The 4 Best Modern Landscaping Styles
December 23, 2024
Over the years, with everything looking more sleek and modern, from buildings to cars, landscapes are no exception.
Modern-day people have different preferences and needs from people in the past, and building styles are changing too, which means landscapes need to change along with them.
Here are
four
modern landscaping styles to keep your home looking modern and trendy.
1. Minimalist
Minimalist landscapes are a sharp contrast to luscious gardens filled with trees and flowers. Instead, the fewer features there are, the better, with the goal being to create an ultra-neat, sleek, and simple landscape.
Key Elements
- Colors: White, gray, black, earthy, and greens of course. Make sure not to go overboard with the colors. You don’t want your entire garden to be a single green color, but you really only need a few shades of green for the shrubs, grass, and lawns, and a bit of color for the hardscapes and flowers.
- Plants: Mostly greens with architectural shapes like ornamental grasses and evergreen shrubs, and a minimal amount of plants with dull or muted color flowers.
- Arrangement: No wavy paths or patterns. There should be clear shapes throughout, with mainly straight lines and geometric patterns for things like the pathways, garden beds, and hardscapes.
- Plenty of Open Space: Make sure not to clutter the area by using too many plants or hardscapes. You want a sleek, minimalist look, which means plenty of open space.
Things To Note
- Don’t forget about the hardscapes: By including hardscapes and ensuring your landscape isn’t just purely plants, your space will look even sleeker. The hardscape also helps more clearly define the lines and sections of your space.
- Use plants with clear shapes: You want to have a clean, neat look, which means you don’t want to have a whole row of shrubs or flowering plants with lots of leaves or branches sticking out, so opt for plants that grow in structural forms such as boxwood.
- Use the same elements throughout: Unlike most gardens where you want a variety of different flowers and features, for a minimalist landscape, try to use the same few elements throughout. For example, if it’s stone paths you’re using, use that throughout. If it’s boxwood you’re using, or boxwood mixed with sculptural plants like agave, use them throughout your garden. Don’t try to incorporate a wide variety of plants or features, as that will only ruin your minimalist aesthetic.
2. Sustainable
With awareness of global warming and the need to protect the Earth increasing, it’s no wonder that sustainable landscapes, aka eco-friendly landscapes, are increasingly in demand. Sustainable landscapes are basically landscapes that conserve water, support the environment, and ideally support the local wildlife.
Key Elements
- Colors: No specific guidelines, anything goes as long as it’s environmentally friendly.
- Plants: Native plants are used as much as possible so that minimal watering and maintenance is required for the plants to thrive, thereby conserving resources. You can also take it one step further and go for drought-tolerant plants to conserve even more water.
- Arrangement: No particular rules, except to group plants by water needs, i.e. hydrozoning. This ensures that no plants in any zone needs less water than the others, and thus no water will be wasted when all plants in each zone receive the same amount of water.
- Water Conservation: Besides using native plants, sustainable landscapes often employ other water-conserving strategies like efficient irrigation systems and xeriscaping. However, you don’t have to adopt every single one of them. By deploying the various other elements of a sustainable landscape, you’ll still have yourself an effective eco-friendly landscape.
- Sustainable Materials: While not a must to be considered a sustainable landscape, if you want to further help protect the environment, opt for recycled, reclaimed, or renewable materials in your hardscapes.
- Wildlife-Friendly: Ideally, your landscape should support the ecosystem too. There are many ways to do this, such as birdhouses, bat boxes, birdbaths, and so on. Incorporating a few of these helps support biodiversity and supports the environment.
Things To Note
- Collect rainwater: While your garden does its part to conserve and use less water, you can further reduce water usage (and water bills) by collecting and using rainwater. There are sophisticated ways to do this such as rain gardens and rain barrels, but if you want something simpler, a simple bucket will suffice.
3. Contemporary Zen
Contemporary Zen gardens aren’t often seen and can be a nice breath of fresh air among rows of houses with various normal-looking gardens. These gardens are intended to feel serene, tranquil, and Zen. As such, instead of filling the garden up with bright and vibrant flowers, these gardens follow minimalistic principles with more restrained color palettes.
Key Elements
- Colors: Mostly green trees and shrubs with a minimal amount of soft colors like white, pale pink, light purple, and so on, deployed in strategic places.
