You can set the tone of your ideal outdoor space by using the right plants and accessories. It can provide a perfect healthy escape or a relaxing retreat. You can create the garden of your choice by yourself, or you can hire a landscape designer to help with professional advice. Either way, the process of designing your lawn should be a fun and rewarding experience.
Gardens are made up of a variety of physical components that form a specific garden style. Some styles even have their own names, but each style is made up of the components mentioned in this article. The designer determines what to use and how to combine each element depending on the theme or primary goal of the landscape.
Here are a few components that you can add in your garden to make it a more livable and esthetically appealing space for yourself:
Raised Beds
Garden designs with raised beds are beautiful, comfortable, and practical. Raised beds are true decorations that add simple, charming, and attractive designs to your backyard landscaping ideas and make your garden a lovely place for growing edible herbs, vegetables, flowering plants, or berries.
In raised bed garden designs, vegetables, flowering plants, and edible herbs are grown above the ground level. The large containers used in this design are made up of stone, concrete, or wood.
There are various shapes and sizes of beds used in raised bed garden designs, which include free shape containers or triangular, square, rectangular, octagonal, round, oval, or hexagon-shaped.
These designs are mostly used in backyard landscaping, where you can grow plants of your choice in style. Designing a raised bed in your backyard offers many benefits;
- You can grow a variety of veggies and plants in a smaller space or sloped hill by using a raised bed.
- You can build raised beds as high or low as you want and can create a beautiful garden design and give accessibility to all growers—even those needing wheelchair access.
- It is easy to do cultural practices on a raised bed as things are almost at your eye level, and you don’t have to bend a lot.
- Plants on raised beds are safe from soil-borne diseases and many other pests because of clean soil used to build it.
Containers
Containers are great for beginners, people with limited space, or who want to decorate their patio or porches. You can grow a single plant or a combination of plants, depending on the look you want to achieve or the size of the container.
Popular plants that people like to grow in containers include succulents, flowers, herbs, veggies, and grasses. Many gardeners mostly grow a seasonal or annual flower to ensure nonstop colors all-year-round.
Garden pots are available in a variety of styles and materials when buying planters for a container garden, select something that is according to your taste that allows appropriate drainage and is of the proper size and weight for where you plan to place it.
Things that you need to consider when using container:
- Add more plants in a container than you think you’re going to need.
- Create, mix, and match. Don’t be scared.
- Have fun with what you’re growing in your container—mix edibles and annual decorative varieties, a container is your chance to experiment.
- If your planter is wide and deep, grow some foundation type of plants as your permanent base. Then play around seasonally with annuals, color, and texture as filler.
- You can place containers next to seating so you can enjoy their colors and fragrance, right next to you.
- In containers, you can grow those beautiful but bully like plants that would take over the garden in the soil.
Hanging Baskets
The use of hanging baskets is a great way to add dimension to the home garden or to add appeal to front porches or joint spaces. The addition of flowering hanging baskets not only improves the appearance of your home but also offers additional growing space.
The first step in arranging a hanging basket is to select the type of container to be used. While some hanging baskets are made of plastic, others are made from wire or natural materials. Every kind of basket liner will offer different characteristics to the grower. Those growing in hot weather areas, for example, should use hanging baskets that retain moisture better.
Choosing the type of basket that suits your need is necessary, and this can impact drainage and how often the plants will require care.
Gazebos
These are a kind of outdoor rooms that are added in the landscape to provide a sitting space and to increase the visual appeal of the garden. Gazebos are usually made of wood, with a base of concrete or wood with seating inside. They’re mostly round in shape and are roofed so you can enjoy your garden even on a rainy day. Sitting in a gazebo, you can experience a semi-protected, cave-like effect.
Seating for Your Garden
Seating in design can enhance the comfort and looks of your garden. They come in various shapes and types like wooden or rock benches that are fixed in your yard, a swing bench, a swing under a shady tree, or a hammock in the corner of your garden.
Ponds and Pools
Natural-looking ponds and swimming pools add character to your garden and increase the biodiversity of your space. Depending on the use, they can be made of concrete, sand, tiles, or rocks. To prevent slipping, use porous concrete or pavers with open spaces.
Decks
These are usually made of wood, and stand above the ground on pillars. You can use the underneath space to build a water tank for catching rain-water from the roof. There are multiple benefits of having them in your landscape which include:
- They provide a comfortable surface for sitting, walking and even lying on
- They create warmth and ambience for evenings of late summer
- Improves the aesthetics of your garden
- Hides unsightly necessities like inspection covers, drains and water tanks
Patio
Patios are made of pavers or can be constructed by pouring concrete on the ground. If you want a concrete-floored patio, know that these can be made of porous concrete that lets the rain-water seep through the soil, which doesn’t let the floor become slippery and also helps water your garden.
