Creating a tranquil oasis with Trex at BBC Gardeners World Live

This summer our Trex decking was on display at BBC Gardeners’ World Live, hosted at The NEC, Birmingham. Our long-term collaborators Halcyon Days Garden Design created a tranquil garden oasis for the show – with our Trex Transcend Island Mist decking at the heart of the design.

Here, Halcyon Days’ Andy Tudbury explains how he came up with the beautiful concept.

Designing a garden is a little like putting together a jigsaw puzzle: you have the final picture in mind, and the challenge is finding the right pieces to make it a reality.

My ethos when designing gardens is to create a calm, relaxing space where people can escape their everyday life: ‘Halcyon Days’ means an idyllic time, when all is peaceful and serene, and that’s what I wanted to create in this garden.

The rest of the design flowed from there. The circular shapes automatically create a relaxed, easy-going environment with no harsh edges, to create a perfectly tranquil outdoor space.

The use of the reflecting pool not only made the garden seem larger, but by matching the size of the deck and the pool I was able to visually balance both elements, which contributed to the relaxed, contemplative mood of the space.

With contrasting white gravel and the black reflecting pool, the decking needed to complement the monochrome palette of the ‘hard landscaping’ and provide a striking backdrop for the pastel-shaded planting.

Trex Transcend decking in Island Mist was the ideal choice, providing a canvas for the green, burgundy, cream, yellow and blue foliage.

I used stained glass panels as focal points, with patterns that reflected and complemented the garden’s shape and colours to striking effect. I like using unusual items in my designs, and the hammock seemed like the perfect piece in a garden that was all about relaxation.

I’ve been an advocate of Arbordeck products for a long time, and this garden was partly inspired by my first show garden which I developed back in 2007, featuring a raised circular timber deck.

I was keen to create something new and fresh that would suit modern tastes. Using Trex allowed me to update the design for a modern audience, and the ease of cutting and installation meant that the distinctive circular design could become a reality.

Ease of use and low maintenance are key garden design trends at the moment: I wanted to show that it’s possible cultivate an oasis of calm that you can enjoy without having to worry about the upkeep. That’s why I chose to use Trex decking: unlike timber, it requires no treatment and practically zero maintenance.

The garden gave me the opportunity to showcase the possibilities for a low-maintenance outdoor space, even with a relatively modest budget. The feedback from visitors at the show was phenomenal, and I found myself fielding lots of questions about Trex as people loved the colour, the unusual shape, and were very interested to hear that it’s so easy to maintain.

This was my first time using Trex decking, but it certainly won’t be the last.