Gardening

Grab the gear to get that garden party started

Transform your outdoor space into a sanctuary of comfort and fun – summer 2023 is the season of the hi-tech, technicolour garden party, writes Anna Shelswell-White

According to Google Trends, searches for ‘outdoor furniture Ireland’ are up 140 per cent since early April

Picture the scene. It’s the middle of July. Temperatures in Europe are off the charts again, but soggy old Ireland is only getting a little of the splash – a forecasted hot weekend here and there; a random 26°C Tuesday that nobody expected.

And yet, there’s something about the mere mention of summer that rouses our optimism. We cannot resist the annual urge to drive en masse to suburban retail parks and garden megastores to ...