7 Trending Landscaping Ideas for 2023

The holiday season is officially over, and while it is hard to say goodbye, the new year holds countless possibilities, including incredible, unique landscaping ideas for your space. Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook all have inspiration on how to improve the aesthetics around you. While 2023 brings in new trends, the collective idea that we want to surround ourselves with beauty is as old as dirt. Feeling peace and joy in our space improves our outlook on life and our mood in general. With that in mind, let’s see what this year has in store for inspiring your outdoor space. 

A few tips for inspiration

1. Don’t try to grow plants that don’t work for your lifestyle or area. The best and most enjoyable landscaping is the landscaping that works with your needs. If you don’t have time for a high-maintenance yard, the frustration of maintenance will outweigh the beauty of your new design. 

2. Take into consideration what you already have to work within your space. The best landscaping ideas incorporate your entire scenery as the canvas. You want to plan around all the beautiful assets that will impact your landscaping canvas.

3. Opt for a theme and stick with it. You want your design to feel cohesive and united instead of chaotic. 

 

1. Sanctuary Garden 

As we broke out of a global pandemic, many landscapers saw trends focused on mindfulness and mental well-being. Consequently, one of the biggest landscaping trends is gardens that encourage people to reflect, pause, and “be” in a tranquil and peaceful space. Restful and restorative themes usually include a wooden platform for yoga and meditation and flowing water features.

Tips For Your Space 

In your own outdoor space, create a mood that encourages relaxing through a small enclosed area where you can breathe, escape, and reconnect with nature. Choose plants with a soothing color palette instead of opting for vibrant colors. Plant flowers that bring you feelings of peace and relaxation. Opt for plants that provide privacy. 

 

2. Cottage Gardens

Cottage gardens involve planting your flowers close together to create a never-ending sea of vibrant blossoms. Fragrant, colorful, and welcoming blooms help cottage gardens look wild, whimsical, and natural.

Tips For Your Space

Several beautiful flowers will help you get a cottage garden in your outdoor space. Here are a few we suggest. 

• Dianthus is an excellent choice! They are expansive and have a wide selection of varieties.
• Alliums feature globe-shaped heads and create a breathtaking, bobbing sea of foliage. They bring pops of color to any garden bed.
• Yarrow is easy for novice gardeners to grow and drought tolerant — Making it a fantastic esthetic and environmental choice. They come in a variety of colors!

   

3. Landscaping For The Environment

Our environment is in a constant state of change. Sadly, the last few years have seen hundreds of extreme floods, droughts, and fires on a local and global scale. Keeping the environment in mind, it is important to consider changing the climate of our gardens to better help our global climate. 

Landscaping for the environment means opting for drought-resistant plants, sustainable hardscaping, and edible food. We want our landscaping choices to help counter the effects of climate change. Being water-wise is a critical point in landscaping for the environment. Regardless of your landscaping choices, it is a good idea to divert rainwater for garden usage and implement water butts (large barrels used to catch and store rainwater) to help with your watering needs.

If you live in a flood-prone area, opt for landscaping features that provide drainage. For example, choose a gravel pathway instead of a paver pathway. In addition, gravel pathways also double as a fire break.  

Tips For Your Space:

• Draw on Mother Nature’s wise insight. Look to the local landscape to see what native plants continue to thrive with little human intervention.
• Choose plants with lower water needs, such as kangaroo paw, sage, rosemary (doubles as a delicious herb for cooking), native grasses, and hot poker.
• Prune branches that overhang to help prevent bushfires.
• Opt for plants with deep roots to help with soil erosion.
• Swap your lawn for a rock garden or a meadow. A meadow garden supports and promotes pollinators, does not require harmful chemicals to thrive, and is an artist’s dream – there are no rules for how to make one!
• Try to grow your own veggies by setting up a small tomato plant on a sunny spot on your back porch or a small herb garden on your windowsill. 

 

4. Vertical Spaces

It is no secret that housing prices, interest rates, and groceries are rising. Unfortunately, a large outdoor space is not a reality for many people. That’s why we see homeowners opting to get the best and most use out of the space they already have. Vertical gardening helps maximize small spaces enabling you to create something unique to your needs!

Tips For Your Space

We have a few excellent suggestions for creating a breathtaking vertical space.

•  Arbor, trellis, or pergola
• Hanging baskets, planter boxes, and containers
• Fence shelving, pouches, or other mounted containers
• Walls for training plants
• Living walls (also called green walls)

 

5. Outdoors Meets Indoors

In 2023 homeowners want to blur the lines between their outside and inside spaces. Indoor plants continue to grow in popularity, and gardeners want to create a connection between the natural world and our homes. 

We see people achieving this through hanging plants in sight of windows, adding window boxes such as herbs, and planting vines and creepers near living areas with large windows.

Tips For Your Space

Create a space with inviting outdoor furniture, such as a patio set, lighting, and heat sources. Add plants, pots, and vertical gardens to create the “walls” for this space. You can also opt to plant tall shrubs to create privacy.

 

6. Tropical Vacation

Maybe it is due to two years of restricted travel, but homeowners now want to bring the feeling of a tropical escape to their outdoor space. So we see trends, including an abundance of bold foliage with various leaf sizes, shapes, textures, and colors!

Tips For Your Space

• Include a water feature to help add to the calming tropical oasis feel and evoke feelings of peace and tranquility.
• Plants that shout “tropical party!” are Canna lilies, hibiscus, caladiums, and hosta.
• You can still create a tropical look without palm trees in your garden—layer plants underneath existing trees or the shade cast by pergolas and umbrellas.
• Use extra large containers filled with various colors and striking leaves to create the key element of abundance.
• If your space is too small to give off a thriving abundance aesthetic vibe, create interest in key spots with striking foliage and bold textures in these areas.

 

7. Fire Pits

You want to ignite your passion for a beautiful, peaceful, unique landscape where you can relax. Why not ignite a fire pit, too? There are countless reasons why a fire pit is a wonderful addition to any backyard space. You might feel a fire pit counters the gardening for the environment trend. However, fire pits are not bad for the environment if you take the proper steps! If a sanctuary garden is your goal, a fire pit will help reduce your stress and lower your heart rate. Here at Fire Pit Art, we believe in creating top-quality fire pits that celebrate the beauty and simplicity of nature.

Whether you opt for a cottage, vertical, or sanctuary garden, we encourage you to focus on creating a space that celebrates the beauty of nature and reminds you of its simple peace. Contact us today to see how a fire pit can enhance your 2023 space!