Garden Decor Ideas
Image Credits: UAGardener via Flickr

Do you dream of a simple garden that doesn’t require much time, but also to be elegant and beautiful? Here are some ideas to put them into practice so as to turn your dream into reality.

PLANT SHRUBS

If you have a small garden in front of the house, you could embellish it only with shrubs and hedges. Opt for varieties of cypress and juniper, which are evergreen, so your garden to be “alive” also during the cold season.

For effect, plant also decorative shrubs whose leaves change their color in autumn into scarlet, purple and red, like Euonymus alatus or shrubs whose color is always red, like the elder tree with red leaves and Mountain-Ash Shrub (Sorbus Aucuparia).

It is also important to plant lawn. Its bright green will make your garden look enviable.

Sorbus Aucuparia a/k/a Mountain-Ash
Sorbus Aucuparia a/k/a Mountain-Ash | image credits: Max-Leonhard von Schaper via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

USE PLANTS WITH DUAL ROLE

If you don’t have much space, choose plants that are decorative, but also bear fruit. Thus, you can opt for a hedge of currant and raspberry, whose fruits are delicious. Also, for more privacy, you can plant along the fence dwarf apple trees and dwarf cherry trees. Thus, you will combine utility with pleasure.

Garden Decor
Image Credits: Marco Verch

AN ALLEY OF STONE

No matter how small is the space in your garden, do not hesitate to arrange an alley of stone, even if you get one very narrow. It will create the sensation of airy gardens, with more space than it actually has. But choose light colored stone pieces. With this alleys you can also clearly separate the space between flowers and lawn.

GROUP THE PLANTS

When you start to plant flowers, be careful how you group them together. Thus, in a corner of the garden plant the ones which need to be watered more often, and in the other one put the ones that adapt better to drought. Also, be careful not to plant very tall, bushy flowers, near small, delicate flowers, because these, being fragile, will have no light and will not grow nicely.

To increase the charm of the yard, you can decorate the entrance of the house with colorful, large pots, in which to plant colorful flowers.

Sugarbush (Suikerbossie)
Suikerbossie (sugarbush) Protea | image credits: Bernard Spragg. NZ via Flickr (CC0 1.0)

Suikerbossie (sugarbush) Protea
This sturdy, dense shrub produces fairly large flowers ranging in colour from cream to deep red either during summer or during winter, depending on the variant grown. It is an excellent addition to any "wildlife" garden as the large amount of nectar produced by the flowers attracts birds, bees and other insects.
The plants are tolerant to a large variety of growing conditions but will show frost damage at temperatures below -4 degrees Celsius (+/- 25 degrees Fahrenheit).