons of the stuff through the house. 'We roped in friends, asking them to come and help us move it in return for a barbecue and a beer,' she laughs. A petrol-powered vibrating plate and a roller were rented to finish the piste off. Alavi-Ellis now has two small children and sometimes questions the lack of lawn in the garden, but her four-year-old enjoys biking up the gravel and has her own mini set of boules. 'We often play together as a family and I love that,' she says.
The cooking and dining area
Making use of the builders once more, Alavi-Ellis specified a bench, fire pit and kitchen-style island, built out of breeze blocks, to create a convivial area for eating and relaxing. She estimates the cost for all three was around £1,500. The bench was rendered and Alavi-Ellis painted it using leftover limewash from the kitchen walls.
But it wasn't comfortable, so she had seat pads and cushions made using a bespoke striped fabric from Colours of Arley. 'I used yacht foam for the inners, which I ordered online and had cut to size; that way it's not the end of the world if they get left outside in the rain,' she explains. Installing the terrazzo tiles from Otto Tiles on the island was a memorable job undertaken with her dad, Mike.
'In four years I've never had to jet-wash it as, amazingly, the grout has stayed green,' she says. There's space for three bar stools on each side, so she uses it to serve food from the nearby barbecue, or to position a portable pizza oven away from small hands.
The sunshade
Realising just how much of a sun trap the south-west-facing seating area was, Alavi-Ellis later added a pergola. 'I wanted it to feel like Greece or Italy, where there are always vines growing around something,' she explains. She opted for a simple square arch, and trailing around it are vines probably put in by the previous owners, who were of Greek-Cypriot heritage.
'It makes the most out of something which was once lovingly planted, and we get early flowers followed by grapes which hang down,' she says. She also has future designs on a 'really comfy sofa or rocking chair' for sinking into on the patio.
The planting
Alavi-Ellis is a member of her local garden centre, The Gardening Club in Crews Hill, Enfield, which gets her discounted prices off the already inexpensive plants. 'It's a garden centre dream, and a fraction of the price of most London garden centres,' she says. She sweated her plant budget by buying perennials early in the spring that would look pretty and bulk out quickly, such as Geum 'Totally Tangerine', quick-growing Verbena bonariensis, Sambucus nigra and lots of grasses.
To complement the existing apple and fig trees, she bought an almond tree for £60: 'It has a lovely blossom, but the squirrels mostly steal the almonds.' A fern tree was the single largest investment, 'but I love it, and it's already come on quite a lot', says Alavi-Ellis.
The book A Year Full of Flowers by Sarah Raven became Alavi-Ellis's springboard for what to plant to create a wild, naturalistic look with flowers spilling over the borders. A 'bulb lasagne' in raised beds yields narcissi and alliums, which Alavi-Ellis likes to cut and bring inside. She also has a small cold frame on the patio where she grows cosmos, sweet peas and scabiosa cheaply from seed. 'My daughter really loves flowers and she's often out in the garden with her own scissors, picking herself a bunch,' she says.
The veg patch
The raised beds provide the family with fruits such as gooseberries, raspberries, whitecurrants and rhubarb. In raised metal beds on the patio (from £150, Harrod Horticultural), the family grow 'instant gratification' produce such as courgettes, climbing beans, strawberries and rainbow chard, which get regularly picked and eaten.
