Collection: Garden Buildings & Shelters

Garden Buildings and Shelters

A greenhouse rarely stands alone for long. Tools accumulate, compost needs somewhere dry, and the terrace beside the house turns out to be unusable for half the year. Garden buildings and shelters cover the structures that solve those problems: sheds, patio canopies, conservatories and storage units.

Each adds one of two things. Either covered space you can use, or dry space you can store in. Working out which you actually need is the first decision, and it is worth making before looking at models, because the two lead in different directions.

Storage: Sheds

A shed keeps tools, machinery and bulk compost out of the growing space. That matters more than it sounds, because a greenhouse used for storage loses the floor and staging that made it worth building. Damp compost bags under the bench also harbour slugs through winter.

• Pressure treated timber suits a traditional garden and can be modified or extended later.
• Powder coated steel resists rot entirely and needs no annual treatment.
• Moulded plastic is the lightest to assemble and the simplest to keep clean.

Roof type, door width and base requirement vary considerably between models. Door width is the specification most often regretted, since a mower that will not fit through the opening makes the whole building useless. The shed range lists these for each model.

Covered Space: Canopies and Conservatories

A patio canopy covers a terrace or seating area so it stays usable in rain and strong sun. Fixed frames give permanent cover; retractable models fold back when you want the sky. Fabric and polycarbonate roofs differ in how much light reaches the space beneath.

A conservatory is a larger commitment. It is a glazed room with a solid floor and a proper roof, attached to the house or standing alone, and it has to suit people as well as plants. Glazing, ventilation and heating all need specifying with that in mind.

Bases and Anchoring

Every structure here needs ground preparation, and the requirement differs by type. A shed needs a level, drained base that will not move as the ground settles. A canopy fixed to a house wall needs sound masonry to bolt into. A conservatory needs foundations.

Anchoring is separate from the base in each case. The same ground fixings used for greenhouses cover most shed and canopy applications, and fitting during assembly is easier than afterwards.

Planning Around What You Already Have

Think about where each structure casts shade before siting it. A shed placed south of the greenhouse will take light from it for half the year, which is a mistake that only becomes obvious in the second winter.

Access routes matter too. A path wide enough for a barrow between shed, greenhouse and beds saves more time over a season than most equipment does.