Looking up landscaping ideas online might honestly scare some people. After all, nobody is born a landscaper; it takes time, practice, effort, and some pretty deep pockets to work on your home, right? And besides, isn’t landscaping for people who have huge homes with big, roomy front yards and tons of space to fit patio furniture, pools, gardens, etc.?
If you happen to be someone who has asked themselves these questions, then you’re in luck. The following article will cover some of the most fun, innovative landscape design ideas for your yard, both front and back. We will try to cover as many ideas as possible, from budget-friendly ones to those that might require a bit of spending. Most importantly, the ideas will focus heavily on tight, small backyards and narrow front yards for homeowners who don’t…well, own a lot of space.
List of Landscape Ideas for Any Home
Reusing Old Furniture
Imagine this scenario: you have lots of old chairs and tables lying around. They are taking up space in your home and they’re a drag to clean and maintain. So, what do you do? Well, you refurbish them ever so slightly and you place them in your yard.
If you have a small garden area or some open space, you can place an old bench or several wooden stools. In fact, you can combine a few chairs and use a stool as a makeshift coffee table to make a compact seating arrangement.
Make It as Green as Possible
Even small front yards have lots of unused space. For example, stair ledges and front porches can be quite empty, making your home appear desolate. The same goes for front gate pillars, pathways, etc.
One of the best landscaping ideas for the modern home is to make it as green as you can. Incorporate plants, small trees, bushes, and flowerbeds everywhere. For instance, you can add narrow, tight flowerbeds between stairs and small, concrete flower pots at the top of front gate pillars.
And speaking of flower pots…
DIY Bloom Boxes
Normally, a bloom box looks pricey and elegant. But if you want to do some budget front yard or backyard landscaping, you can make a bloom box out of pretty much anything. For example, you might have some old fruit crates or old wooden boxes lying around. Once again, a simple refurbishing and repainting job can make these boxes perfect homes for some nifty plants.
Light It All Up
There’s not a landscaper out there that won’t tell you just how important proper lighting is. Anything goes, from string lights to small ground light fixtures. There are lots of inexpensive lighting options out there, and most of them use LED bulbs so you won’t be blowing up your electric bill.
Create Borders
Your front yard could be a mosaic of different shapes, sizes, colors, and feels. Imagine having a neat rocky patch right next to a small, green vegetable garden. Of course, you could let one flow into the other, but a great landscaping idea is to add a few borders. And anything can be a border, from rocks and cardboard to plastic barriers and wood shavings.
Reusing Old Wood
Do you have lots of wood lying around? If so, you could reuse it in various creative ways. For instance, you could take old wood boards and make a tree bench around that chestnut in your backyard. Alternatively, you could make a neat little treehouse for the kids, or use old wooden pallets and tree stumps as patio furniture. The possibilities are virtually endless.
Add Some Fountains
You can find an inexpensive concrete fountain quite literally anywhere. And before you ask — no, it doesn’t have to be marble, and no, it doesn’t have to be huge. Small, narrow fountains look amazing in any type of yard, and the added water flow makes your front yard feel vibrant and more alive than ever. In fact, if you live in a rural area, a fountain will literally make your yard teem with life, as woodland critters and various birds will love to come over and take a sip.
Have Fun With Paths
Garden paths are by far the best place to start experimenting with landscaping ideas. You could use literally anything, from wood rounds to stepping stones and even old, unused plastic to create a fun, engaging pathway to your door. In addition, you could line the path with various plants, such as lavender, daylilies, cranesbills, liriope, and King Edward Yarrow. Finally, some gravel of wood pellets between each pathway segment would make it pop out in a magnificent way.
Utilize the Space
Sometimes, the best way to landscape is to use the space you have creatively. For example, if your yard is flat and wide, try to incorporate lots of greenery, a vegetable garden, and make it a party-ready zone for relaxing. In addition, yards close to wooded areas tend to have lots of trees. With that in mind, use appropriate ornaments like birdhouses, tire swings, etc.
There are folks who have a house on a steep slope. If you’re one of them, get creative with stairs and go for that terraced look. Use lots of ornaments and plants for each terraced section of your yard.
If possible, try investing in a pond and arrange the space around it appropriately. Make it a cozy, lake-like atmosphere with beach lounge chairs and thatched umbrellas
Get Creative
When googling landscape pictures, you will probably run into that one photo that will always catch your eye. You know, the one with a painted old bicycle in the garden, or that hotel food cart amid the flowers, or that old coat rack holding up a flower pot at the top. Yes, you can use quite literally anything when coming up with fun landscaping ideas. Don’t be afraid of getting a sofa out into the backyard, or making a coffee table from an old truck tire. You can breathe new life into your old items around the house and reuse them in your backyard.