Alavi-Ellis now counsels friends seeking gardening and plant advice, 'which is always a shock to me, but I've learnt so much', she says. A sanctuary fit for entertaining in warm weather, the garden also acts as a mood-booster on the greyest of winter days: 'Seeing the pink of the bench and the green island from the kitchen always reminds me of being on holiday.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I like Aussies but there is one huge issue with your culture I just can't get past: 'Sorry if you're offended'
A Swedish-born former Australian resident in his 20s has made an observation about Aussie attitudes that has sparked a heated online discussion. The young man, who 'partially grew up' living and attending school in Queensland before moving back to Europe, shared his observation about the apparent lack of value Australians place on education and intellectual pursuits. Taking to Reddit, he shared his views in an 'Ask An Aussie' subreddit post titled: 'What is the cause of Australian anti-intellectualism?' 'I would like to begin by saying that I like Australia and Australians, and I hope I don't come across as offensive. This is just one aspect of Australian society,' he began. 'In my experience, people in Australia tend to not value education so much. 'When they do, it's usually because it leads to a higher-paying job. Knowledge for the sake of knowing is not really valued, the dominating idea being that education only matters if it can be capitalised on.' The lengthy post saw the man explain that he came to this conclusion after leaving Australia and moving back to Sweden, and later France. During his time attending school Down Under, the self-declared 'bookish' man said he 'often felt estranged from other students' on account of his thirst for learning. He added that he struggled to find like-minded 'people who were interested in literature, poetry and even politics'. 'Very few read books in their free time,' he added. The post concluded by asking Aussies to weigh in on this perceived anti-intellectual attitude and offer some explanations. The recent post quickly lit up with over 1,500 responses. Perhaps surprisingly, many were from Aussies who agreed with aspects of the original poster's sentiment. The reply that received the most upvotes surmised the issue as stemming from a broader Australian social attitude of wanting to fit in. The short but popular comment explained: 'In high school, it doesn't pay to be scholastic or otherwise different or you get mocked. Sad really, and this often carries forward into everyday life.' 'Too well spoken? Pronounce your words correctly? You might get bullied,' one replied. A different but related explanation was also suggested in regard to the value Australian culture places on sporting achievements. Many commenters highlighted that while academic prowess could sometimes be a source of ridicule during schooling years, Australian students were, however, encouraged to proudly excel at sports. One commenter said they were 'made fun of' at school for being 'studious and bad at sports'. Another raised the idea more broadly, writing in part that Australia 'prizes physical pursuits over intellectual ones'. However, many were at pains to explain that Australians do indeed hold value in the pursuit of education. The difference, however, is that many Australians are conscious not to show off for being 'too 'clue-y' or 'booksmart' because it projects an air of being 'an arrogant a***hole who is far too "up themselves"'. '[T]here's absolutely people around in Australia who enjoy intellectual pursuits, but keep low key about it,' read one reply. 'We have high rates of education, but we hate class distinction,' explained another response. 'If people feel like you are using jargon or bigger words than you need to, they will call you on it because they will assume you are putting on airs.' This also led to commentary about the pervasiveness of 'tall poppy syndrome' in Australian society, and how it discouraged those who were intellectually inclined from outwardly expressing these interests. 'I think a lot of Australian identity is shaped by the tall poppy syndrome and rebellion against elitism, which many Australians tie to intellectualism,' read part of one longer post. A financial argument also offered an interesting explanation for the perceived lack of value Australians place on a generalised pursuit of knowledge. 'Until recently you could get an extremely well-paying job in Australia with minimal, if any, education, mostly through mining. This led to a lot of people dismissing education as pointless, useless and expensive,' explained one commenter. Another agreed, writing: 'I've got mates without degrees or school-completion certificates who earn filthy money for mining companies, oil refineries etc.' 'The ability to earn money – lots of it – is valued much, much more highly than intelligence,' read part of another reply. But many commenters felt this attribute was actually something to 'love' about Australia, because it meant that 'unskilled workers can make good money and have a good life'. 'I think Australia tends to be fairly egalitarian,' one wrote. 'So in the same way we don't look up to intellectual jobs, we don't look down on trades or manual labour jobs.' To this point, even the original poster agreed that this was true of Australian society. Others pointed to the fact that while higher education was free in Sweden, in Australia university attracts huge fees, which has financial implications. 'Education is much cheaper in Europe. To get it here, you go into debt for a very long time. That means you need to get your money's worth,' one explained. 'Knowledge, for the sake of knowing, doesn't put food on the table or a roof over your head,' added another. Ultimately, many responders surmised that this perceived anti-intellectual attitude held by Australians was probably a result of a combination of the aforementioned factors. One response reflected: 'Intellectualism is considered 'navel-gazing' - sort of a self-indulgent waste of time. Others have mentioned tall-poppy syndrome, and I think that's partially true.' They concluded that this had created a feeling that 'non-productive' or 'non-capitalisable' styles of educational inquiry were 'frivolous'.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Surrogacy rules are outdated and heartless