- By installing a patio, you can increase the value of your property.
- They increase the living area
- These are low-maintenance structures.
- By sitting in a patio, you can enjoy the outdoors without the summer heat
Decks and patios are great places for arranging your outdoor furniture and potted plants. They can be left uncovered, or you can partially or fully cover them.
Walls and Fences
These are built to separate your garden between houses, create planter areas, or are used for blocking street views. They can be made using different materials like iron, wood, bricks, and stone. You can design and place them according to your requirements like for sitting, or for growing plants around them or even in them. These can also be used as a barrier to control the spreading of plants like mint and bamboo. You can also arrange some potted plants on the walls.
Rockery
This is an elevated structure resembling a miniature mountain range or slope of a hill. It is made by arranging rocks and alpine plants. They provide an impressive focal point in your landscape and can be created by taking advantage of a naturally sloped or terraced area. You can also extend the variety of plants in your landscape by creating an environment for alpine species, and also it is the best way to recycle unwanted bricks, paving, and tiles. Build a rockery to increase the appeal of your garden.
There are several other adornments and accessories such as fountains, statues, arbor fire-pits, and trellises that can make your garden more enjoyable, below is the list of such features that can turn your ordinary yard into something extraordinary:
Fountains
In the wide world of garden features, only a few can compete with the might of the iconic fountain. They act as structural features in the garden and offer a variety of angles of interest. Through fountains, you can instantly transform the look of your outdoor space, whether it’s a front lawn, back yard, or a meditation garden.
The fountain offers a wide variety of materials, shapes, sizes, colors, and styles. These are a quick and easy way to achieve a specific feel or a look for your garden. Besides, fountains often last many years, and they are also low-maintenance.
Benefits of a Fountain
- The soothing sound of flowing water relaxes your stressed body and mind.
- It is this mesmerizing quality of a water fountain that will uplift the overall décor of your garden.
- It is shown through various studies that the movement of natural water releases negative ions that help the body and mind in healing.
- Sound of water also cancels the unpleasant and unwanted noises of the surrounding.
- The flow and sound of moving water helps attract several kinds of wildlife in your garden.
Statuary
Statues provide an ideal focal point for your rockery, flower beds, and other landscape areas. From small to enormous, elaborate to whimsical features, you can choose the best piece that can anchor the landscaping and lawn, and offers a sophisticated statement about your taste. You can purchase statuary in a variety of materials, including resin, concrete, composite, copper, and brass.
Trellises
Gardeners and green keepers around the world love using these; the trellis is like a center-piece of the hardscape—on which the creepers and climbing vines grow. They can take many shapes and serve many functions, from simple structures that give vining veggies a lift to more complex, studier designs that provide beauty and form to back pathways and patios.
Arbor
Arbors are vertical structures in a garden that provide privacy, shade, shelter, and act as an accent. The walls and roofs are like an open frame that supports fragrant and colorful vines. An arbor can be freestanding, or it can be attached to a wall or fence.
Although a trellis and arbor have many similarities, a trellis is a smaller and more delicate structure, while an arbor is a major structural element. Arbors can be made from wrought iron or wood. The sides of an arbor can be covered with lattice or trellis design, or these can be opened.
Fire Pits
Having a fire-pit in the backyard of your home is a growing trend. They can improve the experience of your outdoor parties because often on a cold night, you just want to sit around a burning fire and have a chat with your friends and family; they also make an ideal addition to a deck.
Fire pits provide several benefits to your garden, which include:
- By adding a fire pit in your backyard, you can create a cozy atmosphere.
- Fire pits light up the night.
- They can be used throughout the year for different parties, like Halloween, bonfires, and even on Christmas Eve.
- You can use them for an outdoor cooking experience
A fantastic array of fire pit styles are available to select one of your choices, whether you purchase a ready-made model or work with an artisan to make one, especially for your space. An excellent first step is to think about your garden’s style and explore designs that will complement the feel and look of your outdoor space.
Conclusion
Keeping up with the landscape around your home takes a lot of work and effort. More time and money is often needed to develop that perfect, relaxing, and peaceful space where you can just forget about the busyness and stress of your life.
Hopefully, you have started thinking about designing or enhancing your garden. You may have taken a walk outside recently to observe what is there and what can be improved.
Whatever the case, remember that building a landscape is a long process that takes a lot of experimentation and creativity; still, it is highly rewarding in the end, and adding different features and adornments can make your garden stand out.
