Landscape Design
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How to Design Your Yard for More Meaning and Connection
See 10 ways to connect with nature in your outdoor spaces, such as introducing fragrant plants and welcoming wildlife
Outdoor spaces can connect us to the natural world in meaningful ways, whether we’re plucking the first ripe berries of the season or pausing to watch wild birds flit through foliage. While we most often talk about the nuts and bolts of landscape design — the shrubs, pathways and irrigation systems that make them work — let’s take a moment to explore the less tangible ways we can design our yards to foster connection with nature.
2. Engage the Senses
Scent is a powerful memory trigger. If there’s a fragrance you associate with a time period in your life or a loved one, adding this scent to your yard can bring you right back. If you don’t have something in particular you’d like to plant, you can’t go wrong with David Austin’s ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ rose, a pink shrub rose with a cabbage center and an old-fashioned rose fragrance.
Adding plants for texture, like fuzzy dusty miller (Jacobaea maritima, USDA zones 7 to 10; find your zone), or for movement, like ornamental grasses that sway in the slightest breeze, is another way to engage the senses and make you feel more connected to a landscape.
Scent is a powerful memory trigger. If there’s a fragrance you associate with a time period in your life or a loved one, adding this scent to your yard can bring you right back. If you don’t have something in particular you’d like to plant, you can’t go wrong with David Austin’s ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ rose, a pink shrub rose with a cabbage center and an old-fashioned rose fragrance.
Adding plants for texture, like fuzzy dusty miller (Jacobaea maritima, USDA zones 7 to 10; find your zone), or for movement, like ornamental grasses that sway in the slightest breeze, is another way to engage the senses and make you feel more connected to a landscape.
3. Slow Your Journey
Outdoor spaces are often places we go to wind down from the rush of everyday life. Think about ways you can set a landscape up to help you slow down — perhaps by creating a meditation labyrinth or simply adding more bends and curves to garden paths.
Outdoor spaces are often places we go to wind down from the rush of everyday life. Think about ways you can set a landscape up to help you slow down — perhaps by creating a meditation labyrinth or simply adding more bends and curves to garden paths.
Using steppingstones, rather than a smooth paving material, can be a useful way of slowing your journey through a yard. Ground covers grown between flagstones (like woolly thyme) can also engage the senses with a tangy herbal smell if crushed.
6 Walkable Ground Covers to Consider
6 Walkable Ground Covers to Consider
4. Add a Meaningful Object
Find a home in your yard for an object with meaning, whether it’s a spiritual figure, an object passed down from a friend or family member, or something found on a trip. You can elevate an object’s presence by mounting it on a pedestal or placing it at the base of a mature tree, with the trunk as a backdrop.
Meaningful objects, like small garden statues passed down from a loved one, can also be effective when tucked into planting beds. When your eye falls on them, you may remember that special person.
Celebrate Your Loved Ones With a Memorial Garden at Home
Find a home in your yard for an object with meaning, whether it’s a spiritual figure, an object passed down from a friend or family member, or something found on a trip. You can elevate an object’s presence by mounting it on a pedestal or placing it at the base of a mature tree, with the trunk as a backdrop.
Meaningful objects, like small garden statues passed down from a loved one, can also be effective when tucked into planting beds. When your eye falls on them, you may remember that special person.
Celebrate Your Loved Ones With a Memorial Garden at Home
5. Welcome Wildlife
Animals and insects give landscapes life. The buzz of bees, the splash of a bird in a fountain or perhaps the glimpse of a fox darting along a garden’s edge can instantly grab your attention and make you feel more present.
Plant native species that act as host plants for pollinators or provide food for indigenous birds. Hang a birdhouse and put out a source of water, such as a birdbath or plant saucer filled with water. By setting up your yard to help support the creatures around you, you can — in a small way — be connected to a larger natural ecosystem.
10 Ways to Make Your Landscape More Environmentally Friendly
Animals and insects give landscapes life. The buzz of bees, the splash of a bird in a fountain or perhaps the glimpse of a fox darting along a garden’s edge can instantly grab your attention and make you feel more present.