Before the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, he authored another book that's far less well known. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith argues that we humans have a natural gift for putting ourselves in other people's shoes and that this hardwired empathy helps shape our ethics. That idea feels right to me so, if I may, I'd like to tap into your sympathy by asking you to picture yourself in the following situation. Imagine you're a man whose wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years ago. Doctors were able to save her life by removing her womb and blasting her with radiation, but that treatment means she'll never carry a child. Before the gruelling medical interventions began, your wife's eggs were frozen — so now the disease is in remission, you have the chance to have the family you've dreamt of, but you'll have to go down the surrogacy route where someone else compassionately carries your baby for you. • Ms Rachel, the 'human Teletubby' driving British parents mad It takes a long time but you eventually find a surrogate via Facebook — a 33-year-old mum of four. An IVF clinic mixes your sperm with your partner's egg and implants the embryo into the surrogate's womb. After an agonising wait, you get a positive result on the pregnancy test. You're with your surrogate when you discover you're going to be a father for the first time, and you're at her side during the ultrasound scans as you see your baby growing. Finally the delivery date arrives and, when your daughter is born, you cradle her in your arms, convinced you'll never love anything, or anyone, this much again. But within hours of the birth — out of the blue — the surrogate tells you she has changed her mind and wants to keep your infant. Soon after, she leaves the hospital with your child and, eight agonising months later, your case is finally heard by a judge who rules that the surrogate is allowed to keep your baby. For ever. Can you imagine the devastation you'd feel if this happened to you? Shockingly, this nightmarish scenario — a surrogate being allowed to keep a child that is 100 per cent genetically yours — can happen in the UK because of a statutory framework rushed in by Margaret Thatcher's government in 1985. That year, a mother named Kim Cotton had carried an embryo for a couple who couldn't have a baby themselves. Surrogacy was a novel concept at the time, so this was big news. Cotton explained to the press that she was happy to be able to help people in need — it was an act of compassion. • NHS to offer whole genome sequencing to every newborn baby Reactionaries in Thatcher's Britain saw things differently and legislation was hastily passed that made surrogacy between consenting adults extraordinarily difficult. According to these antiquated rules, in Britain the surrogate is always the legal parent and the biological parents have to go through a long and uncertain judicial process to effectively 'adopt' their own offspring. If the newborn ends up in intensive care after birth or needs clinical treatment of any kind, the genetic parents have no formal say about what should happen. Our country's leading surrogacy lawyer Natalie Gamble aptly describes this as 'the final indignity'. As she puts it: 'After struggling so hard to have a much-loved child, the parents are then legal strangers to their baby at birth.' • Ministers put surrogacy reforms on back burner The negative consequences don't stop there. Under our outmoded regulations the views of surrogates are disregarded; they're not allowed to decide that the intended parents should be the lawful guardians; only the courts can make that call. This also creates complications for the surrogate's spouse, who is forced to assume legal parenthood and financial responsibility for a child that isn't theirs. Sadly, youngsters suffer as well. In Gamble's words, babies born via a gestational carrier are 'born into a legal black hole because UK law treats them as the children of the wrong person'. Small wonder that the majority of Brits who have to go down this route end up going overseas, in particular to progressive American states such as California. There, modern regulations mean surrogates have to pass rigorous medical, psychological and financial screening tests. And critically, in these US states, the courts decide at the start of the surrogacy journey who will be named as the parents, which minimises the risk of confusion or complications later down the line. This certainty is good for everyone and ensures that genetic parents can be treated as the rightful guardians from day one. This means they don't have to go through a stressful adoption-type application after the birth or worry that they won't be able to make hospital decisions on behalf of their son or daughter. We need a similarly commonsense approach here and, luckily, in recent years we've seen thoughtful and practical reform proposals put forward by the Law Commission of England and Wales, as well as the all-party parliamentary group on surrogacy. It would be a credit to Keir Starmer's government to follow these recommendations and overhaul our regressive laws, after successive Tory administrations timidly failed to do so. Of course, surrogacy only affects a tiny number (about 600 British babies are born via surrogacy a year), so a cynical political strategist might call this a 'third-term priority', which is Westminster-speak for 'no bloody way'. But basic fairness demands action is taken. As Adam Smith would say, we should trust that human sympathy means that the British public will be supportive, even if they're lucky enough never to have fertility issues themselves. Here's hoping our prime minister feels the same way.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Garden bathtubs are summer 2025's status symbol
