All hail the spa garden

WHY NOT ADD A SAUNA, AN ICE BATH OR A SHOWER TO YOUR OUTSIDE SANCTUARY, ASKS LUCY PAVIA EVERYONE ELSE IS

- LUCY PAVIA

Gardens have always been renowned for their healing power, but a new wellness movement is ramping things up. Enter the spa garden, or a growing trend for turning your backyard into a full-blown mini retreat "sparden" At the forefront of this is the garden sauna.

Chris Selman spent a year travelling the world researching them ("my friends hated me," he laughs) before co-founding bespoke home sauna company Out of the Valley. Domestic saunas are commonplace in Scandinavia, Finland and the Baltic states, but Selman says they're now taking off here, thanks to a growing awareness of their benefits, from stress relief and detoxification to cardiovascular health.

"I think the sauna is where yoga was 20 years ago," Selman says. He has seen rocketing demand in the past year, with urban inquiries, predominantly in London, increasing fourfold.

At the end of last year the company launched the Tyto, a compact city-friendly model recently installed in a Notting Hill garden.