Artisan Retreats at Chelsea Flower Show

There are various treats on store at this year's Chelsea Flower Show - Jo Thompson's delightful shedlike caravan, Plankbridge's shepherd's hut, the Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow - but we're looking forward in particular to seeing the Artisan Retreats section.

Five models of garden office and summerhouse structures provided by RHS Chelsea exhibitor The Malvern Collection will be on show in the Ranelagh Gardens section of the showground, each one decorated by well-known designers and artists. The idea is to provide inspiration for people to become shedworkers (or at the very least, do up their sheds a bit). According to the RHS, the five are:

 * ‘A Book Binder’s Workshop’ designed by Vicki Conran Full of interesting materials, papers, textiles and beautiful hand tools as well as a selection of books in varying stages of binding and casing.
* ‘Needlepoint Haven’ designed by Kaffe Fassett A peaceful environment designed for people to do needlework featuring yarns, canvases and examples of needlepoint plus a wing chair covered in needlepoint images of fruit, flowers and vegetables.
*‘Vintage Inspired Retreat’ designed by Orla Kiely Kiely's nostalgic retreat is a space for relaxing, thinking, reading and being inspired. It will be very colourful and filled with plant pots and vintage gardening books.
* ‘A Passementerie Passion’ designed by Annabel Lewis of VV Rouleaux Described as "a blaze of colour and bedecked with every kind of ribbon and trim". Garden furniture is used indoors with hanging baskets turned into chandeliers.
 * ‘Wild at Heart at Home’ designed by Nikki Tibbles Look out for comfortable armchairs, a woodburning stove, rugs, shelves of books and vases of roses. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Mushroom shed

Fancy working in a toadstool? One of the most intriguing garden shed structures at Grand Designs this year, the LOL from Lancashire based Outdoor Pods. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Francis Wheen's shed disaster

Biographer, essayist and Private Eye deputy editor Francis Wheen suffered what all shedworkers dread last month, the total destruction of his (two-storey) timber shed by fire. In addition to the garden office's demise, the flames also took with them his library of books, letters and other papers, including an unfinished novel and CDs. We mentioned it on the Shedworking Facebook page but didn't go into details here because they were so scanty. Filling us in on the detail is a nice piece on openDemocracy by Wheen's partner Julia Jones. It appears that the various electronic equipment may have caused the fire. Here's a snippet:

"The destruction of a library – or a lifetime time’s work (to date) – is a pivotal event. In Francis’s case I’m guessing that Friday 13 April 2012 will be felt as a demarcation point on many different levels – not least his (and our) attitude to paper. The neatly stacked print-out of his novel-in-progress could not ensure its survival any more than the back-up copy on the memory stick in his desk drawer. Cue: sudden family conversion to remote forms of storage. I use Dropbox: He is now emailing every day’s new work to a location somewhere in the vaults of the Google Empire."

More photos of the catastrophe at Do Authors Dream Of Electric Books and here's Wheen on Radio 4 discussing the nightmare himself.

listen to ‘"It merely burned down 5,000 books..." Francis Wheen on the destruction of his shed - The World at One, BBC Radio 4’ on Audioboo

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What are your rules of shedworking?

Edinburgh-based author and publishing guru Nicola Morgan is just about to join the growing worldwide ranks of shedworkers as she explains on her blog. Before the move, she asked her many readers to come up with new rules for how she should behave in her garden office (as well as actually name it). Suggestions so far have focused on what she shouldn't do/have, including not having internet access, no fizzy drinks, no shoes or chocolate, but having a kettle and fridge. But it got the Shedworking staff thinking about garden office dos and don'ts and we wondered what your suggestions would be? -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow

One to look out for at the Chelsea Flower Show this year is Patricia 'Aralia' Fox's Show Garden in association with Walworth Garden Farm and sponsored by RBS), Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow.

Patricia describes the garden as "an extension of the working office utilising unused urban rooftop space, turning it into a place of beauty. It is an inspiring, relaxing and yet thought provoking environment, in the midst of a concrete jungle". On the theme of 'technology meets tranquillity', in addition to a herbal tea bar, it will feature various modern technologies such as wi-fi, laptops, smartphones and tablets throughout the garden. "An office doesn’t need to be inside, nor does it need to have four walls," she says. "This is how our workplaces could look in tomorrow’s world - or so we wish!"

Conferences can be held in the lounge area under the weatherproof canopy where there will be a 3m x 3m video/projection screen. All the furniture in the garden - including contemporary hanging chairs - will be made using ‘up-cycled’ plastic materials and the decking will be bamboo.

 Follow the progress of the garden at its own blog which is particularly interesting for those of you keen on green roofs.

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Red Maple: shedworkers

Red Maple - an IT support and solutions provider based in the North East of England - not only supports the concept of mobile working, the firm's team is entirely home-based and the HQ is a garden office. Indeed, so successful has this arrangement been that the company, which has completed IT contracts in London, Dublin and China and specialises in working with SMEs and entrepreneurs is now expanding its workforce.

Speaking from his garden office on Tyneside, Red Maple's founder Mike Proud (pictured above) said: “If you’re going to sell something like mobile working, it makes sense to use it to its full potential – and the actual benefit is visible to the client. With everyone working from home, we can cut out the road miles from commuting to an office, and to a client site. And for those visits to client sites, we’re looking to trial the range of electric vehicles that are now coming out. We’re also working on a deal with a solar panel provider to offer staff discounts to those staff that can use it.

“If we can gain from new technologies and skills, it makes sense to pass that on to businesses within the North East and further afield, as well as providing employment opportunities.”

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Nuts and bolts: fitting out your garden office

Continuing our regularly irregular look at various bits and bobs of shedworking, today we're looking at the importance of garden office interior decor. While more and more people are embracing the shedworking lifestyle and using it to work from to set up their own businesses, staring at the same four walls day in day out can be rather boring so make sure you spruce the area up, just as you would do with your house.

How you decorate the interior is up to you (and we'd strongly recommend the book Shed Chic by Sally Coulthard as inspiration), but one possibility is to bring the greenery indoors. So consider co-ordinating your space with the outside environment, perhaps painting it green and bringing the vegetation inside with colourful plant pots and flowers. We've also seen nice examples of garden offices which have fairly straightforward traditional office furniture, but are then finished off with garden benches, patio chairs and indeed hammocks to add a bit of variety.

Obviously there are lots of places to buy these things but one that we like the look of is Trueshopping. Pictured above is an eDEN Garden Room which very much incorporates the horticultural ethic in its build. If you've got any decorating tips, please do leave a comment.