8 Ways to Keep Cool in Your Garden

Ways to keep cool in your garden, staying cool outside in hot weather. Whether you’re actively gardening in hot weather or wanting to relax, higher summer temperatures have become more of an issue in British gardens.

These suggestions for ways to keep cool in your garden are about you, rather than your plants. Some of them are immediate fixes and some of them consider changes you could make to your garden. This may need a re-design or just purchasing items that have a longish lead time. We start with the design tips.

Ways to Keep Cool in Your Garden – Garden Design Tips and Ideas

These are the medium -term and long-term solutions. You’ll need to look at your garden as whole to work out the best place for creating a shady area. And also ask yourself if you’re happy for that shade during spring and autumn, when you’ll also be sitting out.

It may be appropriate to have a design consultation, even if you don’t want to re-jig the whole garden. Most people don’t have the training to understand the effect (good or bad) that changing just one feature can have. I point this out, not because I want the work, but because I have too often seen the consequences of adding “just a small seating area/ pergola”.

Build a Pergola, Gazebo or Arbour

Building a pergola, gazebo or arbour is within the capabilities of a competent DIYer. There are kits for those less confident or you could procure a local carpenter to build one for you. If this last option appeals, remember you’ll need a design of some sort, even though they’ll be able to work out specifications for the actual structure.

If designed and built well, one of these garden structures can add an air of elegance to your garden. However, be aware of your prevailing garden style – a Chinese style arbour in a traditional English cottage garden will probably look odd.

What’s the difference between these garden structures?

Pergola
A garden structure with uprights, usually wood, sometimes brick piers. The cross pieces keep the uprights together and offer support for climbing plants.
Pergolas are often found against a house or garden wall to offer shade on a terrace. They are also linked to form a shady walk, known historically as a tunnel arbour.

Gazebo
These days there are two common definitions for a gazebo. Firstly, is that it is a permanent structure, generally octagonal with a pitched roof and open sided. Older structures may be metal and ornate.
Secondly, the modern usage describes a portable tent like structure in canvass or plastic. Used at outdoor events, family garden parties and so on, it provides temporary shelter from the sun (or rain!) Historically, gazebos were also like built in summerhouses; often found in the corner of a garden, overlooking a view.

Arbour
A garden shelter looking a bit like a pergola, but freestanding. Usually with a curved or arched ‘roof’ and frequently found with an integral seat.

Shady Seats

Swing seats with built in shade are another option. There are some gorgeous ones about, from the simple hammock types through to daybeds large enough for 3 children and the family cat! See shady seating link below.

Shady Trees

If you already have a suitable tree, yey! If not, you can plant one – or more to make a small, shady copse filled with dappled sunlight.

Planting large mature trees in a heatwave is not grounds for success, so I’d suggest waiting until the late autumn – early spring period. Bare rooted trees are often cheaper than container grown so you may be able to afford a larger tree.

There’s ground preparation and aftercare to consider, as well as which is the most suitable tree species. It is possible to purchase and plant trees large enough to provide you with shade next summer. But before you get totally carried away, have a word with your neighbours who may not relish the sudden loss of light. And with your local tree officer, as there may be legal constraints to the variety and / or size of tree you can plant. For a holistic approach for choosing and using large specimens, do get in touch with Plews for a consultation.

Water features

Even the sound of water has a cooling affect, as we emotionally and psychologically react to the trickles and splashes.

Whether you’re after a large swimming pond or a small wildlife pond there is a cooling effect. The benefits of wildlife friendliness and swimming at home are extra!

Smaller water features will also help to cool your garden. Whether that’s a bubble fountain, wall hung feature with spout, or a bronze trickle fountain, there will be something to suit your taste and budget.

Some of the more portable, solar powered water features are easy to install. Larger ones, or those needing an electrician should be designed and installed correctly. As a permanent feature you want them to enhance your garden for the long-term and add value if / when you come to sell.

More plants, less hard landscaping

An experiment that you may be able to try out at home. Walk barefoot from house, to patio, to real grass lawn and back. Try to find sunny and shady areas of the surfaces for a fuller comparison.
Different types of stone often vary in temperature; as you’d expect, paler stones get less hot. Artificial turf and artificial decking get hot. Although some modern ones are less likely to be baking. Wooden decking is the least affected but will still heat up.

You can cool down these hard landscaping surfaces on a temporary basis by watering them. (Think of swilling the decks of a ship with sea water) However, that is a waste of clean water, so why not use grey water? This will bring down the temperature.

However, your garden taken as a whole could be cooler if you have a larger proportion of plants than hard surfaces within it. This doesn’t just mean laying a grass lawn. A selection of different plant species will be far more effective. It has been scientifically proven that certain plants reduce the ambient air temperature around them. This can be as little as 1 – 2 degrees Celsius up to as much as 11 degrees with good leaf cover from trees.

Ways to Keep Cool in Your Garden – Quick and Temporary Tips and Ideas

Grow and eat cucumbers – the phrase “cool as a cucumber” is based in fact. The inside of a growing cucumber can be up to 20 times cooler than the air around it! Cucumbers also contain natural electrolytes so eating them will help keep you hydrated. I always carry some around when gardening in hot weather.
Do you grow an Aloe Vera as a houseplant? Take it outside with you, as this plant is particularly good at cooling the atmosphere around itself.
Place damp towels over a parasol or spray the parasol with water (unless its silk…)
Get an extra dog cooling mat to lie on. These cool you without needing to be frozen beforehand so are great to ‘grab and go’.
Gardening in hot weather – Obviously choose your time of day to garden when it’s cooler! This is better for the plants as well as for you. If they’re already suffering from heat stress, being pruned will not be helpful…A topic to return to, so we can look at ways of helping your plants to cope when the temperature fluctuates, or we have a heatwave.

There are no guarantees with the British weather. Despite a general rise in summer temperatures, the vagaries of our maritime climate ensure only one thing: If you’ve got up at 4am to water the garden, there’ll be a thunderstorm by lunchtime…