Grow a Lush Privacy Screen

Having a good relationship with your neighbors is key to enjoying your home, but that doesn’t mean hanging out with them in your outdoor space, unless they’re invited. And while good fences really do make good n

Xeriscape Gardens: How to Get a Beautiful Landscape With Less Water

Xeriscape is a landscape philosophy — not a design style — that can help you create and maintain an outdoor space that is both beautiful and environmentally sound. The term “xeriscape” was created in 1981 by th

Explore Your Garden Personality: The Romantic

We gardeners are a diverse, passion-driven crowd. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to us. Some of us are brazen in our approach, utilizing bold colors or rare plants to stake our claim in the world

Garden Inspiration From a Visionary Victorian

“Large or small, [the garden] should be orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outside world. It should by no means imitate either the willfulness or the wildness of nature, but should look like a t

8 Elements of Mediterranean Garden Style

One of the richest sources of garden design for hundreds of years has been the Mediterranean garden. Beautiful and pragmatic, the style developed out of the great diversity of Mediterranean history, culture and

10 Fun Features to Bring Your Landscape to Life

Try something wonderfully unusual — think a moon gate, art-bedecked boulders and colorful trellises — to give your garden pizzazz. Daring to be a bit out of the ordinary can be richly rewarding. Here are 10 head

Bold Backdrops for Colorful Gardens

When we consider color in the garden, we usually think of plants, furniture and decorative accents such as cushions, candles and garden art. But what about walls?Think of this expansive surface as a blank canva

13 Extra-Cool Things to Do With a Backyard

If you’re bored of the typical lawn-and-patio backyard, then maybe it’s time to add some fun to your outdoor living space. From surfboard showers to freestanding bathtubs, here’s how you can put some character b

15 Ideas for a Children’s Discovery Garden

Playing outdoors provides kids with physical activity and fresh air, encourages a love of nature and creativity, and can even help develop problem-solving skills. But the average big square of grass, while great

Mondrian Lives On in Modern Garden Design

Monet gave us wonderful insight into the use of color, transferring his skills with canvas to the gardens of his house at Giverny; Matisse’s collages showed us how to use shapes in our gardens. But of all the in

Give Your Garden an Industrial Edge

True gardeners know that their spaces are never really finished. They are in a constant state of flux. Plants sometimes grow larger than the nursery tags lead us to believe, voles devastate a beautiful bed of ho

Elements of Modernist Landscapes, Classic and New

With modernist landscapes now past middle age, it’s time to consider gardens created between 1930s and 1960s as historic landscapes. What makes a modern garden modern? What aspects are to be treasured and preser

Spring Garden Ideas From Colonial Williamsburg

You can step back in time in Colonial Williamsburg, an interactive living history site that served as the capital of the Virginia Colony from 1699 to 1780. Named in honor of William III, King of England, and des

Geometric Designs Keep Plants in Line

We have always been taught to plant in groups of odd numbers, threes and fives and so on, and to create natural-looking drifts that ebb and flow into one another. But what if we choose not to? What if we’re stri

9 Imaginative Ideas for Industrial Rebar in the Garden

There is a part of me that takes great delight in using ordinary things in unintended and unexpected ways. I enjoy the puzzled looks on the faces of store clerks when they ask about my current project. Consider

Evoke Mystery and History With Moss in the Garden

Moss grows naturally in damp environments, carpeting forest floors and covering decaying tree stumps and boulders in a rich layer of green velvet. Its presence evokes a sense of tranquility, and it is so tempt

Unifying and Beautifying a Washington Island Landscape

Tish Treherne, principal of Bliss Garden Design, creates beautiful landscapes for a living. But this project on Bainbridge Island, Washington, was a particular labor of love, since it’s her own home. “The form

6 Ways to Harmonize Different Home and Garden Styles

Eclecticism in designing a garden is trickier than it seems. Combine several styles or elements together, and the risk of nothing standing out is great — as is the risk for, well, a cacophonous mess.But what if

15 Great Ideas for a Lawn-Free Yard

The lawn has enjoyed decades of popularity, and while there are still plenty of things to love about a great lawn, that expanse of green can sometimes be more trouble than it’s worth. Check out these 15 inspirin

Create Garden Mystery With a Zigzag Path

Bed and pathway lines are important to how we view and navigate our gardens. A good garden designer will employ these shapes to influence moods and to dictate how and how quickly we move through a garden. Straig