Landscape Design
10 Ways to Create a Secret Garden
You can design your garden to feel like a secluded backyard retreat, a world apart from the hustle of daily life
No matter where your plot of land is — in the heart of a bustling city or down a quiet lane — there’s an opportunity to make your garden feel like a secret, secluded space. The best secret gardens not only feel private, but they also have a certain magic about them, evoking the sense of being removed from the hustle of daily life and transported to somewhere else entirely. Let’s take a look at 10 ingredients that not only give secret gardens privacy, but a sense of magic as well.
1. A hidden entrance. Gates and entryways are important features in any garden, but they are essential for secret gardens. They define a threshold — marking the passage from one garden area (perhaps a more public one) to a private space. Create a sense of mystery about what lies beyond with a garden entrance that blocks the inner garden from view. This magical garden door, for example, dwarfed by redwood trees on both sides, obscures the garden beyond, adding to its mystery.
This vine-draped wooden gate would work well to define the entrance of a secret garden and encourage visitors to leave daily stresses at the door. You may notice that the gate also fully conceals the garden behind it — piquing curiosity as to what lies beyond.
Houzz TV: 77 Gorgeous Garden Gates
Houzz TV: 77 Gorgeous Garden Gates
2. An inviting destination. Inside the garden, provide a seating area as an alluring destination that draws in visitors. These destinations can be as simple as a pair of chairs pulled up to a cafe table or a bench drawn under a shade tree. If the seating area is partially obscured by foliage or fencing, it only adds to the feeling of discovery.
3. Screening and hedges for privacy. Nothing breaks the spell of a secret garden like seeing the blank faces of adjacent buildings or looking straight into a neighbor’s windows.
Turn to fences, evergreen hedges and trees with leafy canopies for screening. A combination of fencing and tall, layered plantings makes this townhouse in London’s Kensington neighborhood feel like a woodsy retreat rather than a city garden.
Turn to fences, evergreen hedges and trees with leafy canopies for screening. A combination of fencing and tall, layered plantings makes this townhouse in London’s Kensington neighborhood feel like a woodsy retreat rather than a city garden.
Alternatively, use screens to create private areas within the garden, such as a sheltered seating or dining nook.
Learn more about privacy screens
Learn more about privacy screens
4. Loose, naturalistic plantings. Secret gardens can take any shape and style, but those that are slightly less manicured and a bit more wild have a certain romance. Get the naturalistic look by planting billowing grasses, carefree flowering perennials and native plants of all types. For more formality, balance loose plant forms with sheared hedges, a patch of mowed lawn or a few clipped shrubs for structure.
Get the Look: Untamed, Naturalistic Garden Style
Get the Look: Untamed, Naturalistic Garden Style
To create a slightly wild, secret garden feeling in urban courtyards where you have limited bed space, plant a vine in the ground or a large container. Let a trailing climber, such as wisteria, honeysuckle or a climbing rose, ramble up the sides of buildings and cloak the area with foliage and flowers.
Care and Training for a Vine-Covered Home
Care and Training for a Vine-Covered Home
5. Disappearing pathways. Use a steppingstone path or a winding walkway to draw visitors into the garden. The trick to evoking a feeling of anticipation: Leave the destination hidden.
This garden pathway, for example, runs in a straight line but curves out of sight right before the back wall, making you wonder what lies behind it. The designer also used offset steppingstones set in the lawn to slow the journey.
5 Garden Path Looks for an Enchanting Journey
This garden pathway, for example, runs in a straight line but curves out of sight right before the back wall, making you wonder what lies behind it. The designer also used offset steppingstones set in the lawn to slow the journey.
5 Garden Path Looks for an Enchanting Journey
6. An enclosed space. In more open landscapes, adding a sheltered seating area or a small hedged-in garden can help balance a feeling of openness with one of privacy and seclusion. It’s adding a secret garden within a garden, so to speak.
Here, a bed of changing fall foliage and a willow archway partially separate a private seating nook from a more public lawn area. This hidden shaded area would be a wonderful place to settle down with an engrossing book or entertain an intimate group of friends.
Here, a bed of changing fall foliage and a willow archway partially separate a private seating nook from a more public lawn area. This hidden shaded area would be a wonderful place to settle down with an engrossing book or entertain an intimate group of friends.
7. A connection with nature. Welcome bees, butterflies, birds and other small creatures to your secret garden by offering sources for food and water, and areas for shelter. Choose native plants and others that support pollinators, like the nectar-rich salvia pictured here. Allow plants like roses to go to seed — the rose hips can become food for birds in fall and winter.
Welcoming these connections with wildlife may give new meaning to your experience with the garden.
Discover how to garden for beneficial bees and butterflies
Welcoming these connections with wildlife may give new meaning to your experience with the garden.
Discover how to garden for beneficial bees and butterflies
8. Seasonal change. Tap into nature’s own seasonal magic — the emergence of new bulbs in spring and leaves changing from green to red, orange and gold in fall — by choosing some plants for recurrent interest in your secret garden.
If you don’t want to undertake larger-scale planting projects like adding deciduous trees, consider planting one or two containers for seasonal color. Plants like tulips, daffodils and other bulbs, summer annuals and perennials, Mediterranean herbs, and small-scale Japanese maples grow well in containers.
12 Stunning Spring Container Gardens
12 Fabulous Fall Container Gardens
If you don’t want to undertake larger-scale planting projects like adding deciduous trees, consider planting one or two containers for seasonal color. Plants like tulips, daffodils and other bulbs, summer annuals and perennials, Mediterranean herbs, and small-scale Japanese maples grow well in containers.
12 Stunning Spring Container Gardens
12 Fabulous Fall Container Gardens
9. Objects with meaning. Add a thoughtful object to the landscape to make a secret garden feel more like your own. Ordinary objects with personal meaning, such as an interesting rock picked up at a special beach, may remind you of a favorite trip or childhood memory. Historical objects or those with spiritual meaning can bring greater depth to the garden.
Whatever you choose, consider partially concealing the object within garden beds or around the bend in a path to add an element of discovery.
Whatever you choose, consider partially concealing the object within garden beds or around the bend in a path to add an element of discovery.
10. Dreamy landscape lighting. Subtle, glowing landscape lighting is the icing on the cake for making a secret garden feel like a magical retreat. Select lights that are small and subdued, rather than bright flood lights — we’re going for the look of fairy lights and not a football stadium, after all. Apart from providing ambience, lights can be practical too — extending the time you can enjoy being out of doors, and illuminating pathways and stairs for safety.
Tell us: Have you created a secret garden of your own? Share pictures in the Comments below.
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Tell us: Have you created a secret garden of your own? Share pictures in the Comments below.
More
What Kind of Gardener Are You? Find Your Archetype
The Single Best Way to Add Romance to Your Garden
10 Steps to Making a New Garden Your Own