Forget twizzling sausages on a Big Green Egg (the kamado-style ceramic barbecue typically costing north of £1,400). This summer's status symbol comes in the form of a bathtub in the garden. It's decidedly more low-key compared with its energy-hungry, sometimes gauche sister (the Jacuzzi), and garden bathing enthusiasts are embracing it year-round, whether opting for a Wim Hof-inspired cold plunge in a heatwave or enveloped in steam during deliciously hot soaks on chillier days. The ultimate in outdoorsy bathing comes courtesy of William Holland, whose Alvius bath was designed especially for the launch of Soho House's Babington House in Somerset in the late Nineties, its square-shaped aesthetic blending industrial chic with 19th-century French opulence. These tubs remain a signifier of Soho House style: you can spot them beside Lazy Lake at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire and also at its latest opening, Soho Farmhouse Ibiza. Corrosion-free and low-maintenance, William Holland's round metal tubs (in particular the £9,310 copper Rotundus model, which develops a beautiful patina with age) are a frequent fixture in projects by the interior designer Lisa Burdus, whose clients are demanding far more than a bath plonked next to a compost bin. 'There is nothing bland when it comes to my clients' outdoor wellness spaces — they want carefully considered areas that blend in with pops of vibrant colours,' Burdus says. The key, she explains, is the view. 'Showers, saunas and baths that have views across the Cotswold valleys are the wellness design trend of the summer.' The style set are smitten. At Trematon Castle in Cornwall, the House of Hackney co-founders Frieda Gormley and Javvy M Royle enjoy being 'ensconced in nature' in an antique restored French tub painted pea green. At her holiday cottage on the edge of the Sandringham Estate, the interior designer Jolene Marshall describes her £3,597 double-sided tin bath from Indigenous as 'an antidote to city life'. Splish-splashing outdoors triggers something primal — perhaps stirring an early-years memory of paddling-pool nostalgia — but there's also something undeniably sexy about a lo-fi soak under the moon. Since Bee Osborn (the creative director of the Chipping Norton-based Osborn Interiors) installed a bath hidden behind a hessian curtain in her garden three years ago, she's been one of the forerunners who made the trend mainstream and remains inundated with requests from clients (and her 240,000 Instagram devotees) to replicate the look in their own homes. 'This was a not-too-expensive way to create an intimate romantic space,' she says. • How to build an outdoor bathroom: add a splash of luxury to your garden She uses reclaimed scaffolding boards to build open-sided bath houses 'to create a rustic look, with loads of candles. It feels much more fun and sophisticated than a hot tub, which you associate with four or five people and a bottle of prosecco in an Airbnb.' And unlike a hot tub, there's no requirement for treating the water with chemicals either, meaning the bathwater can be drained into a soak and re-used to water the garden. When filled with ice, they also serve as handy bottle-chilling devices during particularly large summer soirees, as the Cotswolds resident Victoria Spooner discovered at her 40th birthday bash. Alice Sykes, a fashion and interiors PR representing Artfully Walls and Cath Kidston's geranium-scented line, is also part of the Cotswolds contingent. 'I've always been interested in clever artistic ways to improve spaces, and my garden bath is the best thing about my home,' Sykes says. 'It's literally an old plastic bath we were chucking out when renovating the spare bathroom. I fill it with water from the hose and two minutes in there in the morning or evening or during a hot weekend, or on a cold winter day, is bliss. It's the same hit as pond swimming, without having to leave your garden. It makes you feel alive.' • £50k, and solid quartz — welcome to the era of the mega-bathtubs As for going au naturel or in swimwear, the Cotswolds interiors stylist Emily Mellor insists, 'Nudity is absolutely essential for bathing in the garden.' Mellor found her 'bloody heavy' freestanding cast-iron number on eBay for 99p via an estate house clearance. 'My husband was cursing me every step of the way but the result of that is a lovely bath in the veg patch that we can bathe in next to the tomatoes and whisper sweet nothings as they blush at our naked bottoms.' An underground pipe feeds the tub with hot and cold water ('really worth it on slightly chilly evenings — having a hot bath outside is just such a treat'), and Mellor heartily recommends bubbles, flowers from the garden and wine as accoutrements for an evening soak. This is not an isolated trend for the country set, nor is it a solo endeavour but increasingly a wellness-tinged social ritual. Take Kate Goodrich, an artist and gardener from London, who nabbed her cast-iron Victorian bath on eBay for £40, calling a cold-water dip straight from the hosepipe 'a place of escape and total calm — water, nature, birds and trees overhead — not forgetting moon bathing. The garden bath is used all year round and has become the favourite spot in our garden. Friends come round for a cool dip — a Parisian pal now has her own garden bath. It's a cooling sanctuary that also waters the plants.' Tucked away from neighbourly eyes under the branches of an evergreen magnolia grandiflora, Goodrich has 'strategically placed' potted evergreen bamboo and Phormium tenax for total privacy. After a cycle commute to Hackney from her studio where she makes large scale botanical works using cameraless photography techniques, or a long gardening job, there's nothing better than jumping in the cold and being outdoors, she says. 