Gardens are capable of creating a peaceful, purposeful, and pleasurable environment that’s key to any home.
What’s more, garden ideas don’t have to be complicated. With clever designs, simple landscaping, and inexpensive DIY projects, you can create a garden space that’s not only personal but special to you.
Today, we’ll feature creative and easy garden ideas that will help inspire you to create a gorgeous landscape and maximize its aesthetic.
Take a look!
1. Bring Shade with Potted Trees
In-ground trees have roots that travel much wider, which can interfere with your lawn or home’s foundation. However, you can still lift the eyes with a potted tree.
The potted trees in this backyard add interest and practicality while providing some much-needed shade. Other small potted plants help delineate the small garden, turning the space into a joyful gathering spot for relaxing and chatting.
2. Make an Opulent Entrance
One way to make your home feel welcoming and joyful is to use plants at an entrance. Since this courtyard is covered in gravel, potted plants are utilized. Trees and shrubs such as eucalyptus, juniper, pittosporum, Convolvulus cneorum, and Rose Desdemona bring some impact.
Putting taller plants in the background and smaller ones in front inspires a feeling of abundance, while a water fountain at the center creates a sense of drama.
3. Utilize Bird Cages
Hanging bird cages and pots as planters along an outside wall creates the same effect as a living wall for a simple, creative garden. This garden is not only simple to put up but also easier to maintain than a living wall.
Consider succulent plants, particularly if you don’t have any interest or time to make do with a flowering garden. Succulents require very little water to survive, don’t need deadheading or pruning, and can survive for years on neglect—don’t forget the beautiful colors they bring along!
4. Make a Grand Statement
A water feature is an excellent way to bring soothing energy to your outdoors, and adding a fountain helps create a soothing sound from the trickling water.
This creative garden idea uses a piano to create a whimsical fountain, adding grandeur to the space. Beautiful red and pink flowers cover the piano’s top for some color.
5. Embrace Rustic Elegance
If you have DIY skills, consider this rustic idea. The rusted chairs are used as plant supports, and small details, such as the spear-like chair backs and rusted metal rose threads, add romance and wit to the designs.
Topped with fleur-de-lis at different heights, these decorative planters can be entwined with clematis, sweet peas, roses, or even runner beans. Other rusted sculptures in the background add more interest, while a rustic galvanized planter with similar plants maintains a cohesive look.
6. Make the Most of Vertical Space
Your garden doesn’t have to be limited to the ground—make use of trees to display potted plants as a small garden variation. This garden idea creatively uses bike rims and ropes as support for the colorful planters.
The container garden adds color to the small space and maintains the color palette within the containers and flowers, tying the space together for an authentic garden feel.
7. Impress with a Spilling Garden
A spilling garden is a creative way to bring a lot of impact to a small space. The spilling flower pot display in this idea has been placed beside a pathway and will make any passer-by’s eyes pause and admire. Pebbles and gravel serve as an excellent backdrop, allowing the flowers to pop.
8. Wheel It to the Paveway
If you have a vast expanse of space in your yard or near a driveway, larger shrubs are ideal for keeping the proportion of a more traditional foundation planting, and they are also easier to maintain.
Combining this with a creative garden idea like the rusted wheelbarrow planter used here will help set your outdoors apart with some unexpected curb appeal. The flowers in the wheelbarrow bring small surprises of color and texture.
9. Make a Timeless Garden
If you have a beautiful deck or patio where you spend most of your time, consider a small garden station to keep you company as you enjoy the views outside.
Here, a vintage shopping cart has been transformed into a fabulous herb garden, while a rustic sign on the table brings some practicality. More herb planters grace the porch’s deck, and the whole setup can easily be brought indoors during the freezing winters to act as houseplants.
10. Inspire with a Boat Planter
Introduce a gorgeous feature in your backyard with a small boat planter. The daffodils in this lovely boat planter exhibit their full glory in the sun, adding charming flair to the yard.
The wooden lighthouse with small hanging lanterns adds a whimsical feel to the design. A living fence and arbor in the background capture the eye while lending the small backyard a dreamy feel.
11. Get Creative with Boots
Instead of discarding those old, worn-out boots, why not turn them into planters? These boot planters are snugly placed on the ground and on a floating shelf, adding color to the wall without taking up too much space.
A leather sign with chalk writing on the wall completes the look in style.
12. Upcycle a Tire
If you want to add some drama to a small space, consider upcycling a massive tire into a small garden. This creative garden idea uses a tire for growing herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and mint.
You can place this simple garden in the yard or near the kitchen. It’s an excellent way to anchor the rest of the garden by providing a focal point.
13. Make Use of a Chair
Old or unused chairs have great potential for creative garden ideas. Here, succulents have been used to create a lovely mini garden on the chair’s seat. Succulents are excellent because they don’t require big planters, so you won’t have to make many adjustments.
Other potted plants and flowers surrounding the chair bring color to the space, with the matching containers creating a cohesive design that’s pleasing to the eye. The chair adds some bit of texture with its lattice chair back and aged wood frame.
14. Keep it Simple
When considering vegetable gardening, starting small isn’t always the first idea that comes to mind. However, you’d be surprised by how much little space you require to grow your favorite plants.
This fantastic idea turns a turtle-inspired sandbox into a lovely planter. Whether you yearn for herbs, beans, peppers, or tomatoes, limited space shouldn’t put you off when you have a container such as this one lying around.
15. Capitalize on Junk
Upcycling is a charm when it comes to creative and easy garden ideas. This small garden utilizes discarded air filters as chic succulent planters.
The colorful succulents give the air filters a fabulous makeover, turning them into a captivating garden with rustic allure.
16. Line Up the Wall
Displaying a creative collection of items is an excellent way to infuse some personality into your garden. The classic American reel lawn mower, rusted milk can, and wheel add rustic charm to this small garden lining up the wall of the house.
An array of flowers and plants in planters, hanging on the palette board, and in the ground make this simple garden space more intimate, while small red pebbles add definition.
17. Add Interest with Color
One way to make your vegetable garden colorful is to use painted planters. Here, the tires are painted with bold colors and patterns, creating a lovely contrast with the green plants.
Ensure there’s some distance between your planters to make your garden seem much larger.
18. Build a Terracotta Castle
Create a cozy spot of paradise with terracotta pots affixed to a tree and overflowing with beautiful flowers. The terracotta planters on the tree and stumps in this idea provide color to the wooded area, making the setup the landscape’s centerpiece.
Purple and pink blooms bring repeating colors continuously throughout the design, keeping the look cohesive.
19. Think Big with Your Boat Planter
Unlike the lovely small boat planter idea we featured earlier, this creative garden utilizes a much larger one to create more intrigue. A bevy of flowers and plants in the boat provides plenty of color that contrasts with the boat’s white color for a gorgeous look.
Brown mulch has been used to make the plants stand out even more, and other flowers flank the boat, further brightening the view.
20. Set It at the Corner
One thing we love about flower gardens is that with some careful planning, you can create a simple, beautiful design that packs a lot of impact.
Here, different-colored pansies have been used to create a symbol that sends the message of love and peace.
21. Rough it Up
Almost anything can be turned into a planter! For example, this creative garden idea uses a small kidney-shaped rock trough to create some eye-level interest.
Succulents are ideal for such a design since they require little maintenance. A black heron in the background adds more interest.
