Whilst this year has been unpredictable for suppliers and retailers alike, Ascalon hasn’t lost its knack for predicting garden trends and providing customers with beautiful new wrought iron garden furniture designs. 2023 sees the arrival of a host of inspiring products, including old favourites in exciting new colourways, as well as striking new pieces.

NEW COLOURWAYS FOR BEST-SELLING MARLBOROUGH AND AVALON SETS

Following on from the overwhelming popularity of the Marlborough 3pc and 5pc dining sets in Antique Blue Rust and Pewter, Ascalon have added two striking new alternatives to their offering. The Marlborough bistro set and bench are now available in Vintage Green and Bronze, presenting further sales opportunities for this best-selling range. 

Meanwhile the Avalon range is now available in more colours than ever before. Ascalon have been guided by the popularity of their Umber and Pewter colourways and have created a charming charcoal grey colourway for the Avalon bistro set and bench, alongside an additional option of a soft vintage green for the bistro set.

EVEN MORE ROMANTIC CHARM IN THE BLAISDON RANGE

Building on the storming success of the Blaisdon 5pc Dining Set in 2022, Ascalon have made further complementary additions to the range. This year sees the return of the gorgeous Blaisdon swingseat, which was the cause of much interest (and celebration) at Solex in July. The show also saw the launch of the full tree seat in cream, whose elegant swirl design is the perfect match existing products in the range.

HOORAY FOR HERITAGE: BUYER FAVOURITE RETURNS WITH A NEW LOOK 

Seasoned buyers may remember the charming Heritage range, which previously dominated the market alongside the Hampton. With the rise in demand for both grey colourways and larger dining sets, Ascalon have revisited this classic range, launching improved designs of the bistro set, carver dining set, and bench at Solex in July.

For more information about Ascalon’s latest furniture ranges, you can visit www.ascalon.co.uk

With ecological concerns and rewilding dominating garden media, gardeners are increasingly looking to ‘wild’ their garden, with wildflowers, grasses and ferns featuring prominently in this new ‘rewilded’ aesthetic. 

This trend is taking a firm hold over a substantial section of the garden décor market, with consumers increasingly looking for products to complement their wild gardens. Botanical prints, natural colours, and plant silhouettes are playing a key role in creating this new ‘organic’ look. 

To help you keep ahead of the trend, Ascalon’s buying team have pulled together a few of their favourite products to fulfil this look in 2023. 

Wildflowers:

From ‘no mow’ verges to ‘seed bomb’ stocking fillers, wildflowers are on everyone’s radar, and form a key part of the ‘wild garden’ trend. Here are a few of our favourite wildflower inspired designs: 

1. 2504 - Cornflower Wall Art
2. 2390 - Daisy Box Seatpad
3. 2547 - Wildflower Candle Holder
4. 3057 - Flower Stake (L)
5. 3066 - Flower Head Stake
6. 3075 - Poppy Head Stake
7. 3177 - Allium Silhouette with Leaves

Ferns:

Ferns have been a breakout star of the 2022 season, and that star looks set to continue rising in 2023. No longer limited to the plant area, fern motifs can be found across outdoor seating, stakes, wall art and more. Our top picks for this trend include our best-selling fern stakes and seatpads:

1. 3471 - Fern Seatpad
2. 3109 - Fern Wall Art (L)
3. 2375 - Dark Fern Benchpad
4. 3176 - Cut Leaf Stake
5. 3171 - Fern Stake
6. 3173 - Fern Stake

Botanicals:

Ferns aren’t the only non-flowering plants making their way into decorative trends – mushrooms are having a moment, alongside a general enthusiasm for ‘leafy’ designs. Here are a handful of our botanical-inspired lines, including our new mushroom stakes:

1. 3469 - Leaf Round Seatpad
2. 2505 - Leafy Branch Wall Art
3. 2514 - Mushroom Stake
4. 2521 - Curved Mushroom Stake
5. 4971 - Woodland Trellis
6. 4962 - Woodland Trellis

The wild garden trend isn’t only limited to giftware and accessories. Botanical themes can be found across our furniture collections, including our popular woodland range:

1. 4220 - Woodland Arch
2. 4079 - Woodland Bench

To find more gorgeous garden designs, discover our full range at www.ascalon.co.uk

With Christmas arriving into stores as we read, many garden buyers are already planning ahead for the new spring season. Those looking for beautiful garden furniture, structures, and huge selection of garden ornaments and giftware - including decorative stakes, windchimes, planters, mirrors and more - need look no further than the Ascalon Design Spring 2023 catalogue. 

