8 Ways to Bring Modern Design to Any Outdoor Space
Break out of the box with these creative ideas for contemporary plantings and hardscapes
Lauren Dunec Hoang
23 February 2018
Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and in-house designer for Sunset's Editorial Test Garden. Her garden designs have been featured in the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping, Sunset Western Garden Book of Easy-Care Plantings (cover), Inhabitat, and POPSUGAR.
Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and... More
You don’t need a modern home to embrace modern and contemporary design ideas in your garden. In fact, many principles of modern garden design — clean lines, structural plant forms and restrained color palettes — and the peaceful atmosphere they create, can work especially well in more traditional-style landscapes, which emphasize structure and uniformity.
If you’re looking to revamp your garden this spring, take a look at these eight ideas from contemporary gardens for some out-of-the-box inspiration.
If you’re looking to revamp your garden this spring, take a look at these eight ideas from contemporary gardens for some out-of-the-box inspiration.
1. Ditch traditional planting schemes. Or, at least, think beyond traditional beds and borders when it comes to where you can plant and in what arrangement. In this contemporary design, for example, architect David Wilson of WA Design arranged a linear pattern of stone pavers for the courtyard, leaving gaps for planting pockets.
In spring, purple iris emerge, transforming the area into a modern meadow. When the iris are not in bloom, the area can be used as a courtyard. The screen transecting the courtyard (made from metal rods cantilevered from an underground metal plate) was designed to mimic the curves of the stream bed bordering the property.
In spring, purple iris emerge, transforming the area into a modern meadow. When the iris are not in bloom, the area can be used as a courtyard. The screen transecting the courtyard (made from metal rods cantilevered from an underground metal plate) was designed to mimic the curves of the stream bed bordering the property.
2. Simplify your color palette. Reducing the number of colors in a garden — particularly a small one — can make it feel calm and serene. The designer of this roughly 688-square-foot garden in London’s Fulham neighborhood maintained a pared-down color palette with black for hardscape elements, shades of green, white and chartreuse for the planting beds and small hits of purple verbena and lavender flowers.
A trio of trimmed boxwoods planted in shiny black containers continues the color theme on the deck closer to the house.
To mimic this sleek and serene look, stick to a restrained color palette for plants, hardscape materials and outdoor furniture. You don’t need to rely on black, but natural colors like charcoal, gray, wood-brown, sandy tones, off-whites and leafy greens, perhaps with a few brighter accents, work well for contemporary outdoor color palettes.
Find a landscape designer to help refine your plant and design palette
To mimic this sleek and serene look, stick to a restrained color palette for plants, hardscape materials and outdoor furniture. You don’t need to rely on black, but natural colors like charcoal, gray, wood-brown, sandy tones, off-whites and leafy greens, perhaps with a few brighter accents, work well for contemporary outdoor color palettes.
Find a landscape designer to help refine your plant and design palette
3. Think of plants as forms. Visualizing the plants as forms is another design strategy that works well in any garden style. You see it often in contemporary and formal gardens, where the repetition of plants in shapes like spheres, cones and blocks creates a sense of ordered calm.
To re-create this look, add groupings of evergreen plants like boxwoods, pittosporum and privet clipped into geometric shapes. The plantings can stand on their own or act as a backdrop to looser ornamental plantings.
Step Up Your Garden’s Design With Planted Geometry
To re-create this look, add groupings of evergreen plants like boxwoods, pittosporum and privet clipped into geometric shapes. The plantings can stand on their own or act as a backdrop to looser ornamental plantings.
Step Up Your Garden’s Design With Planted Geometry
4. Leave areas bare. Open areas like lawns or empty patios act as a place for the eye to rest. For a more modern edge in your garden, think beyond the typical clipped lawn. Instead, consider gravel, a low-growing ground cover or a tufty no-mow lawn. Larger areas left bare can be great opportunities for showing off garden sculpture, a simple fountain or a specimen plant like a Japanese maple or crabapple tree.
5. Show off raw materials. Modern building designs strip away unnecessary elements and often leave the structural materials, pipes or HVAC systems exposed. Embrace this same philosophy by celebrating existing elements on site, like a rough concrete wall or the backside of a chimney, as an intentional part of the design. If you’re building a new garden or home, you may want to leave materials more raw and exposed in some areas.
6. Plant en masse. Grouping large numbers of a single type of plant in the landscape both simplifies the design and brings more attention to the plant forms or planting arrangements.
In this garden in Perth, Australia, limiting the planting palette to mass plantings of foxtail agave (Agave attenuata) and the evergreen shrub laurustinus (Viburnum tinus) creates a simple, visually powerful design. One is led to appreciate the structural forms of the agave and the way the hedge balances with the built-in bench in size and shape.
In this garden in Perth, Australia, limiting the planting palette to mass plantings of foxtail agave (Agave attenuata) and the evergreen shrub laurustinus (Viburnum tinus) creates a simple, visually powerful design. One is led to appreciate the structural forms of the agave and the way the hedge balances with the built-in bench in size and shape.
7. Rely on ornamental grasses and foliage plants. Fussy mixed flower beds are rare in modern landscapes. Instead, many contemporary designers turn to ornamental grasses, evergreens and other plants with interesting foliage to give year-round interest. The advantage of using this planting strategy in your own garden is that it both cuts down on maintenance and gives a simplified, contemporary look.
If you’re not ready to convert all your colorful flower beds to ornamental grasses or evergreen foliage, try starting with ones in defined areas — like the strip between the sidewalk and the street or a bed running along a fence — and see if you like the look.
If you’re not ready to convert all your colorful flower beds to ornamental grasses or evergreen foliage, try starting with ones in defined areas — like the strip between the sidewalk and the street or a bed running along a fence — and see if you like the look.
8. Look for opportunities for repetition. Repeating forms of simple shapes can help give a feeling of order and balance. Look for ways to use both hardscape elements and plants as repetitive forms. For example, using a simple four-post design for a shade pergola and then repeating the same rectangular shape for a structure around a seating area gives a feeling of balance.
In this garden in Melbourne, Australia, the linear shape of both the trunks of the ficus and the bamboo form a repeating pattern around the pool.
In this garden in Melbourne, Australia, the linear shape of both the trunks of the ficus and the bamboo form a repeating pattern around the pool.
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So pleased to have found another of Lauren’s excellent articles. I missed this one when it was originally posted. Absolutely love how beautiful and playful modern garden design can be. I feel fortunate to be able to appreciate the love and beauty in all garden styles — from naturalist abundance to sophisticated minimalism. Reading through some of the other comments, I am profoundly saddened and disappointed that others in our Houzz community have yet to learn to express their preferences without disparaging others. I believe that anyone who wants a garden “deserves” a garden even when we don’t share the exact same aesthetic. Isn’t it wonderful that we don’t all like the same things? Let’s be kind, especially here.
Nice pictures and a good start. It would have been helpful to include good advice for awareness & use of pollinator and food plants, and there is no reason not to. Group plantings work well for pollinator options- And the colour choice could then shift with the seasons. xeriscape gardens for low-water use would be easily modern. Lighting might be addressed with a sustainability mindset. Sustainable focus is no longer a “lifestyle choice.”