11 Inspired Spring Gardening Ideas for 2016

Evoke Water in a Dry Garden

Create the illusion of watery abundance by using a mass of grasses in the garden. Grasses evoke the movement of water, especially on breezy days. For low ripples, try meadowy sedge (Carex spp.) or plains-native buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyoides). Grasses aren’t the only plants, however, that suggest water. Many others share this quality including trees, ground covers, and other plants. See more about creating the illusion of water with plants.

Traditional Picket Fence

For year round beauty, Walpole Outdoors suggests adding some hardscape to your garden. Structures create a focal point that stands out in all seasons. This traditional picket fence (pictured) sets off the entry to this quaint home and creates a crisp backdrop for seasonal flowers. Arbors also add beauty and give a lift to climbing plants that add a pop of color in spring. Walpole offers fencing, pergolas, mail posts, window boxes, planters, and more in a variety of styles. With Walpole’s low maintenance AZEK, an advanced wood alternative material, you can create an outdoor area to enjoy for many seasons to come. For more information: Walpole Outdoors.

Play with Patterns

Serpentine-shaped plantings, spiral stonework, and curving paths have always been features at Chanticleer. From America’s most inspiring garden, executive director and head gardener Bill Thomas explains that patterns are used with the intent to draw the eye into the garden and invite exploration. “Visitors want to follow the ribbon planting of Camassia to see where it ends,” he says of Bell's Run Creek (pictured). For a fresh idea this spring, incorporate small details such as a spiraling metal handrail, or an intricate raked pattern for an eye-catching component of the garden.

Create a Can’t-Miss Container

For that time when spring turns into summer, this container makes bold use of the distinctive spherical heads of several varieties of allium, ornamental relatives of onions and garlic. Their flower heads usually turn to elegant seed heads, which can look decorative for several months. After flowering, their leaves tend to look tatty, but here they will be well hidden by the Heuchera foliage. Planted with all perennials, this mix should perform well again the following spring. Planting Layout: A) Allium christophii; B) A. x hollandicum; C) A. karataviense; D) Heuchera ‘Strawberry Swirl’; E) Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’. Get more season-inspired potted gardens in the Early Spring 2016 issue of Garden Design magazine. Purchase back issues of the magazine.

Personalize with Customizable Landscape Materials

Composites and hardwoods, like Batu and ipe, offer flexible options for individualizing outdoor spaces. “[They] are being integrated into the landscape as inlaid decks against natural gray concrete, or as horizontal panel fences being used as a screen,” says Cheri Stringer APLD, owner TLC Gardens in Boulder County, Colo. Such options offer endless design potential, such as this horizontal screen (pictured) whose width, gap, material, and frames are all customizable. See more of the 2016 garden trends.

Lighten up with White

Noticing an uptick of orders for plants with white flowers, our friends at Monrovia shed light on a subtle palette color that works with just about anything else in the garden. “From crisp to snowy, ivory to ‘dirty whites’,” says Monrovia spokesperson, Kate Karam, “particular shades of white—white groundcover roses, white hydrangea, white peonies, white astilbe, white anemonies—offer a clean, fresh, optimistic lightness.” When every plant in the garden has to work hard, white adds a crispness that works well with warm or cool hues, stands out at night, and creates a calmness that encourages a relaxed mind. See more ideas from Monrovia.

Emulate Nature with a Wild & Layered Garden

To create a naturalistic garden, embrace plants that naturalize, reduce maintenance, and partner well with each other. “Use regionally appropriate plants that work well in the given setting,” says Rochelle Greayer, editor of PITH + VIGOR. To make a strong visual design impact, gather plants in drifts. Or consider matrix planting where individual plants are repeated in a regular pattern to create the look of a stylized mixed meadow. You’ll create a garden that is not only beautiful, but also serves other purposes like increasing the health of the surrounding air, soil and water, and actively providing habitat and food for insects, birds and animals.

Repeat One Simple Element

For a striking spring garden, landscape designer Rob Steiner says there is power to seeing a quantity of one plant that is genuinely affecting. “I remember as a beginning garden designer in California being taken aside by my mentor while walking through a vast block of salvia,” says Steiner, “and being told that I could, if I liked, use 30 of them—not the three or five I’d typically been planting. It was a liberating moment.” Russell Page, one of the great twentieth-century landscape designers said it well: “The most striking and satisfying visual pleasure comes from the repetition or the massing of one simple element. Imagine the Parthenon with each column a different kind of marble!” See all of Steiner’s landscape design rules.

Plant This Now: Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ (hyssop)

A staple in Piet Oudolf’s own home garden, the vivid blue bottlebrush-like flower spires of Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ (hyssop) bloom from midsummer to early fall. They are a magnet for butterflies and other nectar-seeking insects, plus they offer a structure that works against the looser blooms of other midsummer perennials. Get more ideas from Piet Oudolf's garden.

Simplify with Succulents

Create a spark of interest in potted plants by replacing thirsty flowers with succulents. For this hard-to-water window box (pictured), Todd Holloway of Pot Incorporated chose succulents that resemble flowers—rosette Echeveria in blue, pink and green—plus Sedum rubrotinctum (pork and beans) for contrast and as a trailer. The dramatic lime-green Echeveria pallid suggests a blooming focal point with significantly less hassle—infrequent irrigation needed and seldom deadheading. Get more succulent container ideas.

Spring Garden Project: Pottery Fountain Conversion

No matter what your location or climate dictates this spring, one thing you can do is introduce a water feature somewhere into the landscape. Our friends at Eye of the Day garden design center have honed in on the popular “Everlasting Spring” fountain which appears to be running into the ground like a natural spring from a mountain. “We have serious water issues on the Central Coast of California, so having a fountain that is both water conscious and beautiful becomes a challenge,” says Eye of the Day owner Brent Freitas. Any simple vase shaped pot can be made into a fountain to sit on a reservoir placed below the surface of the ground. Cover the top of the reservoir with tumbled stone, glass or terracotta for a natural look. For further instructions, contact Eye of the Day and they are happy to assist.