Recycled steel garden fires thriftily recycle garden wastes - instead of wasting butane on outdoor space heating

This blog and this website are about high quality designer products for gardens. In the long term, high quality provides the best value because it gives the most use and the most pleasure. We are therefore attracted to thrifty garden design, with ‘thrifty’ meaning ‘a reluctance to spend money unnecessarily’. If we have to spend money, we do it. But if we can do things in a thrifty way –  we like it. Thrifty garden design is related to 

• recycle garden design
• green garden design 
• sustainable garden design

But it is not the same as any of them and it has a very distinghished pedigree. Composting is an ancient garden practice and was done for thrifty reasons. Using local materials was often for thrifty reasons. So was using local plants. Though happy to do what what we can to recycle materials, support a green agenda and save  the planet, we are even happier to work as our gardening predecessors have always worked: thriftily, conscientiously and with restrained good taste. So look at the below  photograph. It shows a thrifty use of garden ‘waste’ to make a beautiful pavilion. We like it. The above image is of a garden firebowl, by Ungers, which recycles garden wood.

Crinklecrankle Fibreglass Planters  are elegant, durable, good for water conservation and a thrifty choice in terms of value for money.

Please let us know of any other beautiful and useful items – we would  be pleased to sell them!

Thrifty and sustainable garden design - recycling branches, rushes and reeds

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (1895-1983 was one of the earliest and greatest green activists and designers. He is best known for the Geodesic Dome. This is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure. It is based on a network of great circles (geodesics) lying on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the entire structure. As a garden designer, there is no better way to demonstrate one’s green credentials than to have a geodesic greenhouse in your garden.

  

 

 

Firebowl designed by John T. Unger

This handsome firebowl was made out of recycled steel. Unlike the trashy barbecue bombs sold in garden hardware stores, it always looks good – and especially when a fire is burning. AND the designer has adopted a ‘thrifty green’ approach by using recycled materials to make a highly durable firebasket.

We thank the designer, John T. Unger, for the image and send him our support. Someone copied his design. John wrote a cease and desist letter. The copyist responded by going to court to have John’s existing copyrights overturned – arguing that because there is a functional element, the firebowls shouldn’t be eligible for copyright. He now threatens an expensive lawsuit, hoping that John will not be able to afford it. We hope John will fight and win.