The catalogue features a host of gorgeous wrought iron garden furniture, including bistro sets, benches, arbours and more. Highlights include new additions to the popular Marlborough and Avalon ranges.

Alongside furniture comes a stunning selection of garden arches, gazebos, gates and tunnels, to fulfil all your customers’ garden structural needs. Ascalon’s garden structures come in a huge variety of sizes and colourways, so there is plenty on offer for any garden centre. 

And of course, no Ascalon catalogue would be complete without a vast range of garden ornaments, from the full selection of their best-selling garden stakes, to extensive collections of garden mirrors, windchimes, galvanised planters, cast iron ornaments and much, much more.

Want to see more? Email sales@ascalon.co.uk to request your copy now!

With inflation on the rise and the cost-of-living crisis deepening as we move towards 2023, the industry is understandably nervous about investing in stocks of expensive garden furniture.

On the one hand, as disposable incomes fall, many households will shun overseas trips in favour of holidaying at home. As we saw during the pandemic, this could be a factor in driving consumer attention back towards their gardens, fuelling sales of garden furniture. However, with many premium sets costing thousands of pounds at retail prices, there is concern that shoppers will no longer have the cash to purchase such high-ticket items.

Ascalon Design’s wrought iron furniture products offer a fantastic middle-ground between premium quality and affordability. With the average bistro set retailing at around £350, and a bench coming in at around £250, the lower price points allow these products to remain attractive to financially cautious customers. Meanwhile, Ascalon’s classic ‘English Garden’ aesthetic ensures that all products retain a sense of aspirational, luxurious design which belies their affordable price points. 

This balance between elegant design and affordability continues throughout Ascalon’s garden structure offering, with arches retailing at around £175, and gazebos and tunnels available at a wide variety of price points.

A further attraction of Ascalon’s furniture and garden structures is their duel purpose. Rather than being restricted to their roles as dining, seating and support, Ascalon products are known for being highly decorative, and are purchased as much for their look as they are for their functionality. This means the market for these designs is significantly larger than the average furniture product, as these benches, bistro, and dining sets are often purchased and used in addition to existing functional products, rather than just as replacements. 

To find out more about Ascalon’s furniture and garden structures, visit www.ascalon.co.uk

Beginning as a Gen-Z lead internet ‘aesthetic’, the ‘Cottagecore’ look is now a staple of interior and lifestyle trends, having been given a catalytic push by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Focused on nostalgic ideals of simple, countryside living, with a visual emphasis on traditional English country gardens, floral patterns, and romantic designs, cottagecore is now everywhere, from Country Living to Homes and Gardens.

With cottagecore now evolving into ‘gardencore’, and the focus shifting further onto gardening, now is the perfect time to capitalise on the popularity of this aesthetic. To help you keep ahead of the trend, Ascalon’s buying team have pulled together a few of their favourite products to fulfil the cottagecore look in 2023:

The cottagecore aesthetic is all about whimsical, romantic design, which makes our Blaisdon and Avalon ranges the perfect products to fulfil this trend. Characterised by graceful spirals and a timeless classic cream colourway, these furniture items are a must have for anyone looking to create that classic cottage garden look:

1. 4077 - Full Tree Seat
2. 4206 - Blaisdon Swingseat
3. 4223 - Avalon Bench in Cream
4. 1026 - Blaisdon 5pc Dining Set

Floral, cozy fabrics are an essential part of the cottage core look, and Ascalon has them in abundance. Focused on soft tones of blue, beige and pinks and featuring natural designs of leaves and flowers, our gorgeous seatpads, benchpads and boxpads are the perfect complement to romantic garden furniture:

1. Rosebud Collection
2. Oak Collection
3. Linen Look Collection
4. Stone Rose Collection

Encapsulating the shabby-chic, ever-so-slightly-magical look of the English cottage garden, these garden décor items are the perfect way for your customers to create a cottagecore aesthetic, with an emphasis on rural living and a little bit of enchantment:

1. 2534 - Wall Mounted Window Pot Holder
2. 2428 - La Maison des Fleurs Churn Planter
3. 3957 - Vintage Keys with Padlock
4. 3902 - Vintage Lantern on Crook
5. 2904 - Cast Iron Fairy
6. 2946 - Secret Garden Sign
7. 3655 - Cast Iron Hen
8. 3654 - Cast Iron Cockerel
9. 2522 - Robins on Fork Stake

To find even more cottagecore ready products, discover our full range at  www.ascalon.co.uk

Although it can be easy to overlook the humble garden stake, it’s best not to underestimate the revenue-generating potential of a strong decorative stake offering in the garden centre. In fact, sales of garden stakes have been steadily increasing in recent years, and these products are now a crucial cornerstone of garden ornament and giftware sales.

