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Your garden is an integral part of your home whether you want to live in it forever or sell it at some point in time. If your garden landscaping ideas are thoughtful, you will surely design in it the most sophisticated way. Here are the top 10 garden landscaping ideas to transform your outdoor space and in the process double its property value.
Before you consider your garden landscaping, you must know the 7 principles of landscaping designs harmony, balance, proportion, rhythm, focal point, contrast, and simplicity and then you will be able to design a perfectly ordered landscape.
In this blog, we will discuss the landscaping design principles and the top 15 Garden Landscaping Ideas you can use according to your garden landscaping cost you can bear and sense of personal style.
7 Principles of Landscaping Design
If you understand these principles, you can contextualise the general landscaping and implement them properly. By following these principles, you will be able to design an outdoor that is harmonious, proportional and simply amazing.
Harmony
This principle ensures that there is proper cohesion in your landscape. You need to have a consistent theme, elements, and styles to tie the whole place together to give a uniform look.
Balance
Balance ensures that the visual weight is evenly distributed across your landscape. You can achieve it by setting your elements to mirror each other on either side of your focal point or keep it asymmetrical by having different aspects but with a similar visual balance for a more dynamic look.
Pro-Tip: Using the right colour paving i.e., outdoor porcelain paving, is a crucial part of maintaining balance in the seating areas and poolside.
Proportion
The right proportion in your garden means that various elements’ sizes match your overall space and no element is overshadowed by the other.
Rhythm
Rhythm is the repetitive use of certain elements to create a sense of movement and flow within your landscape. Following this principle and placing plants strategically, you can create a professional garden landscape look
Focal Point
You must create a central element in your landscape that draws attention effortlessly. It keeps your garden interesting and adds depth to your designs. It can be in the form of a fountain, statue, or a unique element.
Contrast
Having different materials, shapes, textures and colours creates a contrast in your garden to create depth and keep it visually interesting. For instance, placing cool-coloured plants against a dark background and a light colour outdoor porcelain paving.
Simplicity
Sometimes less is more. Avoid adding clutter or complexity to your landscaping. Limit your elements and repeat them in different zones to create a clean and simple look.
Top 15 Garden Landscaping Ideas
1. Work with your Area
Keep in mind the size of your house and the surrounding areas and the colour of your house walls. Observe whether the colour of your house and your gardens complement each other.
You have to see the shape of your garden and the design you want to work with. To make your garden look bigger, add circular pavings or a curve to break the linear shape. Adding a greenery-covered fence will disguise the edges and make your garden look wider with softer boundaries.
2. Structured Greenery
Structural plantings like trees and evergreen shrubs provide the permanent backbone to gardens and add year-round appeal to your borders.
If you have a sloppy or challenging site (small or large), consider incorporating terraces, and stairs, and form different zones within the open space with plant and flower repetition. It is a great way to make them more interesting and less exposed to the eye. Add kids’ playing zone, dining area, fountain area or even a vegetable bed to grow daily veggies.
3. Mix and Match Materials
Using only one material like plan paving slabs might be boring and make your garden area feel soulless. You can avoid this by combining different materials in your garden like using gravel, natural stone, porcelain, and solid wood to make your space look more welcoming.
4. Pop of Colours
It is very important that you choose colours that align with your garden and make your garden look larger. The use of cooler colours like blue and purple creates a feeling that your garden is extended. Because cool colours will seem farther away while hot colours seem closer to eyes.
5. Blooming Flower Border
Blooming flowers are one of the most beautiful parts of any garden. If you want to use them as borders, we suggest you choose plants and flowers that have some height for your garden to feel more substantial.
Lilies and alliums are great options as they look fuller but do not take up much ground space. Scented blooming flowers will add to the extended beauty and feel of your garden. Along with its beauty, the fragrance will also be more noticeable in smaller spades especially.
6. Strategic Colours
Using light colour landscaping like light colour porcelain paving slabs or Indian sandstones can help bounce light to make gardens look more spacious and greener. We also recommend you use lighter colour paints on your walls and boundaries if possible to give your garden a relaxing and natural countryside look.
7. Native Plantings
It is best to choose native plants because they do better in the climate and are mostly cheaper to buy. Plant options that go with your environment and the colour and texture complement your house can create a year-round effect i.e., glossy leaves near finely textured grass.
Use long-seasoned plantings like Rosa flower carpet amber, Erigeron Karvinskianus, and hardy geraniums, especially if you have a small garden.
