A few weeks ago, I was at one of the big home stores, stocking up on some gardening supplies, and happened to notice the gardening sheds for sale. Various boxy prefab structures, by and large constructed of real wood but some made of composite or vinyl, were lined up along the edge of the parking lot like so many bits of flotsam on a beach. Expensive flotsam. When I went over to investigate, I was shocked to discover that the majority of these structures, 8′ by 10′ or so, were $1,500 or more.
Personally, I wouldn’t accept one of these structures on my property for payment, let alone purchase one, and I began to think about why my reaction was so viscerally negative. It wasn’t so much that they were ugly (they were—all built in mock country-barn style), but that they were also expensive. It seems to me that if you’re going to spend more than a thousand dollars on a structure for your garden, you should at least get something that doesn’t look like it was dropped randomly by some Oz-like tornado into the middle of your garden.
So what should you look for when choosing stylish sheds? First of all, style. Those of you who’ve read my column on a regular basis know that I continually advocate making sure every element in your garden is cohesively chosen to conform to the style of your house. If you have a New England Colonial, your shed should share that theme. If your house is a Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired ranch, your shed should be, too.