Backyard Landscaping Ideas

Add architectural dimension and texture to your backyard by incorporating planters amongst a variety of plants and flowers. When using tall planters, like this contemporary metal pipe, fill the bottom with plastic bottles or metal cans to avoid using so much potting soil or compost.

Think beyond sod and mulch for your backyard beds. Create a Caribbean oasis on a corner of your yard with a sand bed. Select a builder's sand or sharp sand, which has a better drainage quality than river sand. Add a hammock, a few billowing trees and a bed of flowering plants to complete this tropical paradise.

Incorporate a private walkway within your landscape plan and end with a bench to sit and enjoy the view. When constructing the walking path a comfortable width of 2' for a single path and 5' for a double path works best. You'll also want to maneuver the path to keep a 7' height clearance to avoid low-hanging branches.

Sculpted shrubs create this English-inspired backyard design. To properly maintain this formal look, you should prune the hedges wider at the bottom than at the top. This bottom-heavy shape allows the sun to reach the base for new growth. Popular hedge shapes include a flattened pyramid, a topiary shape or the most popular, a rounded top, like shown here.

If ground space is limited in your backyard, consider custom flower boxes. These miniature gardens can add color and fragrance to your small area. When planting your box aim for a zigzag-pattern design with a mixture of plants that vary in size and texture.

Whether you use timbers, cement blocks or stone, raised beds are ideal for areas with heavy clay or sandy soil. You have control in raised beds to help your plants thrive by modifying the soil to fit their needs. When planting your new bed, if you're not sure what colors work best together, grab a decorator's color wheel to help design your garden palette.

This contemporary backyard sitting area adds a touch of green with synthetic turf woven in the stonework. Airy plants poised in the monochromatic rock beds are an alternative to traditional mulch.

For fun and games in your backyard create a putting green with real or synthetic turf. Authentic turf is typically bentgrass greens and is less expensive to install, but requires constant weed maintenance, fertilizing and irrigation. For a no-hassle, durable option, you may want to select synthetic. It's a little more expensive up front, but less maintenance in the long run.