5 Tips for a fairytale backyard or terrace

Even for a modestly sized garden or backyard, you can apply some landscaping principles for shaping a beautiful space, prepared for dinner parties with friends! With a little imagination even a terrace from an apartament in a building of flats can be turned into a spacious area for a comfortable and relaxing experience. Here are the elements you should take care when decorating your terrace, backyard or garden:

1. Light sources

Traditional Exterior by Joliet Outdoor Lighting & Audio/Visual Systems Accents Lighting

In the evening or at night, your terrace, backyard or garden will develop a fairytale ambience with the light used effectively. Depending on your style, you can use small lights for a modern setting or ideally-positioned light spots for illuminating those elements of space that need to be highlighted. A trick you might consider is orientation of light – horizontal oriented lights will keep your eyes on this level, whereas the lights oriented vertically will turn the visitor's attention up.

Do not forget to take into account the natural light – you can set up a corner in the backyard / garden protected from sunlight (if you have enough room, choose a pergola or agrape wine for protecting the area), after observing carefully the light orientation and considering the space as a whole.

2. Plants

In any exterior area a careful selection of plants will maintain continuity for your decorated space, but also a natural charm, adding refined notes to your exterior decoration project. One example which uses flower boxes for an amazing exterior is separating pedestrian walkway with flower boxes. It is only a detail, but the fact that a visitor feels like walking on a pedestrian walkway (even for a small space) adds extra points to the experience associated with your backyard or garden. A garden table, next to a tree or a taller plant, will have more impact.

3. Walls / fences

Contemporary Landscape by Newport Beach Landscape Contractors Urban Landscape

You can have many models for the walls / fences meant to isolate your exterior space – those can be cladded with natural stone, a project that will intensify the natural look of your space. If you have a very high separating wall, an interesting idea is combining the natural stone with climbing plants. And if you also add lights for highlighting such a wall, the effect is guaranteed. For big enough fences another idea would be installing a hanging garden (basically, we're talking a few flower boxes that can be cladded with SKIN flexible slate, for example.

4. A point of interest

The basic principle of the Italian gardens is based on applying symmetry and points of interest for setting up your own garden. If you decide for such a garden or terrace and choose a point of interest – it can be an imposing plant, a tree, a piece of furniture or an outdoor barbecue – the other elements will complement and balance the setting.

5. Functional and Aesthetic role

Traditional Landscape by Anaheim Architects & Building Designers RVM Construction Inc.

Many backyards may fall into a strictly functional extreme – viewed as simple crossing areas, cannot be perceieved as areas of relaxation if you do not add the elements able to convey this. And here are some tricks for adding some aesthetic shades to the functional role of– you can add benches, a hammock or a dining area and later create pedestrian walkways besides layers of plants and flower boxes for energizing the courtyard or garden. Don't forget the little ones – if you have children, think of an area for them to play.

Other ideas for decorating the terrace, courtyard or garden

Vintage elements can provide interesting notes, especially when they are points of interest.

• An outdoor rug can be a nice addition if the design allows it.
• Remember: garden is the new living room – you can improvise very beautiful areas with curtains, cushion sofas.
• Details do matter – natural stone tiles for walkways or for exterior cladding (polygonal or splitface cladding) can be associated with decorative sand areas or pebbles – highlighting the stone in many ways you will create an artistic environment.

For further details on choosing the natural stone best suited to your project give us a call at +40318.222.333, or send us an email at export@piatraonline.com!