- Plants: As with minimalist gardens, you want plants with clean lines and architectural shapes, and as it’s contemporary Zen, make sure to go for plants with subtle colors. In addition, Zen gardens often feature mosses, groundcovers, bonsai trees, and even bamboo.
- Arrangement: Can be done in many ways, just remember not to overcrowd your space and don’t use too many different plants. Also, don’t have too many focal points.
- Natural Elements: Incorporating elements from nature such as large stones, gravel, and ponds help further create a calming ambience.
- Symbolic Features: Features like stone lanterns and koi ponds which symbolize deeper meanings like enlightenment are a staple in Zen gardens.
- Meditative Space: If you want to take it one step further, having something like a seating nook or bench near the pond for meditation can really take your Zen garden to the next level.
Things To Note
- Use softer water features: Your water feature may or may not be the focal point of your landscape, but either way, make sure not to make it too grand or loud. Think gentle fountains, ponds, streams, reflective water basins, and even small waterfalls.
- Use more hardscapes: When it comes to Zen landscapes, you will usually want at least 40% of it to be hardscapes. This is simply because hardscapes tend to give off a more serene feel than plants do. As an added benefit, hardscapes are also easier to maintain than plants.
4. Urban Modern
Urban modern landscaping is in essence modern space-saving landscaping. It’s a specific landscaping style meant to not just make full use of limited space, but make the space look good. After all, unlike larger spaces which can look great and still be functional, if you tried to focus on aesthetics and do a Zen or cottage garden, you wouldn’t have much space left for anything functional like an outdoor kitchen, patio, or even just a seating area.
Key Elements
- Colors: Mainly neutral tones like whites, grays, blacks, and natural wood tones for the structures, eg raised beds, furniture, vertical garden structure, and so on. The plants will be mostly green to fit in with the minimalist style.
- Plants: Low-maintenance, compact, structural plants that stay small. It’s also a good idea to have some climbing plants to have more greenery without taking up more land space.
- Arrangement: Urban landscapes are small, so just like how even a bit of mess can look really ugly in a small table, similarly, a few disorderly plants can really ruin your urban landscape. So make sure to shape and arrange your plants to look neat.
- Vertical Gardens: The ultimate space-saving garden, vertical gardens allow you to grow many times more plants than you would if you only had one layer. As such, they’re a staple in any urban modern landscape.
- Multipurpose Areas/Furniture: While you will of course see this in other landscapes too, they’re somewhat uncommon, unlike in urban spaces where these are pretty much must-haves rather than nice-to-haves. Some great examples of multitpurpose items include seats that double as storage, planter benches, fire pit tables, and outdoor sofas with hidden storage.
- Modern Materials: As you would expect from a modern outdoor area, you should be using sleek, contemporary materials like steel, metal, and glass.
Things To Note
- Take care not to overcrowd: You would be surprised how quickly a small space fills up. It can be tempting to want to do a lot with your outdoor area. You may want a dining space, a waterfall, a garden, a walkway, and the list goes on. However, while adding more function to your space does make it more useable, adding too many elements can quickly ruin your aesthetic, turning it into an unsightly place you don’t want to be in. Make sure to plan and take measurements properly to ensure you’re not trying to fit too much in too little space.
Conclusion
So there you have it, four popular modern landscaping styles that will have your outdoor space looking cool, trendy, and aesthetically pleasing.
This list definitely isn’t exhaustive, so feel free to explore other styles before you come to a decision, unless you’ve fallen in love with one of these styles already.
All the best!