Decorative stakes are the perfect multi-purpose product. Not only do they fulfil an important function in the garden, supporting climbing plants as they wind their way upwards, but they are also a popular and affordable way of adding decoration and personality to a garden space. 

One of the great advantages of decorative stakes is their popularity throughout the year. Of course, garden stakes fly out of the door in late spring and early summer, when many climbing plants are beginning their ascents. However, due to their decorative nature, the appeal of these products is not just limited to the spring. 

Ascalon Design’s botanical designs allow end-customers to create an ever-blooming garden, even in the depths of winter. From colourful flower stems to brighten up gloomy January pots, to elegant silhouettes and wirework to add depth and structure to winter borders, these decorative stakes are perfect for keeping the garden looking delightful even when nothing is flowering. A healthy collection of these stakes on the shop-floor is therefore a wonderful way to boost revenue in the colder months of the year.

Decorative stakes are also a great gift option for Christmas, with Ascalon’s robin stakes, like the ones below, seeing a huge surge in their already significant popularity in the run-up to the festive season. 

With a huge selection of styles and sizes available, Ascalon Design offers the leading collection of decorative garden stakes in the U.K. From stylised alliums to robins on forks, from butterflies to birds with bells, there is something for every garden centre and every customer profile. 

With their popularity at an all-time high, these gorgeous designs sell out fast, so make sure to stock up online at www.ascalon.co.uk and email sales@ascalon.co.uk to get your 2023 preorder placed with Ascalon’s friendly sales team. 

With consumers increasingly focused on creating garden ‘rooms’, structural pieces provide the building blocks to fulfil this trend, leading to increased demand from consumers. Ascalon has recorded a marked growth in sales of their wrought iron garden structures - including arches, gates, tunnels, and gazebos - over the 2022 season, a trend which looks set to continue into 2023. 

Larger structures have seen particularly strong sales growth this year, despite the faltering economic climate. Ascalon’s Sales and Marketing Manager, Minty Stokes-Rhys, comments: “We’ve seen a really significant increase in demand for large garden structures over the past year, with our Parisienne and Marseilles gazebos proving a huge hit at Spring Fair. Many of our customers initially think of these products as fantastic as display pieces, but I always advise customers to make sure you have at least one out the back - we frequently receive replacement requests from shop floor staff telling us they’ve just finished building their structure and a customer has walked in and bought it…”

Gazebos, in particular, are increasing significantly in popularity, as customers seek to utilise them to create impactful dining areas, as well as create stunning focal points in their gardens. Ascalon’s breath-taking collection of gazebos is packed with unique and elegant pieces at affordable price-points, with a range of sizes available to fit any garden. 

Meanwhile, Ascalon’s collection of gates, arches and tunnels are versatile in their multipurpose nature. Whilst ably performing functional roles of adding support and structure in the garden, their highly decorative nature also makes them ornamental, allowing them to enhance the aesthetics of their setting. They enable customers to divide up their garden space, creating entrances and garden rooms, whilst also generating visual appeal. 

For more information about Ascalon’s ranges, visit www.ascalon.co.uk. 

Decorated walls with paintings, mirrors, and art have been a staple of homes since time immemorial, but the same cannot necessarily be said for gardens and outdoor spaces. Although wall art has long been a feature of gardens, it has, until recently, been a relatively acquired taste rather than a garden staple.

However, in a post-covid market, with gardens increasingly being treated as a fifth room, their decorative potential is being increasingly explored. More and more consumers are looking for ways to brighten up their outdoor spaces and stamp their personality on them, and many are turning to their fences and walls as a medium by which to do so. 

This trend towards treating the garden as another room to decorate, along with a desire to maximise the potential of small outdoor spaces, has led to a huge demand for outdoor mirrors. However, buyer beware when it comes to the quality of the various ‘outdoor mirrors’ on offer in the trade market. Many of the mirrors currently marketed as suitable for use outdoors have not been specifically designed for this purpose, and are not suited to British weather conditions, leading to disintegrating backing and quick rusting. 

