What Does Your Shed Mean to You?

So that's another year ticked off and let's be honest, it was not a vintage one in the garden! That said, it had its moments, and let's be honest that's what gardens are really all about - how many can you get throughout the year!

Talking of moments, I did get to see the year out fulfilling a dream that we have carried for many years. Mrs Frost and myself were invited to BBC 2’s Jools’ Annual Hootenanny! I do tend to bang on about life only really being about memories and that one is up there in the night out cloud!! An amazing evening with a room full of incredibly talented people. On top of all that I found out I am Ruby Turner’s favourite gardener (I love my job)! It’s interesting that so many people from the music world are drawn to gardening, I do think there is a huge connection between the two and it's a world I constantly dip into for inspiration, but more about that another time.

We move on, another year and the first project of the year, which is normally the most important for me. I do love one to help carry me through the first couple of months.

Although I spend a lot of my life now sat designing, I have always loved the real physical process of creation. I’m not sure if it's the way I trained;  gardener, landscaper and then in design but there is something incredibly satisfying about it. Sketching, planning, detailing, the selecting of materials, gathering your tools and making something.

So let's crack on!

You probably worked out from the title, the first project of the year is a new shed which is going in my front garden the place I grow my veg, fruit and cut flowers. So at first glance the job seems a simple enough process, but I’m someone who thinks too many sheds are just overlooked in our gardens! They can be tucked behind a hedge, down the bottom of the garden, covered in climbers, why? It’s a bit like the view so many have of veg gardens, they need to be out of sight. Well I don’t see them that way; for me, the shed can be the heart of the garden and a real focal pull. It’s where so many gardening days start, well if you're lucky enough to have one.

I know at this point there will be some who think I have lost the plot, but bear with me. I did say I was just going to write about the things that fascinate and intrigue me!

I can remember as a kid, I just thought they were places of wonder. Even today if we are filming somewhere that has a shed you can guarantee one of the crew, who most know me quite well these days, says ‘Frosty you will love it in there’ and I do. For me they can say so much about a garden or person.

As a child, I would potter around behind my Grandpa helping (well probably not). His shed was a place that only he knew where something was. He was an engineer and could turn his hand to anything, that shed was the place I saw my first workmate, it blew my mind! About a mile up the road was the home of my Grandad and his shed was a different world, you could have eaten your dinner off the floor. I would turn up there and he would always keep the offcuts of timber and a few nails which would keep me busy for hours.

Interestingly both of these sheds were visible from the house!

Funny what you remember. Then years later on the parks department, the park keepers' sheds were for me, not just about work but places of friendship and conversations that helped shape my younger life.

My eldest boy has taken that love of simple buildings to another level and he is only a few months away from qualifying as an architect and he’s helping with this project, so we have been playing with different ideas. He has a curious mind and is a great lad to chat to. I enjoy his take on things. He is finding his way with life, so I asked him...

“So son, do you think a shed is just a shed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I love a shed and think they are more than just sheds, the relationship we have with our sheds just fascinates me.”

“Yes I suppose people do. Maybe it's about needing a space of our own? Or you getting away from mum?”

He then said, “what do you think they are?”

“Somewhere to dream, play, potter, be creative. Just think about what has been created in sheds over the years up and down this country, literature, art, music, plays and even films. Think about the writers that have locked themselves away from everyday life in a shed. So much of our cultural fabric has been created in a shed, it’s mad really!”

At this point, he just smiled at me like only your kids can!

So why are so many of us drawn to our garden buildings?

I think in its simplest terms my boys right we do like a little space of our own. We need also at times to just get away from people but I do also think so many of us yearn for that simpler connection to life.

Over the last 20-odd years I have had a small garden office with a close connection to the garden and what it has made me realise that it's not just the building in a garden; it drives how the garden works. I love them to be part of my designs, a focal pull. It's not just the shed itself but how you get there!

That walk in the morning to the place is very important for me.

It's always been the place for me to take myself away from the noise of life. It's full of books, music, plus things that have caught my eye over the years or bits that mean something to me. I feel at ease out there, I love early mornings in the summer, so my little building faces east and soaks up the morning sun, it feels good. But it's not just where you place it, it's what it is constructed from, plus how it's detailed. It does feel a little timeless, which suits the garden. The green roof adds another dimension and works on so many levels. One of my favourites is the sound of the birds pottering around above me when I'm working below. Some of the details from the building are picked up in different features around the garden, this just knits together everything together: it is comfortable and it connects me to the garden.

I was in my early twenties when I trained in design with Professor David Stevens and although I never really engaged at school, when I met David it was as if he turned a light on. He was the first person to really make me explore the more arty side of my character. I loved the way he spoke about design, he changed so much for me. He was really the first person to encourage me to express ideas and expose myself on paper. He also introduced me to the designers he admired, one of them being Frank Lloyd Wright. I started soaking up all I could about the renowned architect and so much of what he spoke about blew my mind, his approach to architecture. Wright believed that architecture could be transformative, the idea that the total aesthetic can enhance society’s well being.

He said: “buildings like people must first be sincere, they must be true”. Architecture is not just about buildings, it's about nourishing the lives of those within them.

It's something that has stayed with me and believe to be true of gardens so anything I add to a garden needs to bring more than just the physical. I love Wright's idea of organic building from within to out, the idea of harmony with its time, place, and the people that it is created for. He would never look as anything as an individual element; this man would not just design the home, but so many things in it .

I know that might all sound a little over the top when we are talking about designing a garden building, but in truth if you can connect all the elements and it works with your everyday life, you will have created a special place. So I have one that is the place I go to design, and now I need a place that I can store my tools, do my potting though the season and somewhere where I can pick up my chisels and carve over the winter months. But it will become so much more.

As Frank Lloyd Wright once said

“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”