03 Dec Festive Garden Design Ideas
How will you decorate your garden for Christmas this year? Here are our festive garden design ideas.
TL:DR Need a little winter magic for you garden this Christmas? This post shows how you can transform your outdoor space – even on the gloomiest of winter days – using lighting, colours, plants and simple decor. From twinkling fairy lights to festive planters and outdoor ornaments, you don’t need inflatable snowment or over-the-top displays to create a cosy, welcoming garden. With a clear theme and a few creative touches (evergreens, candlelight, colour-co-ordinated pots), you can make your garden a joyful, seasonal extension of your home – perfect for enjoying from indoors of braving the cold with a hot drink in hand.
Winter is infamous for bathing the garden in gloom. But Christmas brings an opportunity to inject some extra interest – if only for a couple of weeks. Using garden design principals you can make your garden look fantastic – even if you will only be viewing it from indoors.
Who says that festive garden design should involve inflatable snowmen on the lawn? If you prefer something simple, subtle and homemade – go for it!
Christmas decorating is all about letting your personality shine through. Whether you go for classic elegance, shabby chic or full blown kitsch – you can really enjoy yourself and absorb some all-important vitamin D as you go.
- Play with existing lighting to create beautiful shapes and shadows
- Use filters to change lighting colours
- Add temporary lights to highlight individual features
- Create a winter wonderland with twinkly lights
- Use symmetry for the ultimate in classic elegance
- Plant decorative pots
- Use ornaments for extra colour
- Flower arranging is not just for indoors – decorate seating areas with evergreen foliage, berries and faux flowers
- Plant and decorate an outdoor Christmas tree
Festive Garden Lights
If you already have lighting installed in your garden, you’re part way there. Find out where the light falls and play with it a little. Add some accessories and play with shapes and shadows. Add filters to change the colour of the light. Put them on a timer or install a system that can be operated from a phone app – that way you can save energy.
String lights are great fun. Use them to highlight specific features in your garden….a tree (or two, or three). A pergola, the summer house, a pathway – heck – even the washing line if you feel that way inclined!
Candlelight is very evocative of Christmas. Doing something as simple as putting tealights into recycled jam jars can create wonderful effects. Use them to pick out a pathway or suspend them from trees. What a beautiful ambience – especially if you are brave enough to wrap up warm and huddle around the firepit with good friends and hot drinks.
Festive Garden Design: Colours For The Garden
That garden design “rule of 3” is ingrained in my soul and so my personal taste is to choose 3 colours and stick with them. But when it comes to Christmas I love to see how other people mix and match colours. A cacophony of rainbow hues can be thoroughly uplifting on a murky day.
The classic Christmas colours are of course deep green and red with either silver or gold. But why not go with fuchsia pink? purple, teal, white or even orange?
Give your garden design a theme
Talking of themes, with any design – interior or exterior – it’s great to have a theme to bring everything together. That way you avoid creating a muddly mishmash.
This is where your personality can really shine through. Maybe your theme will be “woodland” with illuminated trees and evocative creatures such as deer or rabbits. You might choose a North Pole theme with penguins, igloos and the Man himself. Disney is another theme I’ve seen executed really well …..it’s all about what you love.
Seek festive garden design inspiration wherever you go. This is clearly not a garden – In fact it’s Regents Street in London. But check out the symmetry, the simple colour scheme and the way that the buildings have been lit to accentuate the lighting. These elements can all be used in your own design.
Symmetry in the garden
Symmetry in garden design is a blog I’ve yet to write but it’s so important and never more so than in the winter time.
Using the garden layout with architectural plants and features which add height means that the garden makes sense in winter when all of the flowers have gone into hiding.
At Christmas time, introducing lighting into a symmetrical garden is visually very exciting.
If the symmetry in your garden is a work in progress, now’s the time to use lighting and ornaments to experiment and see what might work for a more permanent garden makeover.
