Planting Around an Outdoor Entertaining Area

An entertaining area is usually the part of a garden that gets designed last and used most. The paving goes in, the barbecue arrives, and the planting around it becomes whatever was already there. That is a shame, because the plants do more work in that space than anything else: they screen it, cool it, soften the hard surfaces, and in the right spots you can cook with them.

Here is how we would approach it, after 35+ years of growing plants for Sydney gardens.

Screening: get the height right, not just the plant

The most common mistake we see is choosing a screening plant by how it looks in the pot rather than by the height you actually need. Work out the sightline first. Stand where people will sit and look at what you want to block. Most of the time it is a neighbour's upper window or a fence line, and the answer is a plant that finishes at 3 to 4 metres, not a 10 metre tree that will be a problem in eight years.

For a narrow bed beside a deck, Pittosporum 'Green Pillar' and Syzygium 'Resilience' both hold a dense screen without needing much depth. Where there is more room, Viburnum odoratissimum fills out faster than almost anything else we grow. We have gone through the full list in our guide to the best hedging plants for Sydney gardens.

What not to plant near the barbecue

This is the part people rarely think about until they are sweeping up.

• Heavy leaf and bark droppers. Eucalypts and melaleucas are beautiful, but they shed constantly, and the litter lands on the bench, in the drinks and around a hot barbecue. Keep them away from the immediate area.
• Anything with a lot of volatile oil right beside a flame. Dry, oil-rich foliage close to a heat source is a poor combination. Plant it, just not overhanging the cooking spot.
• Fruiting species over paving. Lilly pilly berries and figs stain pavers and bring wasps to a seating area. Lovely plants, wrong position.
• Anything thorny at brush height along the path people carry plates down.

Smoke and radiant heat will also scorch foliage that sits directly above a barbecue. Give the cooking zone about a metre of clear air on the sides and keep the canopy above it open.

Herbs within arm's reach

If there is one thing worth planting deliberately near an entertaining area, it is a small herb bed within reach of where you cook. Not a full kitchen garden, just the things you grab mid-cook.

• Rosemary. Tough, drought-hardy, handles a hot paved spot better than almost anything, and it takes a hard trim.
• Bay. Slow, tidy, and happy in a pot for years.
• Thyme and oregano. Good in the gaps between pavers where nothing else survives.
• Garlic chives. Unfussy, and they flower well enough to earn their spot.

A note from the cooking side: woody herbs like rosemary and thyme are worth throwing straight onto the heat, but they fall through an open grate into the flame and burn before they do anything useful. They do far better laid on a hot solid surface, or dropped straight onto the coals of a charcoal kettle, where they smoulder and scent the food instead of flaring off. Same reason the prawns and the onions end up on the plate rather than the grate.

Cooling the space

Paving, decking and a running barbecue all radiate heat, and a western-facing entertaining area in Sydney can be genuinely unusable in February. Planting is the cheapest fix available.

A deciduous tree on the western side gives shade through summer and lets the sun back in over winter. Where there is no room for a tree, a climber on a frame does much of the same work in a fraction of the footprint. Massed planting on the western boundary also stops reflected heat coming off a fence or a wall in the late afternoon.

Keep it low maintenance

An entertaining area should not generate chores. Choose species that hold their shape without constant clipping, mulch properly so you are not weeding around the seating, and group plants by water need so the whole bed can run off one line.

Our plant finder will narrow things down by position, height and soil if you already know the spot you are filling, and natives are worth a look for the beds that get the least attention.

A simple planting plan

• Boundary: screening at the height your sightline actually needs.
• Western side: a deciduous tree or a climber on a frame for afternoon shade.
• Beside the cooking zone: herbs in pots or a raised bed, nothing overhanging.
• Around the seating: soft, low, non-fruiting planting that will not drop on the table.
• Between pavers: tough ground covers and creeping herbs.

Get those five zones right and the space works from the first summer, rather than the third.