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56 Beautiful Backyard Ideas for Big and Small Budgets
It’s time to upgrade your outdoor spaces.
Warm days and breezy evenings beckon us outside. Where’s the best place to kick back and enjoy the beautiful season? Your backyard! There’s no better spot for unwinding than the inviting spaces around your home. Thankfully, upgrading your yard doesn’t have to hurt your budget and hiring a pricey landscape designer isn’t necessary to create a beautiful yard that fits your needs and personal style.
We’ve put together a list of easy backyard design ideas and gardening tips that your family, friends, and furry companions can enjoy too! If your yard is big or small, filled with sunshine or covered in shade, lush with thickets of trees and shrubs or nearly bare, we have an inspiring collection to get your landscaping design plans moving forward. Browse projects that include bird baths and bird feeders, lush container gardening ideas, crowd-pleasing fire pits, outdoor lighting ideas, and even a surprisingly easy-to-install DIY stock tank pool.
Take your time, select one to two projects, head to the local farm supply store or garden or home improvement center for supplies, and get outside to begin refreshing your green spaces. You’ll be ready for cookout season, movie nights under the stars, and so much more in no time at all!
Discover more gardening tips and backyard ideas:
Skip the Grass
Using pea gravel instead of grass is not only drought-resistant, it also gives your backyard a Mediterranean feel. In this cottage garden, a bistro table surrounded by bee-loving lavender, rosemary, and roses provides a serene and fragrant spot for a quiet breakfast or catching up on work.
Decorate a She Shed
Transform a plain backyard shed into a stunning she shed—complete with a fun barn quilt—in just two days.
To make: Begin your project by hanging checkered fabric on the walls. Install it by securing a rope across the top of the shed and hanging the fabric over the rope. Next, use a staple gun to secure the fabric to the walls (this shed required about 30 yard of fabric). Finish the project by adding a small upholstered couch and accessories that complement your personal style like a rugs, decorative baskets, plants, and a side table. And don’t forget your barn quilt!
RELATED: 8 Easy Tips for Creating Your Very Own Backyard She Shed
Make an Easy Potting Station
Set up a thrifty potting table for all of your gardening needs with extra items in the garage. A repurposed old door and upturned galvanized trash cans transform into a cute and fully functional workstation.
Build a Raised Bed Garden
Raised beds allow the soil to warm faster in the spring, plus it’s the perfect gardening solution if your soil isn’t the greatest. Build it from lumber, bricks, concrete blocks, or purchase an easy-to-assemble kit.
RELATED: The Best Raised Garden Beds to Buy That We’ve Tried and Recommend
Attract Hummingbirds to Your Garden
We promise: It's so worth it! These little gems will make you smile as they zoom by and perform stunning aerial acrobatics! They beat their wings 50 times per minute and need to eat every 10 to 15 minutes, so providing them with a hummingbird feeder helps supplement their diets. You can also up your chances for hummingbird traffic by planting these flowers that hummingbirds adore.
Repurpose a Patio
Marcus and Victoria Ford reenvisioned an unused concrete pad behind their garage into a fun and inviting seating area complete with a movie screen. If you don't already have a concrete pad, you can have one poured or even use pea gravel to create the area.
RELATED: Makeover Takeover! Tour more of this amazing backyard makeover.
Cool Off in a Stock Tank Pool
Repurpose a stock tank to create mini pool haven in your yard. This modestly sized addition will make cooling off a breeze during the summer. Plus, it's budget friendly and less expensive than a traditional in-ground pool installation.
RELATED: Stock Tank Swimming Pool Ideas
Hang a Mason Bee House
Give your garden a natural boost by installing a Mason Bee house to attract these beneficial pollinators. There are a variety of mason bees that pollinate specific plants. Whether you’re growing vegetables, flowers, or herbs these little,but mighty bees will help your garden thrive.
Create a Bird Feeder with Dinnerware
Think twice before donating or tossing old tableware into the trash. Instead, repurpose select pieces to design the cutest bird feeder for your garden.