'It transports me away from London feelings to tropical settings instead. Keep a towel close to hand for a discreet exit!' Mark Shaw, an architect who scooped a Riba London 2025 award for his Walthamstow home built on the site of a former MoT garage earlier this year, has followed a different direction with his sunken outdoor bath, taking cues from hotels in Thailand and Japanese onsens. • Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement 'I didn't have space for an en suite bathroom in the 100 sq m property and I thought, why don't I really blur those boundaries between inside and out?' explains the founder of the Studioshaw practice. 'Water for me is like therapy, but I hate hot tubs. I wanted [the bath] to be really simple and relaxing — and big enough for two people.' So Shaw designed the bath as a stainless-steel box, which he had made bespoke by the fabricator who built his kitchen, and plumbed in hot and cold water. It's shaded by the huge, deeply lobed leaves of the rice-paper tree (Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Rex') planted on the advice of the landscape gardener Charlie Hawkes for bathing bliss in London's zone 3.@kate_goodrich_studio James Brown on his unexpected garden haven, which offers a surprisingly relaxing retreat under the stars Sometimes it takes seeing great things that others have to appreciate what you already have yourself. I recently saw an indoor sauna in an outdoor garden office that was so ergonomically designed, it folded into its surroundings, almost invisible to the passer-by. The office was quite something — great shape, obviously, interestingly clad, view out to the sea but, most notably, the piles of papers and shelves of box files all smelt of sauna. In a nice way. Heading home, I was so impressed that I phoned my girlfriend to discuss the possibility of having an outdoor sauna myself and, before you know it, my Instagram timeline was full of saunas. I'd quickly worked out where I would put it in my shingle garden: in the corner just below the outdoor bath. And then it struck me. What the hell did I need a sauna for when I have an outdoor bath? A fast-filling, instant-hot-and-cold, two-steps-across-the-back-deck-from-my-shower-room outdoor bath. I went home that night, filled it to the very top and spent three hours in it until just gone midnight. The pin-pricked sky stretched out above — no light pollution over Rye Bay, East Sussex, just years and years of stars above. Did it get cold? No, never, because as I said, you can constantly refill it with very hot water. About ten years ago it occurred to me that, given all that was beneath the bath was decking and shingle, it was essentially an infinity bath — I could fill it to overflowing, fully submerged, and that's something you can't do in an indoor bath. Even more relaxing. • The unstoppable rise of the outdoor bath The bath was there when I bought the place. I realised at some point that, before then, it had lived in the back bedroom because there was a round hole under the bed where an outflow pipe must have been. I don't know whose idea the outdoor bath was but it was at least 19 years ago so they were well ahead of the times. It's a white Victorian-style bath with a horizontal surround and two basic brass taps screwed into a piece of driftwood that's fixed to the wooden handrail surrounding the corners of the back deck. When I first arrived that's all there was, but since then I've enclosed it with large dimpled French garden tubs full of mint and lavender, and there's an elderflower bush that's grown up the frame around it. Behind the tubs there's a row of dense evergreens that divides my house from that of my neighbours, Billy and Alison. It's close enough for me to hear them chatting and gardening but thick enough for them to not have to witness me getting in and out. For quite a long time, when the assorted bushes lost their leaves and flowers, I'd lean down, scoop them all out and throw them into the foot of the trees. Then one day I realised: 'Mint, lavender, elderflower, evergreens … this is basically what it says on the side of plastic bottles full of bathroom products.' I was chucking out what people normally pay for in their brightly coloured, gloopy, chemically enhanced versions and since then I haven't bothered any more. The fragrance adds to the experience. You can bring some hot water in a cup and then just pull off some huge fresh mint leaves for tea. I leave it on the bathside table with books, towels, laptop. • Read more luxury reviews, advice and insights from our experts I've spent a lot of time in there watching football matches, reading books and thinking about writing them. And with a pile of books on a chair stationed a foot or so away, there's enough shade for the screen to be very clear. Because I rent the house out when I'm not there, the outdoor bath has become a talking point and it's often mentioned as something new guests' friends have told them about. A couple of guys who stayed have since moved in down the lane and recreated it in their own back garden, and of course guests have posted lots of photographs of it. One couple sent a shot of them both in it celebrating an anniversary, another lady sent me her whole family in it and a third guest kindly posted a picture of her drying her dog in it with my favourite Paul Smith towel, which someone had bought me for my birthday. To make it even more private I recently closed one end off with a woven hazel panel, which pretty much makes it an outdoor bathroom now, just with no roof. It's two steps away from the real bathroom, which has a great shower but no bath. No one has ever come round when I'm in it and I can't really think of anywhere more relaxing to soak. I've sadly never been there when it's snowing but you can't have everything. Or can you? Run two taps, climb in and you're away, no infrared cabin in sight.
