Create a Family-friendly Yard with These Backyard Landscaping Tips

09 January 2020

Backyards are often utilised to accommodate the family’s recreational activities. More often than not, backyards are used as a space to live, play, and relax while staying peacefully within the confines of your own home. Below are some backyard landscaping tips that will turn your outdoor living space into a family-friendly yard.

Create a Gathering Zone

One important aspect of a backyard that many often disregard is the gathering space. A gathering space may already exist, possibly attached to the house. It can be a back deck or a patio. If you don’t have one, place it as close to the kitchen as possible, a pragmatic choice that makes eating and dining outside that much easier.

Create a Getaway Zone

The second most important zone is the backyard getaway space. It is less common but no less -necessary. The said area can be a corner with a hammock, a little terrace underneath a big tree, or even just two chairs. Its purpose is to allow you to look back on your house, read a book, or watch the kids while they play. As such, when you decide the elements of your backyard landscaping, the getaway zone should be as far away from the gathering zone as possible.

Once you’ve established the getaway and gathering zones, your next backyard landscaping step should be to figure out what to do with the space in between. There are countless possibilities, which can also be overwhelming.

Create Backyard Edges

You can manage the rest of the backyard by starting off with the edges. If you have a fence or just want to delineate the space between your yard and a neighbour’s yard, that may mean creating narrow borders with a mix of evergreen shrubs or trees for year-round interest and structure, and supplementing it with ornamental grasses, perennials, and annuals.

Planting window boxes, hanging baskets, and containers with flowers, dwarf trees, shrubs, and even vegetables introduces people to the many varieties of plants available for backyard landscaping and gives them experience with gardening, too. Those containers and small edging flower beds are also confidence-building spots, particularly for new gardeners.

Once you’ve established a backyard border planting, your next step should be to extend that edge to larger beds as time and budget allows. For example, a corner of a patio filled with easy-grow perennials may be enlarged to wrap around the whole perimeter of the gathering space.

Finalise your Lawn Area

The lawn can be designed using a variety of shapes — circular, oval, oblong, or rectangular, for example — or even a series of small, interconnected circles, all surrounded by plantings.

Turn your outdoor living space into a family-friendly area with the help of Mark Browning Landscape Design. We understand the needs and requirements of our customers and our workmanship is always designed to suit your lifestyle and give you the dream garden that is more than what you have imagined it would be.

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