RELATED: Make a Bird Feeder Out of Dinnerware
Shake Up the Neighborhood with a Lemonade Stand
Your little entrepreneurs will make lots of memories and have plenty of fun with an adorable old-fashioned lemonade stand! You can make a drink stand with a few items (a well-stocked toolbox, wooden crates, and handmade signage) on a weekend afternoon. Add this adorable lemonade stand to your yard and serve our Old-Fashioned Lemonade recipe to have your neighbors lining up for a refreshing drink.
Craft a Watering Can Wreath
Welcome the season by handcrafting a pretty garden wreath. Gather your favorite flowers, put them inside a watering can, loop a sturdy wire around the handle, and hang the finished product on your garden gate or back door.
RELATED: 28 DIY Summer Wreath Ideas
Plant a Starter Herb Garden
If you’re a beginner gardener or find caring for plants challenging, try growing herbs. They’re easy to grow and care for throughout the year. Begin with starter plants in small pots or add them to a garden bed. Look for easy care perennial herbs (which come back every year) such as mint chives, rosemary, tarragon, thyme and chives.
RELATED: How to Plant an Herb Garden, Complete with Garden Markers
Install String Lights
Hang outdoor string lights above your outdoor dining table or seating area to create the ultimate mood lighting. Whether you’re having a glass of wine with your partner or chatting with friends over cocktails, strategically hung lights will add instant sparkle to your evening.
Add a Pergola
Create an inviting space that feels like an outdoor living room—especially when outfitted with comfortable furniture under a pergola.
RELATED: 20+ Pergola Ideas That Will Add Style and Shade to Your Backyard
Plant a Thicket of Shrubs
Are you in need of privacy in your yard? Consider planting a thicket of fast-growing shrubs to buffer your patio, deck, or porch. Try planting a variety of shrubs (types and sizes) in a triangular pattern. This will provide widespread coverage and look more natural rather than adding a single type of plant in a row (which looks odd if a shrub suddenly dies).
RELATED: 20 Fast-Growing Shrubs and Bushes for Privacy in Your Backyard
Add a DIY Window Box Planter
Are you planning to purchase a new window planter? Before dipping into your backyard budget, learn how to build inexpensive window box planters with supplies that you probably already have sitting around your garage or gardening shed.
Design a DIY Outdoor Bar
Pull together a clever DIY bar area with artfully arranged tables, benches, festive linens, and seasonal decorations. With more than enough room for outdoor treats and summer beverages, you have no excuse to not take advantage of your backyard space. It can even double as a potting bench!
RELATED: 70+ Delicious Fourth of July Recipes From Sweet to Savory
Create a Family Hangout
Turn your backyard into a place the family can hang out together all summer long by combining raised garden beds with a firepit area. Here, the homeowners created a “patio” with landscape timbers and pea gravel, then buried a galvanized fire ring to make a firepit.
Upcycle Vintage Containers
Add an element of surprise to your front porch by trading your usual terracotta plant pots for vintage potato chip tins. Search Ebay and Etsy to find stylish vintage tins to pot your favorite seasonal blossoms (you can never go wrong with red geraniums!) for your back porch or deck.
RELATED: 30 Best Summer Flowers
Define a Spaces with Outdoor Rugs
Make your outdoor seating areas truly livable by making them cozy and inviting. Add a pretty and durable outdoor rug to your deck or patio and layer chairs with blankets and throw pillows so your space feels just as comfy as your living room sofa.
Janece Maze is Associate Editor at Country Living, where she covers DIY projects, gardening, and travel. When she’s not in the kitchen creating a new recipe with farm fresh ingredients, you can find her on the road heading to a music festival or browsing a local consignment shop.
Arricca Elin SanSone has written about health and lifestyle topics for Prevention, Country Living, Woman's Day, and more. She’s passionate about gardening, baking, reading, and spending time with the people and dogs she loves.
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