Backyard landscape design doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor. One affordable way to improve your backyard is to add landscaping techniques to objects and structures that already exist in naked form. Other inexpensive ways to improve the aesthetic quality of your yard can mean adding an element that allows you to enjoy what you’ve got in a new way. So here are some low-maintenance backyard landscaping ideas for your yard.
Vines And Low-Maintenance Plants On Existing Structures
Today’s existing balcony, gable, or bare wall in the yard can become a landscaping highlight by next week. Invest in woody vines, like trumpet vine or climbing roses, and train the native plants to crawl up the structures to transform them into a new and inviting look.
Creative Containers For New Plants
Adding containers to your backyard landscaping design doesn’t have to mean investing in terracotta pots. An affordable way and a low-maintenance option to creatively perk up your landscape is with the addition of drought-tolerant plants that don’t use a lot of water and ornamental grasses packed inside containers made from things lying around the house, up in the attic, or out in the garage. Anything large enough to hold organic mulch, grass clippings, soil, minimal watering, drought-resistant plants, and a drainage hole can be drilled in the bottom, transforming into a decorative container for your low-maintenance garden.
Garden Art For Easy Backyard Landscaping Ideas
Another way to use items around the house in your beautiful yard — or that you can find on the cheap at a flea market or junk store — is to press them into service as garden art. You can look through your flotsam and jetsam or someone else’s at a yard sale to find something offbeat to set into a place of honor in your landscape plan. Gardens and other landscaped areas can be given a creative sense of style using items as varied as a discarded iron gate, rubber tires cut in half, or an old musical instrument nobody plays.
Small Pond – Less Maintenance
You can add a water feature to your outdoor living space with surprisingly little outlay of cash. A small rigid liner can be planted in the backyard and affordably decorated with natural ponds, plants, and pea stones.
Nightlights Are A Good Idea And An Added Bonus
You may not get home from work until after dark, which gives you precious little time to enjoy the fruits of your landscaping labor. An effective way to make a landscape come alive at night is to install some lighting and take advantage of special effects judiciously. A small light in front of a plant can cast a dramatic silhouette onto a wall behind it. Several smaller lights hidden among the limbs of a tree can create a soft pool of light that simulates the effect of moonlight illuminating your landscape.
A Rock River Is An Excellent Option
You can buy bags of rocks at your home improvement store. Buy white stones for the center of your river and black or gray ones for the riverbank. When you spread your rock river, begin at a far corner of your backyard and increase the width of the sock river as you go. This will imitate natural perspective, which diminishes the size of objects the farther they are. After the first snake of white rocks is in place, spread the dark rocks along both edges to create the illusion of the riverbank. Have your river meander around the existing landscape for added beauty and believability. And if you wish to complete the illusion, buy a landscape bridge to place over your river in your outdoor space.
A Private Seating Area Is A Great Option
Find your favorite spot in your backyard and make it your own. If your backyard is not fenced, choose the most hidden spot. Next, place a beautiful garden bench under a tree or a table with chairs beside your blooming landscape. If your budget is small, even white plastic chairs can look stunning in the right landscape setting.
Now, increase the beauty of the spot with planters filled with shrubs—thread silk flowers between the leaves for a year-round colorful display. As long as the native species of flowers are small and scattered, they will blend with the natural landscape without looking artificial. You may also add a landscape arch over one of the chairs or the bench to give your backyard landscape added whimsy—plant jasmine or climbing roses at both sides of the arch to add fragrance to your backyard landscaping.
A Colorful Hammock For The Warm Weather
Hang a hammock between two trees or in a metal frame. Buy a hammock made from cotton fibers, and you can dye the fabric your favorite color. Craft stores sell many shades of clothes dye. A purple or red hammock will look stunning against the green landscape of your outdoor area. Toss two gardens, put water-proof pillows on the hammock, or colorful inflatable cushions. The hammock will be perfect for relaxing in your backyard all spring and summer. Choose a bare place in your landscape; your hammock will also add beauty and color.
A Birdbath Focal Point
Birdbaths are relatively inexpensive. Select one that has a long pedestal for added effect. Place the birdbath in an open backyard area, then spread white rocks around it, followed by a ring of evergreen groundcover plants. Repeat these two steps for a second ring of stones and green plants, finally bordered by a ring of black rocks.
The same low maintenance backyard landscaping ideas can look quite different when only plants are used instead of a mixture of plants and rocks. Here is an opportunity for this landscape focal point to have varying heights. Begin by planting the tallest plants around the birdbath, though be sure to choose plants that will not grow taller than the birdbath. Then, plant the second ring of plants, which should be slightly lower and of a different shade. The third ring, again, will be closer to the ground than the former and differ in color. Choose a simple groundcover plant, such as English Ivy, for the final ring.
A Lawn Walkway
Connect your home and the private seating area of your backyard with paving stones or concrete pavers. You can cross your wet lawn on rainy days without wetting or muddying your shoes. The beauty of the hardscape elements will add a picturesque appeal to your backyard landscape. For the best results, you may use a different texture and color for each stone or make them all uniform. You can also choose paving stones with designs carved into them to add whimsy, like sunflowers or frogs.
A Wheelbarrow Flowerbed For Container Gardens
A large red wheelbarrow can give your backyard landscape an old-fashioned look. Use the wheelbarrow as a planter. Fill it with greenery and flowers and then intersperse silk ferns and perennial flowers between the fundamental types of plants. The trick is to use small flowers and spread them in small clusters. You can save money by buying one large stalk of silk flowers and cropping it into smaller sections. You can place your blooming wheelbarrow of perennial plants near your seating bench or your hammock. This adds beauty to your seating area and overall backyard landscape.
If you use them together, these low maintenance backyard landscaping ideas will have the most impact with little effort. Cluster the beautiful landscape items you add to your backyard, and their impact will be more significant. Even if you only do one corner of your backyard, the eye will wander to that spot. The rest of your backyard garden will seem even more beautiful.
Prioritizing low maintenance backyard landscaping ideas contributes to your yard’s overall well-being and positively impacts your health and happiness. Take notice of the transformative power of creating a beautifully landscaped private space in your backyard. Enhance the beauty of your home and cultivate a sense of serenity with a thoughtfully designed and easy-to-maintain back garden.
Keep reading here for some fast-growing ground cover plants!