Garden rooms grow interest

Dean Fosdick, Associated Press

Friday, April 13, 2007

One of the latest trends in garden-room design serves to demonstrate that property owners can't get enough of a good thing.

If one room is good, then more are better.

Multiple garden rooms are being developed with different themes to satisfy different members of the family, said Emily Nolting, an ornamental-plant and landscaping specialist with Kansas State University Research and Extension in Manhattan.

Over the last three years, said Nolting, who teaches outdoor-room design and landscaping, "I'm seeing a lot of expansion here - people growing into multiples. The rooms are becoming like coordinated wallpaper. Each is a little different but they all work together."

Basically, a garden room is a defined outdoor space with a general theme, much like indoor rooms: dining room/kitchen, entertainment center or reading/knitting retreat.

"Garden rooms started by being very basic. They were private sanctuaries for the most part. Now they're extensions of our indoor living space," Nolting said.

"They're more sophisticated in the use of accessories and plant varieties. Because they're so close (to the house) they can be monitored more carefully. People are more interested in trying uncommon plants and finding things that are more difficult to grow."

It isn't unusual to see garden rooms set aside specifically as children's play areas, as outdoor kitchens equipped with stainless-steel barbecue sets running into the thousands of dollars, or as dining and entertainment centers with space for tables large enough to seat 10 or more, Nolting said.

About half of the gardens she's seeing have multiple rooms now.

And it's a changeable feast, she said, with people planting different colored flowers every year, and opting for more shady garden rooms now, instead of sunny as they were at first.

"An entire industry has emerged focused on creating just the right garden room accessory, Nolting said. "You complement things outdoors as you would indoors. Matching napkins. Bronze statuary. Candles and fountains. They're all very much in demand."

Among the fastest sellers in lawn furnishing this season are larger pieces built from easy-care materials, said Sheryl King, a spokeswoman for Laneventure, in Conover, N.C., manufacturers of wicker furniture.

"We've got a farm table and bench, for example, that will seat 10 people on either side," King said. "That's selling well."