Backyard Landscape Design Ideas

Backyard landscape design ideas give you the opportunity to plan a space where you and your family can enjoy your free time, entertain guests, plant a vegetable garden or pursue other outdoor activities that you enjoy. Unlike the front yard, which expresses your personal style and your design sensibilities to guests and neighbors, the backyard is a less formal, more private space, where you can freely explore your landscape ideas. You can bring your design ideas to life by planning your yard with your family or by hiring a professional landscape designer.

Many backyard landscape design ideas are easy enough for you and your partner or kids to implement over the course of a weekend. Planting a border garden around your patio, creating a flagstone pathway or planting perennial flowers in a backyard garden are fun, enjoyable tasks. However, if you're thinking about including an operative fountain, a water garden or a more complicated structure in your landscape design, a professional contractor can contribute helpful ideas about how to complete these more extensive projects without spending a lot of money.

Backyard Designs for Entertaining

If you love outdoor entertaining, your backyard landscape design ideas may focus on the use of your yard and patio as a space for dining or socializing. When you're planning stone landscape design ideas for entertaining, remember to take your entire yard and the surrounding homes into consideration. The noise from a late night party can disturb your neighbors and may attract uninvited guests from the local police department. As you plot the elements of your design ideas, think about surrounding your backyard with a hedge, poplar trees, a cedar fence or other sound barriers.

Backyard landscape design ideas should encompass all of the objects in your yard, from shrubs, trees and flowers to your barbecue pit, sheds and fences. If you already have a patio or deck in your backyard and your focus is on entertaining, these elements may be the focus of your backyard landscape design ideas. Think about adding color, shape and texture to this area by surrounding the deck or patio with flowering shrubs or with a border garden that's bright with annual flowers in the spring and summer.

If your friends are an active crowd, an expansive lawn can serve as a court for volleyball or badminton. Look for a low maintenance grass that's hardy to your climate. If you're determined to avoid mowing or your yard is very small, consider a sand pit for games surrounded by a ground cover of soft cedar chips. Surround the court with tiki lamps, hanging lanterns or other imaginative outdoor lighting fixtures to provide illumination for games and parties.

A steeply sloped yard may not be the perfect landscape for mowing and gardening, but it can be ideal for entertaining. If your house and deck are situated at the base of the slope, the surrounding hillside can muffle the sounds of conversation and music. Elegantly terraced slopes can feature specimen plants or hardy shrubs for a Mediterranean flair. Browse through pictures of design ideas online or in landscaping magazines to find inspiration for planning a sloping garden.

Backyard Landscape Designs for Kids

If you have little ones who love to play outside, your backyard landscape design ideas could transform your yard into a small playground. Using soft cedar chips as ground cover, include a colorful jungle gym, slide or seesaw in your backyard landscape design ideas. Along with your miniature playground, you can plan an educational vegetable garden that will help your children learn to love taking care of plants. Backyard landscape design ideas should include safety features such as secure fencing to prevent toddlers from wandering away unsupervised.

In a yard designed with kids in mind, emphasize soft surfaces to prevent injuries during the inevitable falls. Utilize concrete, brick or flagstone in your landscaping plans for the front of the home, and focus on grass, cedar chips and sand in the back. Your kids and their friends will love playing in an expansive sand box, and sand is a low maintenance landscaping option for parents. Surround the sandy area with a border of railroad ties, where kids can wipe their feet before running back into the house.

Backyard landscape design ideas for families can be fun, entertaining and affordable. Although it's possible to spend a lot of money on plants, patio furniture, outdoor lighting fixtures and other landscaping elements, you can usually find these items for sale at bargain prices, especially in the off season. An eclectic assortment of tables and chairs gleaned from your home or from yard sales can be a creative alternative to costly outdoor furniture sets. The back of your home is the place to express your fun, imaginative, sociable side.

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