Pro-Tip: Search for a variety of plants that do well in ordinary gardens. Avoid using plants which need heavy sun exposure and good drainage in shady and damp regions. It will not be an easy ride.
8. Seating Area
Design a platform or sunken seating area as a private spot if you have a corner space in your garden. Use rectangular paving slabs horizontally for your seating areas creating an illusion of a bigger garden space. Shelter it with fibre sheets or dense trees and make it the best dining or relaxing space with privacy fences and no compromise on recreation.
Combining seating space with storage is one of the best garden landscaping ideas in the UK because of its small spaces, especially in urban areas. Setting up a bench or a table with built-in storage space. This will reduce the space that the regular items take up in your garden and yet give you a cosy area to spend quality time with your family.
9. Integrated Landscape Design
Everyone wants to spend some quality time in solitude or with family in the fresh air. Adding a swimming pool (if you have a large space) with a daybed and overhead and privacy fence will optimize your exterior garden space without disturbing its organic environment. But obviously, you must consider the cost of garden landscaping for adding such a feature.
10. Mini Water Feature
If you have a large garden space, great! But if you do not, you still can fit a water feature. The sound of the water creates a calming and peaceful energy that opens your mind. You can read a book, meditate or work sitting by them.
11. Adding Lights
Adding lights is an easy and pocket-friendly option to make your garden look exceptionally well. It is not important to use the main power to light up your garden. Installing solar-powered fairy lights or lanterns will do the job for you without spending too much on the electricity bill.
12. Add Veggies
Sow seeds and add salad beds to make your garden look fuller and save money on vegetables for daily use. If you do not have space, sow in a pot, container, or seed tray. If you lack ground space to add a vegetable bed or put vegetable pots, add climbing veg varieties like French beans, Cobra, or Trombrocino.
Pro-Tip: Avoid growing vegetables that take up a lot of space in your garden like Pumpkins. Choose vegetables that take up little room like Spring onions, Spring radishes and carrot varieties. They are fast-growing and take up a small space to grow.
13. Offset Pavers
You may have seen nature taking over a lot of abandoned buildings and backyards. You can use that in your modern or traditional garden space in your favour. Your garden is your organized possession and offset pavers provide a bit more structure and make nature reveal itself in your garden in an interesting way. If you are implementing this home garden landscaping idea, using Porcelain paving slabs must be your priority as they do not absorb water and change colour under the sun, giving your garden an overall finished look.
14. Square Walkway
Square paving slabs arranged orderly with a pop of bright blossoming flowers around them give a sense of professional garden landscaping and an organized yet clean look.
15. Garden Wall
You can find numerous easy-to-install green garden walls to get your garden greener. You can do it by adding green walls over your garden walls or fences for a fuller and prettier boundary.
Spilling Bougainvillea and other beautiful types of vines all over the walls is also a great garden landscaping idea for the front of the house to brighten up your front yard or your garden walls and make them pop.
FAQs About Garden Landscaping Ideas
How much does garden landscaping cost?
It all depends upon your garden size, materials used, complexity, number of zones, design and labour costs in your region. Normally a small garden landscaping cost ranges from a few hundred to a few thousand pounds but a large project with a complete makeover can range from £15,000 to £200,000.
What is the cheapest way to landscape a garden?
Here are a few ways you can landscape your garden if you are on a budget:
- Repurpose old and free materials on Facebook Marketplace or Freecycle or even your garage must have some.
- Turn old pieces of furniture into garden features.
- Use bricks that are lying around for pathways and raised beds
- Buy small plants. They are cheaper.
- Turn your food and garden waste into compost saving a lot of money.
How can I landscape my garden?
- Work with your area and design it accordingly.
- Design structured greenery with a specific number of elements and types of plants.
- Use different materials for an interesting garden.
- Add a pop of colour.
- Add a blooming flower border.
- Use colours strategically.
- Use native plantings.
- Add a seating area.
- Integrated landscape designs in the form of swimming pools with gardens and a play area.
- Add a mini water feature
- Add fairy lights or lanterns
- Add vegetable beds that take up small space.
- Decorate your garden walls with vines and Bougainvillea
How to plan a small garden?
Here are some small garden landscaping ideas on a budget
- Assess your space
- Prioritize features, plants, and elements according to sun exposure
- Utilize walls and vertical spaces with shelved plants
- Create a sense of depth by using cool colours.
- Use circular or curved paths to get attention off of the small area.