Christmassy Pots and Planters
This window box has been beautifully decorated for the festive season using a mix of colour-themed ornaments, natural materials and faux foliage
The easiest and most satisfying way to decorate your outdoor space for Christmas is with pots and planters. There’s lots of colour in the garden centre at this time of year. Cyclamens,for example bring a bright splash of colour. Then of of course there are evergreen shrubs, conifers, topiary, berries and faux foliage.
Add in some Christmas ornaments and some lighting and you’ll have a wonderful mini display to welcome visitors and/or improve the view from your window.
Pop a planted pot either side of a garden bench to encourage yourself to go outside and sit a while. True you’ll need a coat and a mug of something hot to wrap your hands around. But the wellbeing benefits will make it all worth it.
Why not decorate benches with garlands and/or lights? There are no rules for decorating your garden for Christmas!
Using your garden to raise money for charity
Your garden brings you so many benefits all year round. Wellbeing, adding value to your property, leisure space, entertaining space……….the list goes on.
Christmas is a time of giving, and if you have a wonderful Christmas display in your garden, why not use it to raise money for charity?
Planning next year’s festive garden design
If you like the idea of having a spectacular Christmas garden but think that your outdoor space is not really suited to it – think again. It may be too late for this year (I’m writing this in early December) but if you give your garden a makeover next year you can factor Christmas into the design.
At Tapestry Design Studios It’s our belief that when you are investing in a space it should work really hard for you so we pride ourselves on designing gardens that look amazing all year round.
Talk to one of our designers to see how your outdoor space could become next year’s Christmas party venue.
Contact Tapestry Design Studios
How to design a garden with winter interest
Front gardens – how to make them cheery not dreary in winter time
Frequently Asked Questions About Decorating Gardens In Winter
Can I decorate my garden for Chrismas on a budget?
Absolutely you can! Winter garden decorations should never be about breaking the bank, they should be about creating feelings of warmth and happiness. Start with using materials you already have to hand. Foliage, berries, coloured stems and seed-heads harvested from your garden and twisted into a wreath or arranged in pretty containers for doorstep or table decorations. Decorate empty jam jars with translucent materials and place tea-lights or LED candles inside for a welcoming glow. Hang baubles from a bare branch for a pop of colour – or even better – suspend apple pieces from twigs or fences to attract colourful birds into the garden.
What plants and foliage work best for a winter garden display?
Tradition encourages us to use evergreens such as conifers, holly, and ivy for festive garden displays but there are many other plants that you could choose. Cornus (aka dogwood) for example has brightly coloured stems which seem to shine out on gloomy days. Or, why not consider planting a silver birch tree for it’s fascinating shape and brightly coloured trunk. They look magnificent when lit! Heucheras are low-growing plants with amazingly colourful foliage which, in most parts of the UK, will stay vibrant all year round. And don’t forget the Hellebores, also known as Chrismas Roses, these beauties bloom at the coldest time of the year. Another favourite is Sweet Box – it’s a lovely evergreen shrub that produces the most divinely scented flowers in January.
Can I create a festive garden that still looks stylish and not too “tacky’?
The secret to creating a stylish winter garden display lies in the old adage ‘less is more’. Keep your colour palette simple – maybe just two colours in addition to green foliage. Look at symmetry, aim to repeat shapes throughout the display and space them carefully. Lights are important, but they are most effective (in our view) when used judiciously. Your garden doesn’t need to be seen from space! A few well placed lanterns and/or fairy lights are all you need. Speaking of lights – try to find ones that are warm colours rather than cool colours. A warm white lighting scheme is so much more luxurious that cold white lights. Minimise the use of plastic or inflatable decorations – ideally choose pieces with a more natural look and feel.
How can I use lighting to make my garden look magical at night?
Garden lighting is fabulous all year round, not just at Christmas, so why not plan a festive lighting scheme that will create ambience for all 12 months of the year? Think festoon lights on pergolas, spotlights on your favourite garden features and recessed lighting for patios and steps. For the festive season, you can add to the scheme with fairy lights to accentuate the shape of your garden trees and, if you have the room, you could even create a fairy grotto using a temporary structure. Whatever you decide to do though, please consider the Dark Sky principals for outdoor lighting in order to reduce light pollution and protect wildlife.
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