While normal landscapes may not seem particularly hard to navigate, many seniors have limited mobility which can make even slightly steep slopes hard and even dangerous to climb. To allow the seniors at home to enjoy the outdoor space, it’s crucial to make your landscape safe and accessible. While some may think it’s just a matter of keeping the path even and flat, there’s actually a lot more to it than you might think. If you’re ready to turn your landscape into the ultimate senior-friendly landscape, then jump right in! Understanding The Needs Of The Elderly Besides merely mobility, the elderly have other needs that need to be met. Knowing what they are is the first step to landscaping a garden that meets their needs. First off, as we grow older, our bodies will start to deteriorate–if we let them. In order to slow down this deterioration, keeping active both physically and mentally is key. And gardens achieve both of that. Other than walking through the garden to get their heart rate up a little, tending to it also keeps seniors active mentally and physically. Tasks like pruning, watering, and planting all help keep their fine motor skills sharp while giving them more physical activity. Second, as seniors get older, it’s easy to feel lonely, especially if they’re living alone, as they don’t go to work, and if they don’t meet their friends either, with no family at home most of the time, they have little social interaction every day. Having an outdoor space where they can invite their friends over or host gatherings can be hugely beneficial to their mental health. Now that you know the problems the elderly may face, here are ways to address them with your landscape. 1. Paths
If you’re staying in an apartment or a condominium or you just don’t have a yard, there’s no way you can have a garden. That is unless you grow it on your rooftop! Besides balcony landscapes, rooftop gardens are often the only way for anyone to have a garden in metropolitan cities, where land is scarce and most people stay in multi-level buildings with no yards. You may also have a multi-level home that doesn’t have a yard, necessitating a garden on top of your roof . Either way, rooftop gardens are one of the best ways to enjoy the benefits of gardening when you don’t have a yard. You can do a lot with your rooftop space, and this article will teach you how to make the most out of it. Rooftop Gardens vs Normal Gardens
Wondering how to make your garden more wild-friendly? Then you’ve come to the right place! Whatever style your landscape is, from minimalist landscapes to cottage gardens, there are various ways to support your local biodiversity and make your garden more eco-friendly. So if you’re looking to do your part for the environment or just love seeing wildlife in your garden, don’t skip any part of this article. 1. What Makes Gardens Wildlife-Friendly? First things first, note that one wildlife-friendly garden can differ vastly in appearance from another wildlife-friendly garden. Wildlife-friendly garden landscaping isn’t a gardening or landscaping style or aesthetic. It’s the process of steps and practices that make your garden more wildlife-friendly. As such, it’s not about what a garden looks like, but what it can do for wildlife. So any landscaping style can be wildlife-friendly regardless of what they look like, they just need to support wildlife. Generally, there are 3 keys to a wildlife-friendly garden, and anything that works towards or directly achieves any one of those keys will make your garden more wildlife-friendly. Key 1: Plants That Support Wildlife
Want to feel like you’re in a villa in Hawaii or even Bali every time you walk into your backyard? Then get yourself a tropical garden! Tropical gardens bring a refreshing, invigorating vibe with their lush vegetation and vibrant colors. Done properly, you’ll feel like you’re walking into a tropical forest with cool, fresh air. For those looking to create their own mini tropical forest, this article will teach you exactly how. 1. Tropical Landscaping Pros & Cons
Japanese gardens are one of the most aesthetically pleasing gardens you can have. With their simple designs and use of symbolic Japanese elements, when done properly, a Japanese landscape transports you straight to Japan. Japanese gardens bring a certain sense of peace and calm and are perfect for quiet reflection or just a serene retreat in solitude. That said, they are also great places for quiet gatherings like a book session or just having a conversation over tea. So if you’re someone who loves peace and quiet, or just someone who appreciates a tranquil place to retreat to and get away from everything, read on to find out how to landscape your very own Japanese garden. 1. Do You Really Want A Japanese Landscape?
