Contemporary Garden Design - Outdoor Lighting, Container Gardening & Plants

Contemporary garden design embraces the imagination and is often found in inner city areas in an attempt to escape the concrete jungle. Modern housing with small gardens has created a cultural shift towards Contemporary design with a great deal of focus on entertaining and sitting areas.

In an effort to link the house interior to the garden, depending on the size of the garden area, designers have incorporated;

• Outdoor Kitchens & Barbecues
• Outdoor Heating
• Outdoor Lighting
• Parasols & Seating

Certain features work very well in Contemporary garden design such as Decking, due to its practicality i.e. safe play area for children and low-maintenance. Luxury Swimming Pools can be sophisticated and exciting as well as eye-catching and mesmerizing.

Good Contemporary garden designers tend to have artistic skills by nature and are sensitive to their surroundings. Influences may come from modern land art or sculptures. Wire sculpture and wall decor are often integrated into designs.

• Neat & tidy uncluttered lines
• Borders made easy to care for
• Incorporation of current lifestyle trends

The above are particularly for Roof Gardens!

It can be quite amazing how something as simple as Exotic Plants with bamboo fencing or rendered boundary walls painted to match the property can create a garden with a real wow factor.

WATER

Water Features are an ideal way of de-stressing and can be used to as an auditory focus, blocking out the noise of surrounding city life. Water Fountains add aesthetic beauty and may be either wall mounted or stand alone. Galvanised water features have become popular with their constant cycling of water from a catch basin at the bottom creating a sheet of water over a visually appealing surface. Another option may be a waterfall oozing out of a vertical marble slab.

MATERIALS USED

One of the beauties of Modern Garden Design is the wide variety of unnatural manmade products that can be utilised. For example;

• Fibreglass Structures
• Vinyl Fences & Vinyl Products
• Formed Metals & Chrome
• Glass or Metallic Gravel
• Black Volcanic Glass
• Even Crushed CDs

Mulching of planted areas with bestseller aggregate like Sandstone, Black Granite and Limestone are an ideal way to create that maintenance free environment which is so important to the busy city dweller. Combining Decking and Paving is also another way to cut down on maintenance.

LIGHTING

Outdoor Lighting, often an integral part of the design, may be up lighting to direct light up through the branches and trunks of trees, down lighting, typically used to illuminate steps and spot lighting which can be used to illuminate a statue or Water Feature. Subtle Garden Lighting effects can be achieved with carefully placed low voltage LED lights incorporated into paving and walls. Check out the Garden Lighting projects on this website!

PLANTS

Choice of plants tends to be perennials to reduce the amount of actual gardening required. They are also used functionally such as tall planting to provide a screen as well as taking advantage of the 'rustle in the wind' effect to help deaden the surrounding noise. Where space is tight or less accessible such as a Courtyard or Roof Garden, considerations should be made to;

• Evergreens that won't outgrow the space
• Easy-care Plants such as Flax
• Tall Container Planters

For the Container Gardening, plants such as Bamboos and Japanese Maples are ideal.

Other considerations are ornamental grasses combined with natural river cobblestones, Fatsia & Arum Lilies and Spiky Architectural plants such as Cordylines.

Click Projects below to view details

CONOTT001 - White Sandstone Paving & Raised Beds

CONGLD001 - Modern & Classical Renovation - Contemporary Garden

CONFGD001 - Vintage Contemporary Coastal Garden

CONGSG001 - Mediterranean Terrace with Steel Pergola

CONDSI001 - Architectural Composition using Stainless Steel

CONOGC001 - Traditional Knot Garden Overlooking Courtyard

CONJAD001 - Restoration of Knot Garden

CONSPG001 - Stone Contemporary Courtyard

CONDZG001 - Contemporary Courtyard in London with Decking & Water Feature

CONDZG002 - Contemporary Garden Design with Bamboos in the Flower Bed

CONOSS001 - Contemporary Show Garden with Simple Foliage in Flower Borders