50 Landscaping Ideas To Inspire Your Garden Makeover

Posted 4th December 2024

In Garden Design, Landscaping, Uncategorised

Here are 50 landscaping ideas that will help inspire you to improve your garden.

We’ve included is a mix of small landscaping projects that you can do in an afternoon, and bigger jobs that you may need a landscaper to help you with.

Contemporary garden designed and built by Silver Birch Gardens of Bridgewater.
The area you see as soil in this image will become a lawn.

12 Suggestions For Garden Plans

Write a list of all the things you’d like to be able to do in your garden and build features that will enable that.
Remember to add storage for tools, toys, bins and bikes.
Some kind of shelter in the garden will make it feel more inviting on chilly or wet days.
Carefully position your seating areas so that you will have the best possible views.
Divide your garden into a series of zones for different activities – eg the childrens’ play zone, the cooking zone, the relaxation zone, the veg growing zone.
Try to include two or more seating areas so that you can enjoy the garden at different times of the day and from different perspectives.
Add focal points to your garden with outdoor art, specimen trees or water features.
Don’t fall into the trap of putting features all around the boundary fence and leaving the middle of the garden bare. Create an imaginative layout that uses every bit of the space.
Use the art of hide and reveal to encourage garden visitors to explore more
Use the diagonal lines of your garden rather than up and down or side to side…..it will make the space seem bigger.
Sloping garden? Re-contour it to create flat, more usable areas
When choosing hard landscaping materials, think about colour AND texture.

Mixing colours and textures on hard landscaping surfaces guarantees all year round interest. It’s also an excellent way to create ‘zones’ within the garden.

A prime example of texture being used to create zones within the garden. This space uses a mix of limestone pavers and setts from the same quarry.

12 Quick Fix Landscaping Jobs That You Can Do In A Weekend

Something as simple as up-cycling your garden furniture and adding bright accessories can make a huge difference to the look and feel of your outdoor spaces.

Freshen up a patio with some bright cushions or blankets for your garden furniture.
Install water butts wherever you can – they’ll prove invaluable if we have a dry spell
A string of solar powered festoon lights will bring a holiday vibe to your garden.
Young children love a sand pit – build one that can morph into a planting bed when the youngsters grow out of it.
Find space for a water feature – they’re very soothing
Make a composting area so that you can turn kitchen and garden waste into FREE soil improver.
Build a fire pit
Add a living roof to your garden shed or bin store – it’ll look amazing and the wildlife will thank you for it.
Plant some containers with vibrant flowers and foliage and place them around your garden.
Refresh the planting in beds and borders. Visit your garden centre for lots of landscaping ideas using plants.
Re-turf tired lawns to give your whole garden a lift.
Create a living wall using a proprietary kit or by upcycling materials such as pallets or guttering. You’ll find plenty of ideas on the internet.

Sticking to a simple colour palette but using different textures is very restful on the eye

My Top 12 Landscaping And Garden Design Tips

If your garden feels overlooked, a simple pergola will add privacy.
Your garden is 3D – don’t forget to make the most of vertical surfaces like sheds, fences, retaining walls.
Separate different surfaces with metal edging. It will help keep things tidy and give a well manicured look and feel to the space.
Never be afraid to use curves in your garden, they give a wonderful flow to the space and make it feel informal and welcoming.
Using similar colours but different textures makes stylish features that are easy on the eye.
Don’t be afraid to mix traditional and modern landscaping materials eg timber with porcelain paving.
Use differently shaped paving slabs to create an interesting laying pattern.
Installing an outdoor office? Consider your journey to work and make a sturdy, well lit path with views of interesting features.
Make planting pockets in your patio to break up a large area of paving.
Break up the boredom of a long fence line by adding panels of contrasting materials.
Love outdoor cooking? Create an al-fresco kitchen zone complete with cooler, sink and preparation areas. Learn about outdoor kitchens in this blog from Holland Landscapes
A gentle sloping path is a good alternative to steps and may cost less to install.

Gentle curves make this patio blend gently with the rest of the garden giving a smooth flow between areas.

Straight lines give a more contemporary feel to a garden.
I love how the louvred roof on this pergola casts geometric shadows that only add to the drama of the space.

Alternating panels of timber and filled gaboon’s make this boundary fence into an attractive garden feature.

10 Practical Landscaping Tips

Used pleached trees to increase the height of your fence without making your garden feel like a prison yard.
Always install lawn edging slightly lower that the top of the grass – that way you will be able to trim the edges by running over them with the mower.
When adding large areas of planting, a built in irrigation system will help ensure that they establish well.
Install ambient lighting to bring your garden to life after dark.
Recessed lights for decking and patios is a good way to illuminate the space.
Add eyelid lights to steps for extra safety in low light conditions.
Sturdily built planters can double as seats to perch on.
A healthy hedge is very good at reducing noise pollution from outside of the garden.
Install recessed manhole covers to make those essential utility features blend into the garden.
Use river rocks as a mulch or between pavers to give a seaside feel to your garden. (This is one of my favourite ideas and I can’t wait to try it out.)

Little details make a big difference – this recessed manhole cover was tricky to install but is far more attractive than its iron predecessor.

6 Easy Wildlife Gardening Projects

Build a bee hotel and install it in a quiet part of your garden.
Choose pollinator friendly plants, bees and butterflies add a whole new area of interest
Include a log pile to encourage the insects that will attract birds.
Put up some bird nesting boxes – maybe even rig them up to a camera so that you can watch the baby birds grow.
Keep an area of lawn un-mown and see what grows.
Plant a native species hedgerow .