Mediterranean landscapes are one of the most functional landscapes, and they give off the vibe that the landscape is more of a functional space than an aesthetic one. The designs are usually simple and muted and made to require little maintenance, courtesy of the dry weather Mediterranean weather. Mediterranean gardens have a soft, timeless appeal to them though, which is why they’re so popular among homeowners. If you’re one of them, dive right in to find out exactly how to create the perfect Mediterranean landscape! 1. Pros And Cons As with any landscape, there’s both good and bad with Mediterranean gardens. This section will help you make an informed decision as to whether or not to have a Mediterranean-style outdoor space. Pros For the pros, we’ll be starting with the obvious ones. Functionality: As mentioned above, Mediterranean landscapes have functionality in mind. They’re designed to have an abundance of space for use and have plants take up less space. As such, your outdoor area is going to be much more practical. You’ll be able to conduct more activities and have much more use for your space rather than just a space that looks great. Low maintenance: Mediterranean gardens are inspired by the Mediterranean region, which means dry weather. As such, for plants to survive in that kind of climate, they need to be tough, drought-tolerant, and require little water to survive. This means you not only save on the water bills, but also have to perform less maintenance. Tireless beauty: Mediterranean gardens aren’t loud, bold, or particularly striking or stunning. Due to their quiet charm, you won’t tire of looking at them every day, and they won’t go out of style. Survivability in various climates : Given that these plants are tough enough to survive the harsh Mediterranean climate, this means that even if your area has a less hospitable environment, you’ll likely still be able to successfully have a thriving Mediterranean garden. Cons Now for the cons, there aren’t any real dealbreakers, but there are some things that you need to know before you go ahead with a Mediterranean garden. Cost: Mediterranean gardens will usually have fewer plants and more hardscapes. Since hardscapes can be a fair bit more pricey, you will have to be prepared to spend more upfront on your Mediterranean landscape. Not as impressive as other landscapes: While Mediterranean gardens have a timeless beauty that never gets old, they’re definitely not something that guests will be wowed by. They’re more of a style that guests appreciate for their simplicity and subtle charm. 2. Choosing The Right Plants
If you’ve ever watched The Hobbit, cottage gardens are exactly like that. With an abundance of bright, lively colors, cottage gardens make you feel like you’re living in the countryside, perhaps in a cottage. Cottage gardens bring a countryside vintage feel to your home and have a merry, simple charm to them. So if you want to transport your guests (and yourself) from the city to the peaceful, rural backcountry when they walk into your garden, keep reading to find out how! 1. Choosing The Colors While you’re going to have a wide variety of colors, that still doesn’t mean you can just throw in random colors and hope they go well together. For most cottage gardens, you’re going to be going with the bright shades of white, yellow, red, blue, purple, and pink. The more colors you have, the more lively and abundant your garden will look. But note that you don’t have to use all of them. Even using just a few is enough to get you the look you want, as long as the colors are bright and vibrant. 2. Choosing The Plants
If you’re looking to start a vertical garden, you’re in the right place. Whether it’s to save space, or just to be able to fit more plants in your garden, vertical gardens offer plenty of benefits. Moreover, when done right, they look just as good as normal gardens. This guide will cover everything you need to know about vertical landscaping, from the various types and styles, to how to design, install, and maintain them . So if you’re ready to become an expert in vertical gardens, jump right in! 1. Why Vertical Landscaping?
Just because you have a small space doesn’t mean it can’t look great. In fact, if you’ve ever stepped into a well-designed small home, you’ll often find that it feels much more cozy and homely than other larger homes. Similarly, when it comes to your outdoor area, with the right elements and proper arrangement, your small space can look cozy and welcoming, with the added benefit of requiring much less maintenance than a larger space. Here are 6 tips for turning your small outdoor space into a welcoming urban retreat. 1. Know What You’re Up Against To effectively plan and create a stunning and functional small landscape, you need to know the obstacles you’ll face so that you can effectively plan for and deal with them. Overcrowding One of the biggest challenges, or perhaps the biggest challenge with small landscapes, is overcrowding. Unlike with a larger space where you can easily fit a lawn, a water feature, a seating area, and a patio, and still have space for an outdoor kitchen, you don’t have that luxury with small areas. When you’re considering what to include in your small area, make sure to be very conscious of the measurements and arrangement, because even just a few items are enough to clutter up a landscape with limited space. Sunlight Exposure If you have a small space, there’s a good chance that a decent amount of it doesn’t get as much sunlight as other areas as those areas might be shaded by fences or your home building itself. With bigger spaces, you could just use that place as a seating area or something like a patio, or even just not use it. But with limited space available, you need to maximize every bit of it, so you have to find a way to make full use of even areas with lesser sunlight. So these are two extremely common challenges when trying to landscape a smaller space. With that in mind, almost all of these tips deal with those challenges in some way or another, so fret not, there are many ways to overcome them. 2. Vertical Gardens
