Decorating & Design
May 27, 2022
30+ Ways To Refresh Your Garden This Summer
As planting season gears up, we love to dream about giving our gardens and patios a fresh reboot for the season. Whatever the size of your outdoor space, these gardens provide just the inspiration required to turn fantasy into reality, and may tempt you to get your hands a little dirty in the garden this weekend.
Scroll down for 30+ ways to refresh your garden this summer!
Pick Hardy Bloomers
Shrubs like ‘Annabelle’ and ‘Pee Gee’ hydrangea trees (seen right) reinforce a formal look in a garden, but don’t require a lot of pampering and produce large flowers continuously throughout the summer. In this backyard, the banks of shrubs are a striking backdrop and can stand up to splash from the pool.
Try Pea Gravel
Crunchy pea gravel instantly gives any garden a European vibe, and it’s cost effective. In the country garden of design duo Les Ensembliers in Quebec, the dining area has a romantic French character and there is nothing more refreshing than dining en plein air.
Supersize Planters
Adding some large-scale planters will shake up a patio. The dramatic scale has more presence than tons of smaller pots on Rosie Daykin’s West Coast deck and softens the concrete hardscaping.
Inset Beds
Sinking a garden bed into the slate pavers of this Montreal backyard lets the homeowners get up close and personal with plantings. A sunken bed with tall grasses also doubles as a screen to divide zones.
Use Statuary
These orderly beds are full of pretty pastel blooms, but this stone urn brings everything into sharp focus. The white flowers are a cool complement to the stone and deliver an ethereal, secret garden look.
Create A Hideaway
Everyone dreams of a little oasis where they can escape (especially kids). This Vancouver garden creates a jungle-like environment with Hollywood junipers and magnolia trees, which almost obscures the breezy boho macramé hammock.
Convert A Planter
To get the wow factor designer Theresa Casey wanted in her backyard, she retrofitted a hose to a vintage planter, transforming it into a romantic fountain.
Add Tuteurs Or Trellises
Tuteurs (tower-style garden accents) are a classic garden accoutrement that provide a support for growing plants. They also draw the eye to the raised vegetable beds in the background of the West Coast garden.
Layer Plants
Don’t feel hemmed in by your balcony. On this Toronto condo, Paperbark maples underplanted with feathery Japanese forest grass and hydrangeas have impressive scale and obscure the views of nearby buildings.
Go Green
Often when installing a pool, homeowners opt for acres of concrete, brick pavers or stone as they provide a no-slip surface. But grass can be grippy too, and when it laps right up to pool coping, it forms a naturalistic, velvety carpet that always feels cool under feet.
Pleach Your Trees
In film and TV executive Jennifer Stewart’s mid-town Toronto home, a pleached row of trees are trained to grow sideways to create a natural green screen above the fence. Using the same paint color for both the home’s exterior and fencing creates a cocooning effect that visually turns down the thermostat.
Use Fountains to Muffle City Traffic
This Toronto garden is close to a major thoroughfare in the city, but you would never know it. A burbling fountain muffles street sounds — like blaring horns and thrumming buses — and instantly injects a zen-like calmness.
Consider Texture
This lush West Vancouver garden, by landscape architects Considered Design, skips the bright colors and sharply segregated beds in favor of a monochromatic green carpet rippling with Japanese spurge, mondo grass and Western sword ferns for a result that is calming, yet lively.
Embrace The Kitsch
These aren’t your garden variety gnomes: the functional stools come from stellar designer Philippe Starck and add an element of fun and color to a Japanese-style West Coast garden.
Contrast Underplanting
Consider the role of underplanting when it comes to making things pop. Black mondo grass accents the crimson leaves of this ‘Bloodgood’ Japanese maple.
Use Lighting To Spotlight Specimens
Shine a spotlight on the beauty and grandeur of an old tree. Here, a majestic Douglas fir is uplit, so the texture of the bark seems almost sculptural.
Try An Unexpected Shade
Next time you’re at the nursery, think outside the box and explore different colors. Garden guru Thomas Hobbs of Southlands Nursery has a fondness for Floribunda rose ‘Koko Loko,’ a milky chocolate bud which matures to a soft lavender blossom. “It’s an amazing smoky brown/mauve that blooms constantly,” he notes.
Trail Ivy
If your yard is shrouded in shade, play up the moody romance with cascading tendrils of ivy. These fast-growing plants soften the look of containers and planters, adding instant romance and history.
Consider Fragrance
Brushing by a rose bush or stepping on a fragrant carpet of foliage makes spending time in the garden a sensory experience. Luscious apricot David Austin ‘Carding Mill’ roses bloom all summer and give off a rich myrrh scent.
Underplant A Standard
A potted standard plant adds height to the garden, especially on city patios where there might not be room for trees. Here a ‘Pink Diamond’ hydrangea tree is underplanted with a cloud of cascading Bacopa, which blossom even when the standard doesn’t.
Plant A Green Wall
Whether you’re looking for privacy or to camouflage a less-than-lovely fence, a wall of ivy foliage is a beautiful disguise that makes outdoor spaces feel like storybook secret gardens.
Ground With Silver
A touch of silver in the garden is a tip gardeners employ to make colorful petals pop in comparison. Hardy Artemisia schmidtiana ‘Silver Mound’ blooms are ideal for contrasting bright flowers. The feathery fronds resist fading and keep their distinctive hue, even in the hottest months.
Place Some Palms
This Palm Beach home — belonging to champion rider Eric Lamaze — is blessed with tropical weather. Those in colder climates can create a similarly Bali-esque effect with palms that are readily available in garden centres and can be overwintered indoors.
Aquatic Plants
Introduce aquatic plants to add an extra element of charm to a water feature. These tropical water hyacinths are replaced annually, but hardy submerged plants — like anacharis and sweetflag — can survive winter, as long as they are moved to where the water won’t freeze.
Lay A Fragrant Carpet
Planting thyme around pavers releases their scent anytime someone walks on by to up the sensory appeal of a garden stroll.
Plant A Doorstep Garden
‘No need to drag out a garden trug for herbs to muddle in that mojito. In landscape architect Inese Bite’s country home, mint varieties like chocolate and pineapple are conveniently planted near the door.
Nightscaping
A moonlight garden features a selection of white flowering plants such as Abbotswood cinquefoil, white sage and Russian tarragon, which seem to glow at night.
Try Hanging Pots
A container of succulents is pretty on a tabletop, but you don’t have to sacrifice surface space. A mod hanging garden takes sculptural succulents to eye-catching new heights.
Go Monochromatic
Instead of mixing different shades, pluck from the same section of the color wheel. Bushes of ‘G. Red’ rugosa roses do a slow fade into neighboring ‘Grootendorst Pink’ rosebushes for a subtle play of hues that works equally as well in the garden as they do in a overflowing bouquet.
Create Shade Zones
Located at the center of a kitchen garden, this fairytale hideaway is the perfect spot to relax in the shade. It provides a beautiful focal point in this lush oasis.
Plant Edibles
Bright red and yellow nasturtium flower petals are edible and are a pretty way to perk up salads as well as flower beds.