Ascalon Design has long been known for the quality of their outdoor mirrors, with an extensive selection of designs in a variety of shapes and colourways, ranging from gothic arches to trees of life. Crucially, all of Ascalon’s mirrors are designed specifically for outdoor use, and are, amongst other measures, treated with a rust-preventative layer underneath their colour coating. 

Alongside mirrors, sales of garden wall art are on the rise, as can be seen in the spike in demand for trees of life. Garden wall art is increasingly being treated as a comparable garden product to homeware’s paintings, posters and prints, with more and more ‘feature walls’ and ‘home galleries’ emerging on fences and boundary walls around the country. 

Ascalon’s extensive range of garden wall art offers something for everyone, from a large collection of trees of life to delicate floral pieces and leafy branches. Best-selling collections include ‘swallows’ and ‘butterflies’, which include a number of collectable ‘mix-and-match’ pieces, allowing end-customers to create their own gallery walls at home.

To find out more about Ascalon’s Garden Mirror and Wall Art collections, visit www.ascalon.co.uk 

From ‘bee hotels’ to pollinator seed packs, the gardening for wildlife movement has picked up huge momentum over the last few years, and environmental concerns are increasingly taking centre stage amongst garden consumers. This drive to protect insects such as bees and butterflies has led to a passion for pollinators which has permeated the design industry, driving a demand for bee and butterfly themed products across a range of categories. 

To help you fulfil this trend in garden décor, the buying team at Ascalon have pulled together a few of their favourite pollinator pieces to keep your customers buzzing with delight in 2023:

First up is our gorgeous collection of bee-themed garden décor items, which have soared up our sales rankings in 2022.

1. 2515 - Bee Drop
2. 2516 - Beehive Bell
3. 2519 - Bee Flower Stake
4. 2517 - Honeycomb with Bell

Filled with cheerful brown and yellow bees against a summery blue background, our new bee fabric is perfect for bee-lovers looking to brighten up garden furniture. Available in a square seatpad and a benchpad, it can be used on a wide variety of outdoor seating to make it both comfortable and stylish. 

1. 2543 - Square Seatpad, Bee Pattern
2. 2542 - Bench Seatpad, Bee Pattern

Bees aren’t the only pollinators proving popular with consumers. Our range of beautiful butterfly items have been flying off the shelves this year and sales look set to continue soaring in 2023.

1. 2523 - 50cm Wall Butterfly
2. 2527 - 35cm Wall Butterfly
3. 2525 - 50cm Wall Butterfly
4. 2526 - 35cm Wall Butterfly
5. 3144 - Hanging Butterfly Bird Dish
6. 3083 - 3 Butterfly Stake
7. 3082 - 5 Butterfly Stake

To find out more about our full range of gorgeous garden décor, visit www.ascalon.co.uk

For family-orientated Christmas decorations with garden-focused consumers in mind, look no further than Ascalon Design. 

Although Ascalon is widely known across the industry for their range of wrought iron garden furniture and structures, alongside an extensive collection of garden giftware, the company’s festive roots are often overlooked. Having begun as a supplier of artificial flowers in the early ‘90s, the company quickly moved into Christmas decorations, and has been creating timeless designs at affordable price-points ever since.

Known for their focus on natural materials such as wool felt and pinecones, as well as metal, Ascalon’s Christmas offering has a distinctly wholesome feel. With two generations of the founding Stokes-Rhys family at the helm, ‘family Christmas’ is at the heart of what they do. Their beautiful selections capture the imaginations of old and young alike, from berry wreaths for the traditionalists to dancing fairies and festive mice for anyone (both young and young-at-heart) looking for some Christmas magic. 

Rather than being entirely focused on the short-lived trends, Ascalon takes the same approach to their festive lines as they do their garden products – timelessness is a core part of their aesthetic. With 2023 collections ranging from ‘Woodland Yuletide’ to ‘Celestial’, their carefully curated ranges strike a perfect balance between tradition and trends, with years of experience informing each and every product on offer. 

One of the things which sets the company apart from other suppliers is the fact that the needs of garden centres are a core factor in range-building decisions. With the same management team overseeing both garden and festive buying, backed up by over 30 years of market understanding, product ranges are designed with garden centre consumers particularly in mind. This has led to two of Ascalon’s most successful ranges of 2022 – ‘Gardener’s Christmas’ and ‘Christmas for the Garden’, ranges which are set to become a core feature of Ascalon’s festive offering. 

Look out for Ascalon’s Festive 2023 launch coming very soon, and if you need stock now, head over to www.ascalon.co.uk to shop available products.