A backyard is a luxury that not all homeowners have. A private area at the back of your home where you can take time out to be with nature, enjoy some solitude and time to recharge or invite friends and family over for dinner is a prized place that is worthy of your time and efforts.
Since the last few years confined most of us indoors, home life has been brought to the forefront of many people’s minds. With more time spent in your backyard perhaps you feel inspired to improve your outdoor area to create a space that suits your and your family’s needs. If so, read on for some helpful tips on how you can enhance your backyard.
Flowers and Foliage
Incorporate elements of nature into your backyard through landscaping ideas to create a glorious display of color and vibrant greenery. Experiment with height, color and different seasons to give your garden points of interest throughout the year. Welcome in spring with cheerful bulbs such as daffodils, hyacinths and tulips interspersed with long-blooming perennials like garden phlox, catmint, ‘moonbeam’ tickseed, geraniums and astrantias.
Accompany your blooming flower beds with hanging baskets full of floral arrangements of verbenas, fuchsias and begonias to attract bees, butterflies and birds, adding the crowning glory to your backyard.
Choose hedging plants and shrubs such as laurel, thuja, box or privet to create some privacy or to give your backyard boundaries. Cherry blossoms or apple trees can be a beautiful feature in your backyard that not only provides delicious fruits and berries but also offers their beauty throughout the shifting seasons. If tending to your garden sounds too high maintenance, consider fauxliage in the form of topiary or a scattering of artificial flowers in window boxes and plant pots.
Fire Pit
Enjoy spending time in your backyard late into the night with the addition of a fire pit. The warm glow of a fire can bring the family together and create a beautiful focal point for your backyard. The heat and radiance emitted from a fire pit can create an ambience that is inviting and adds a sense of drama to an evening entertaining guests.
Along with its visual allure, a fire pit has further practical benefits of being a wonderful cooking tool. Whether it’s barbecuing burgers, searing steaks or heating hot dogs a fire pit can be a great place to huddle around for a late afternoon lunch, backyard parties or a nighttime snack of s’mores and roasted marshmallows.
A fire pit can be easily built in your backyard using landscape retaining wall blocks and an interior of lava rock, sand, dirt or gravel at the bottom.
Water Feature
Introduce a sense of tranquility and peace to your backyard with a water feature. The soft and gentle acoustics of flowing water can add an extra dimension to your sensory experience and help to soothe your soul and relax your mind.
This is the perfect addition for creating a quiet corner of contemplation and solitude in your backyard where you can escape the world for a while. Whether it’s a tiered water fountain, a softly cascading waterfall or the visual appeal of a pond of colorful fish, consider adding the element of water to your backyard.
Use these three ideas to inspire you to enhance your backyard.
