Ideas for Landscaping in a Boring Back Yard

Garden Rooms

• Instead of simply laying garden beds in your lawn, create a garden room that will give you and your family interesting sensory experiences. Large estates may have hedges or fences to separate individual garden rooms, but you can place a different garden room in each corner of your backyard and make a stone or gravel walkway as a way to distinguish each one. Garden room ideas include a pizza garden with the herbs and vegetables needed to top your favorite pizza, a butterfly garden with flowers that attract the winged insects, a salsa garden with your favorite peppers and tomatoes, or an aquatic garden placed in and around a water feature.

Landscaping with Rocks

• Break up a boring, flat backyard with pathways made of flagstone, decomposed granite or even cobblestones. To make a pathway more interesting, have it lead to a focal point in your yard, like a swing, pond, fire pit or hot tub. If you are not fond of caring for grass, consider creating a zen type of rock garden that includes a boulder or two among white rocks. If your backyard slopes, use large pieces of flagstone to help define the different levels in your yard and as steps so you can navigate through your yard safely.

Succulents

• If you do not have a green thumb but want more plant life in your backyard other than grass, try growing succulents. Available in different heights, sizes and colors, succulents are low-maintenance plants, and many can withstand hot and cold temperatures. Only needing the occasional watering, many succulent varieties transplant easily and spread on their own. In addition to planting succulents in the ground, consider growing them in pots, as well, so you can add height and dimension in your backyard.

Flower Borders

• Often seen in European gardens, flower borders are a simple way to add color and dimension to your backyard. Use flowers to line your fence, to form a ring around a tree or along your patio. If you want to use more than one variety of flowers to create a border, place the taller flowers in the back and shorter flowers in front.