Decking - it's so passé

Just like the catwalk, the world of gardening has a clear definition of what's in and what's out each season. So if you've just laid the final plank of your three-tier decking complex, I'm afraid I've got bad news - it's no longer "now".

Only one plot out of the 20 show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show this week featured it. As Bob Sweet, Chelsea's project director, said: "We are slightly relieved that the long trend towards decking has had its day." This summer's fashion, you see, is all about flowers, foliage, atmospheric idylls.

So what replaces decking? Well, this may come as a shock, but grass. Lawns have never really been considered appropriate for most London gardens (mowers take up so much storage space), but now you don't have to mow. Billowing, unkempt and tousled, our grassy plots should teem with wild grasses, cowslips, poppies and ox-eye daisies, according to those in the know.

If you must insist on a hard surface, limestone is still fine ("Phew," sigh hundreds of Hempel-garden inspired Notting Hill home owners), but do give the gaudily hued mulches of last year a big swerve.

The return to lawns and wild flowers isn't necessarily great news for armchair horticulturists whose main inspiration is gardening expert Rachel de Thame's smile - the new "look" could involve actually getting your hands dirty. In terms of flowers, aim high. Anything tall with a cottage-garden twist is spot on: lupins; delphiniums, giant angelica and self-seeders such as aquilegias, foxgloves and bronze fennel.

Eco-aware is great too, but if you're not quite up to installing a reed-bed sewage system, then maybe Mediterranean-style planting will make your eco-conscience better by not demanding so much watering.

Forget "patio pots" - the only container gardening now allowed is in clear glass or Perspex containers. These are a neat way of bridging the modern with the back-to-nature ("You can see the roots!"). Furniture, too, gets natural. Out go those futuristic metal chairs and tables and in come untreated oak benches and outdoor tables, preferably with a herb planter built in.

Indeed, wood is the new metal. After several years of Norman Foster-worthy garden structures, you should be erecting rickety lean-tos, tree houses and even wattle-and-daub willow shelters (thank you, Prince Charles).

On the accessory front, I'm afraid you must say goodbye to that gas-powered patio heater. They do an OK job, but it's hard not to shudder at memories of that over-chilled salad outside Pret A Manger. If you must have outdoor heaters, a Mexican chiminea (a portable fireplace in a pot) is still allowed - just.

Lastly, if you want a water feature, it has to work for its space. Why should a £30,000 koi carp have the pleasure of swimming in a pool when you could have the same? Install a slightly naff hot-tub, plant right up to the edges of it, shoehorn in a few Mediterranean cypresses, and do like Chelsea Garden Show entrants Stonegate and call it an Aegean Spa.