Chelsea unveiled its new artisan gardens category for the first time this year, where designers were asked to use natural, sustainably resourced materials in an artistic manner.

Driftwood, reclaimed bricks and cockleshell edgings were among the items which featured in the displays. Yet you shouldn’t have to look too far to find bits and pieces that can add historical, elegant and quirky touches to your own garden, whatever the setting.

Second-hand shops, reclamation yards and even car boot sales can provide an Aladdin’s cave of unusual containers and statues, chimney pots which can be upended to house colourful plants, quirky garden seating and ornaments.

Old railway platform seats and seating from boats have been put to use in the past, while DIY enthusiasts have constructed seats featuring little more than a short piece of scaffolding plank resting on two neat piles of old bricks. Funky benches have been made using old tyres at either end supporting seats of painted scaffolding planks.

If you live near the sea, explore the beach to search for large pieces of driftwood, or shells out of which you could make a feature mosaic to hang on your house wall. Mosaics and patterns can also be made out of pebbles or broken coloured tiles arranged Roman style.

Fallen logs can be used to edge paths, while those on a budget may be more inclined to go for local gravel.

Eye-catching containers can be made out of anything you may otherwise dump, from old food cans painted with brightly coloured weather-resistant paint, to sinks which can house a myriad of rock plants, and teapots, mugs and rusty buckets with holes drilled in the bottom, which can be planted up and strategically-placed to brighten up the scene.

Old wicker baskets make good plant pots, stained, varnished and lined with black plastic, while broken pots can be used for a display of rock plants such as sempervivums, surrounded by broken bits of pot.

You can also grow crops in old drawers, weatherproofing the wood first, and then drilling holes for drainage and lining the drawers with plastic. You may also have to add corner braces to the drawers to stop the wood from warping, but they will make eye-catching veg containers.

Use your own home-grown stems of bamboo, when the canes are green and flexible, or red dogwood, to cut and weave into plant supports.

If you want to create an arch which will be smothered in flowering plants, but don’t want to spend a fortune, you can do it cheaply by bending old lengths of metal pipe or builders’ reinforcing bars, which will all be hidden by the climbers.

You don’t have to go to Chelsea to find inspiration in recycling your junk – just think twice before chucking out that old chipped teapot...