Plant native species that act as host plants for pollinators or provide food for indigenous birds. Hang a birdhouse and put out a source of water, such as a birdbath or plant saucer filled with water. By setting up your yard to help support the creatures around you, you can — in a small way — be connected to a larger natural ecosystem.
10 Ways to Make Your Landscape More Environmentally Friendly
6. Celebrate the History of the Site
You may have inherited landscape features that you might not have otherwise chosen. Instead of seeing these elements as eyesores, imagine the story behind them. This shift in mindset may even make you feel more connected to the history of your home or garden and the people who came before you.
You may have inherited landscape features that you might not have otherwise chosen. Instead of seeing these elements as eyesores, imagine the story behind them. This shift in mindset may even make you feel more connected to the history of your home or garden and the people who came before you.
7. Add a Secluded Seating Nook
Even if most of your outdoor space is geared toward entertaining, you can tuck a bench or seats for a few people in an area away from the main gathering area. You may find that you gravitate toward these areas when you’d like to be quiet and just sit and gaze at the landscape.
Look for half-hidden areas that feel more private, such as a side yard, an area tucked alongside a garden shed or a partially concealed spot behind plants.
Even if most of your outdoor space is geared toward entertaining, you can tuck a bench or seats for a few people in an area away from the main gathering area. You may find that you gravitate toward these areas when you’d like to be quiet and just sit and gaze at the landscape.
Look for half-hidden areas that feel more private, such as a side yard, an area tucked alongside a garden shed or a partially concealed spot behind plants.
8. Bring in Water
Through engaging your senses and welcoming wild birds, water elements can help you feel more present in and connected to your yard. Plus, in urban spaces, fountains that have a consistent trickle or splash can also help distract from the sounds of traffic and make the place feel more like a soothing retreat.
You don’t need a fancy or expensive fountain to bring water to your outdoor space. A simple design using a galvanized tank, a drilled stone or paver for the water to spill over, and an inexpensive fountain pump can create a lively recirculating fountain.
Through engaging your senses and welcoming wild birds, water elements can help you feel more present in and connected to your yard. Plus, in urban spaces, fountains that have a consistent trickle or splash can also help distract from the sounds of traffic and make the place feel more like a soothing retreat.
You don’t need a fancy or expensive fountain to bring water to your outdoor space. A simple design using a galvanized tank, a drilled stone or paver for the water to spill over, and an inexpensive fountain pump can create a lively recirculating fountain.
9. Take Note of Subtle Seasonal Changes
Part of the magic of landscapes is that they are constantly changing and evolving. Slowing down and noting small changes — roses beginning to bloom over a trellis in spring or grasses turning tawny in late summer, say — can help connect you to the seasons. Go a step further by including plants that you look forward to at each time of year.
See why you should hire a professional who uses Houzz Pro software
Part of the magic of landscapes is that they are constantly changing and evolving. Slowing down and noting small changes — roses beginning to bloom over a trellis in spring or grasses turning tawny in late summer, say — can help connect you to the seasons. Go a step further by including plants that you look forward to at each time of year.
See why you should hire a professional who uses Houzz Pro software
10. Start a New Tradition
Look for ways to connect future generations to a garden. Whether you plant a tree for the birth of your child or a niece, nephew or grandchild, or you have children place handprints in cast-concrete steppingstones and sign their name and the date, additions like these can make gardens feel more meaningful to the whole family.
Tell us: What do you do to feel more connected to your yard? Share your thoughts in the Comments.
More on Houzz
Read more landscape stories
Browse outdoor photos for ideas
Find a landscape contractor
Look for ways to connect future generations to a garden. Whether you plant a tree for the birth of your child or a niece, nephew or grandchild, or you have children place handprints in cast-concrete steppingstones and sign their name and the date, additions like these can make gardens feel more meaningful to the whole family.
Tell us: What do you do to feel more connected to your yard? Share your thoughts in the Comments.
More on Houzz
Read more landscape stories
Browse outdoor photos for ideas
Find a landscape contractor
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Landscapes can be powerful places for connecting us to our roots. Perhaps you remember smelling a specific type of flower your grandmother grew, biting into an heirloom tomato or climbing among the branches of a certain type of tree. Try putting one or more of these nostalgic plants in your own garden as a way to honor that memory or loved one.
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