When there's landscaping work to be done, if you're hiring a landscaper , make sure you get one of the best landscapers Boise has to offer (ahem ahem, us). But when you’re looking to do landscaping on a budget, there are actually many ways to keep costs down. From DIYing where you can to recycling materials, here are all the ways you can spare your wallet when giving your outdoor space a makeover. 1. Planning and Design Starting without a plan can result in many additional costs, from buying too much of a material (or buying too little and having to buy more which would cost more than if you had bought a larger quantity in the first place), to having to redo certain installations. Start by getting an idea of what your space can accommodate: Measure your yard’s dimensions Observe and note down sunlight patterns and intensity, including which areas are in the shade Find out what your soil type is by collecting some samples and sending them to be tested for their pH level as well as what type of soil it actually is. Observe the water drainage. Waterlogging can be a serious issue, so make sure that your soil drains well, and if not, you’ll need to consider solutions like raised beds. Then, use free online tools or apps like SketchUp or My Garden from Gardena to create the design. 2. Budgeting Tips The next step is to decide how much you want to spend and where to allocate it to. It’s not as simple as being frugal and only spending where necessary or buying subpar materials to save money. It’s about prioritizing your needs and wants and ensuring your money is spent well and wisely. Setting your budget: Take stock of your finances and consider how much you can realistically spend without stressing your finances too much. Get multiple quotes from different landscaping companies. Of course, you will be trying to DIY where you can. But for installations or tasks you can’t perform, make sure to check out different companies and get multiple quotes to ensure you’re getting the best deal. Have some buffer. Never budget just right. Always ensure you set aside 10-20% more money than you estimate you’ll need and be prepared to spend it in case of unexpected costs like soil amendments and drainage issues. If you still find that you don’t have enough to complete the entire project, here are some ways to get around it: Prioritize the needs. Look through the various installations and see which ones are needs and which ones are wants. Needs are going to be things like walkways and essential plants, while wants are going to be things like decorative statues or water features. Consider which features will be most impactful. Certain installations and features are bound to have more of an impact. For example, mulching has significant health benefits for your plants and enhances the aesthetics of your garden. Split your project into phases. If you don’t have the funds to complete all the installations needed, simply work out your budget for the next few months and split the project up accordingly. 3. Cost-Effective Plants When selecting the plants to use, we strongly encourage that you go with native plants, because they require the least watering, fertilizing, and pest control, all of which mean reduced maintenance costs (and less effort too). Regardless of which plants you eventually decide on, it’s always cheaper to start from seeds than to have grown ones installed. You will also want to collect the seeds from existing plants at the end of each season for future use. Growing from cuttings is also another cost-effective alternative. Alternatively, you can also grow plants for cuttings, which are faster and still very cost-effective. You don’t always have to spend money to get the plants you want either. Plant swaps are a great way to obtain new plants by offering the plants you already have in exchange. You can do this through your friends, neighbors, local gardening clubs, and online communities like forums and social media groups that are specifically created for the purpose of plant swaps. 4. DIY Where Possible When you hire a professional, you’re paying for the manpower and labor costs, and even some markup on the materials. As such, DIYing will always be cheaper, which is why it makes sense to DIY where you can. Most installations can actually be done on your own, from paths and walkways to raised garden beds. Here’s our complete guide to DIY landscaping . 5. Recycled and Repurposed Materials Recycled and repurposed materials can also be used for certain installations and features to cut down on material costs. Here are some examples. Garden beds: Unused wood pallets, discarded bricks, and surplus concrete blocks can all be used to make solid raised garden beds. Planters: Old tires can be used as planters. Borders: Leftovers bricks, stones, and tiles can all be used to make nice garden borders. Once again, even if you don’t have these materials yourself, groups and forums like Freecycle and Nextdoor often have people giving away these items for free. You can also find these items for free or at a very low price on marketplaces like Craigslist or eBay and even Facebook Marketplace. Another place you can try is local construction companies. These companies often have surplus materials from their projects that you can get for free for at nominal cost. 6. Low-Cost Lighting When choosing the lighting to use, make sure they are energy-efficient, so LED lights are a great option. While in the short run they may cost more, they will save you money on utility bills in the long run. You can also opt for solar lights that will save you even more on the utility bills in the long run. 7. Water-Saving Strategies Native plants aren’t the only way to use less water. From irrigation systems to rainwater harvesting, there are plenty more ways to cut down on the water bills. Drip irrigation systems do cost a fair amount in the beginning, but their water efficiency will save you more money on the water bills in the long run. And the best part is that they can be installed on your own with kits from DIY stores. Using rainwater for watering your plants is another great way to immediately cut down on water use. It’s as simple as putting a bucket out to collect rainwater, or you can use rain barrels to collect more water and greater convenience.
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