BROADVIEW SHADING SOLUTIONS

Stylish outdoor area for popular Wimborne pub

One of our most favourite past-times is undoubtedly sitting in a beer garden enjoying a cold one but when the great British weather intervenes that can soon become a soggy affair. Not if you opt for The Old Inn near Wimborne as your public house of choice!

Thanks to locally based Broadview Shading Solutions, guests visiting the pub based in the pretty village of Holt can now enjoy their food and drink inside their new, allweather enclosed terrace area.

Wanting to protect their customers from the rain, and provide a warm, cosy area where they could enjoy their visit in comfort, the owners of The Old Inn approached Broadview to come up with a solution. Being at the front of the property, the new outside space would also need that all-important kerb appeal.

Having provided outdoor cover solutions for the likes of Rick Stein Restaurants, The Sandbanks Hotel, and Dorset brewery pub chain Hall and Woodhouse, the team at Broadview drew upon all of their experience to propose an innovative, unique, fully weather-adaptable outside covered area.

The team, led by Director Ian Pratt, proposed two large parasols that would provide enough outside space so the number of tables would be financially viable, yet maintain the social distancing measures required by current government Covid laws. The two parasols, in a vibrant turquoise, bring a splash of stylish colour to the front of the pub.

To accompany the parasols, Broadview installed vertical guillotine glass to serve as a wind and rain barrier. The staff at The Old Inn are able to lower or raise the glass in line with weather conditions, and heating and lighting have been built into the parasol structures - all to bring optimum comfort to their guests.

If you’d like to discuss the idea of transforming the outside space of your pub, restaurant, or hotel, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at Broadview. Like we did for The Old Inn at Holt, we’ll be able to come up with a bespoke solution designed specifically for your needs. Please call us on 01202 67012 or visit our website www. outdoor-shading.co.uk

“Our new covered outdoor seating area has enabled us to increase our trade by 100% as we’ve created an extra 44 covers outside. The effort we’ve made has been appreciated by our clientele and we’ve had nothing but positive feedback. Our thanks go to Broadview for helping us to smarten up our outside area.”

- SIMON PICKUP, OWNER

CONTACT

01202 679012

sales@broadview.co.uk VISIT

www.broadview.co.uk LOCATION

57 Hatchpond Road, Nuffield Industrial Estate, Poole, BH17 0JZ

6

ways to get your garden party-ready for summer

Award-winning garden designer Chris Beardshaw offers tips on planting, lights and show-stopping centrepieces.

With lockdown restrictions easing, there’s likely to be a lot of entertaining going on in back gardens throughout summer.

So, is your garden party-ready – where guests will be able to sit in comfort, savour the beautiful plants around them, and enjoy the atmosphere late into the night?

Of course, your own home-grown cut flowers will always pretty up a table, while sprigs of lavender or other herbs could add a scented accent to your place settings.

“All the research shows there’s a generation of gardeners, who have been exposed to the opportunity of getting outside, growing plants and experiencing the green world around them as a result of being locked-down,” says award-winning garden designer, Chris Beardshaw.

“One of the ways to keep that focus going is to provide opportunities in our gardens for increased socialising and increased sharing in the garden. People can enrich their garden without it becoming hardcore gardening.”

Beardshaw, who is supporting Readly, an online subscription service to consumer magazines including major gardening titles, offers the following tips…

Plant a riot of colour “Plant up containers of colour. Take any container – basically if it has a hole in the bottom and you can put gravel and compost into it and stick it somewhere with light, you can grow something,” says Beardshaw.

“Choreograph those containers – perhaps with colour coordination, or with particular design approaches which suit the rest of your garden or your interiors or particular passion – so you get that instant colour creating a wow factor.

“Of course, the best range of plants to use for this are the annuals, the live-fast die-young plants, and shortterm perennials such as dahlias and chrysanthemums, or perhaps bulbs like galtonias and leucanthemums. They create a chic, stylish look.”

Add subtle lighting “In my own garden, we don’t shy away from subtle lighting. We have old-fashioned festoon-style lightbulbs, which are solar powered and have little LEDs in them.

“They hang from some of the trees, shrubs and bushes to give a moonlight wash, a subtle extension of the internal lighting of the house.” Create ambience “Make sure you’ve got cushions and blankets and throws, which really extend internal furnishings into the great outdoors. Corral seats around a firepit or under a parasol, where people can feel a bit more at home and a bit more willing to sit outside later in the evening and listen to the way nature is putting itself to bed, and maybe owls and other creatures making themselves heard.”

Make a floral ice bowl centrepiece “If you have two bowls which are interlocking (one smaller than the other), you can pour water between the two, then put it into the freezer and as it starts to freeze, layer on the petals like geraniums, cistus and nasturtiums as a veneer, and then keep topping up with water between the two bowls.

“When your guests arrive, you remove the inner bowl (by filling it with warm water), upturn the bigger bowl and you then have a complete iced bowl decorated with petals.

“You could fill it with fruit or ice cream as the entertaining takes place. It’s a great summer centrepiece.”

Wow guests with wildlife “Choose plants which are more biodiverse and wildlifefriendly, with more open flower, things like cistus for instance, anthemis, the wonderful daisy flowers, an advertising hoarding for insects.

“Angelica is also very good, along with alliums and astrantias, where you have cluster flowers that are bringing in insects. You’ll not only see beautiful butterflies but also night-time moths.”

Enjoy home-grown party food “Growing your own is a fantastic experience of gardening, with the rich flavours and satisfaction you get, and you’ll also have a knock-on admiration from anyone you invite in, as they munch on your lettuce or rocket, or fresh strawberries warmed by summer sunshine. Your guest will be in love with your dining style forever. “If you are growing produce in containers, go for short-rooted varieties. So if you are growing carrots or beetroot, go for the dwarf types; if you are growing salads, go for the cut-and-come-again varieties, where you can harvest them and they’ll keep growing back relentlessly.

“If you do have a glasshouse, conservatory or porch, you can grow things like peaches. A home-produced peach is like nothing else. You might not get many of them, but they are sweet, juicy and delicious.”

Visit readly.com/gardening for more information.

Words by Hannah Stephenson, PA Photos credit: Alamy/PA