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 | Design Ideas for Planning a Theme Garden
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Just as the interior of your home has a style that reflects your personality, so can your garden. Two popular garden themes to draw inspiration from include Japanese and Mexican-style gardens. Get design tips for using concrete paving materials, plants, garden d?cor, and water features to create these distinctive looks.
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| Five Innovative Ways to Use
Concrete in the Garden
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Greetings!
 A profusion of
colorful flowers is the aspiration of every backyard gardener. But few green thumbers
realize the subtle ways they can use concrete to enhance and balance the lush
floral beauty of a garden in bloom. You can add visual appeal with ornamental
concrete statuary and planters, create a permanent framework for garden beds by
installing concrete landscape borders, and improve the flow through your landscape
using concrete pathways, stepping stones, and garden bridges. Here are examples showing how to incorporate
these decorative concrete elements into your garden designs.
Jim Peterson,
The Concrete Network
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1. Display Your Blooms in Concrete Planters
Concrete can be cast into unique planters that blend with any garden or house style. Because they can vary in size, shape, or color, concrete planters bring an element of the unexpected to your landscape, and they are especially striking when grouped to create an outdoor container garden. Check out these custom concrete plant containers.
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2. Add Art to Your Garden with Concrete Statuary
Concrete statuary and other ornamentation in the garden can provide structure, contrast, and decorative interest, even after the blooms fade. Many suppliers offer specialized collections of concrete statuary and garden ornamentation that allow you to evoke a particular time, culture, architectural style, or theme, from the whimsical to the classic.
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3. Bridge the Waters with Concrete
Consider using a concrete bridge to lead from one area of your garden area to another, crossing over a pond or a bubbling brook. Concrete bridges can be cast to mimic either wood or stone, with the added benefits of little maintenance and longer lifespans.
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4. Use Concrete Pathways to Lead the Way
Walkways and garden paths are essential elements for "wayfinding," or encouraging people to go from one area of the backyard to another. In this video, Scott Cohen of The Green Scene shares his favorite ideas for using concrete to guide the way around a residential landscape.
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5. Frame Your Garden with a Concrete Border
Concrete landscape borders provide a more natural look than metal or wood edging because they can be formed to follow the distinct curves of your garden beds. You can also add custom colors and patterns to mimic materials such as brick or stone.
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