Create a tranquil yoga garden

Some places just make you feel peaceful. It might be a secret spot tucked away near a favorite hiking trail. Or maybe it’s the loveseat on your deck. Whether it’s a completely natural or a man-made environment, we’re all looking for spaces that help us connect with the rest of the world and find balance and peace.

With that in mind, we’ve created a design for a backyard escape that incorporates some principles of Vastu, which is a traditional Hindu philosophy of architecture and design. This approach combines the elements of earth, water, fire, air and space into a place that encourages balance, good health and peace. Whether you are someone who practices meditation or yoga or not, we think you’ll find what you’re looking for in this beautiful space. Read on to learn how these elements work together with the plants, objects and ornaments in this garden. You’ll notice that each element traditionally belongs in different corners of the space. Then scroll down for helpful suggestions, a detailed plan and to meet the plants that make this yoga garden truly tranquil.

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Incorporate Vastu principles into your yoga garden

1. Air: Movement, clear communication

The northwest corner of this garden design will have plenty of air movement that encourages healthy plants and insects. The alternating screens offer a degree of privacy without stifling movement. Silver and white traditionally represent the element air.

Incorporate these elements:

Include elements that show movement. Windchimes allow you to hear when the wind blows, but a mobile, a fan or streamers would show you this element in visual form, as well.

2. Water: Ability to adapt, flow

In Vastu, the northeast is associated with water, which is essential for health. Include a water feature in this quadrant to emphasize this element. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that blue is the color that best represents water.

Incorporate these elements:

As you listen to the gurgle of water, you can feel your mind slipping into a restful space. But the water doesn’t have to be moving, as this bubbler is. Other water options include reflecting pools, birdbaths or even a painted blue wall. Turn any container into a bubbler with a container fountain kit from your local home improvement store.

3. Earth: Grounding, calming

Create stability in the southwest corner by adding stones into your design or planting large trees. Colors include natural browns, golds and rusts.

Incorporate these elements:

Use large, solid ornaments, big boulders, concrete statues, or even shade trees with deep roots give you the effect of permanence and stability.

4. Fire: Confidence, vitality

Lighting, fireplaces and outdoor cooking surfaces all represent fire. The best colors for this space are warm reds, oranges and yellows, and traditionally, fire belongs in the southeast.

Incorporate these elements:

Balance the other elements with the energy of fire in the southeast corner of your retreat. This might be small torches like the ones shown in the plan, a firepit, a red mirrored globe or even an outdoor kitchen. Spiral Garden Tiki Torches available at www.hpotter.com.

5. Space: A centering place

In the center on the deck is where you can feel the balance of all of the other elements working together. Here, the open sides, wide deck and uncluttered atmosphere make it a perfect spot for reflection.

Incorporate these elements:

In the centering space that brings all the other elements together, you may choose to meditate. If so, keep a basket of yoga mats and blankets handy. Or if that’s not your practice, a few simple, comfortable chairs will help you focus on the details and beauty around you and within. Find a variety of yoga mats and blankets locally or online at these retailers:

• www.gaiam.com
• www.huggermugger.com
• www.YogaAccessories.com

Details of the yoga garden plan

Check out the overhead map below that shows you where to place the plants chosen for this tranquil yoga garden. The slideshow below will provide details on the plants and some helpful growing information.

• The path in this yoga garden allows you to interact with your surroundings as you walk to the retreat space. Listen to the crunch of gravel beneath your feet. Reach down and run your hands over the grasses and sniff the roses!

• ‘Bernice’ bellflower’s cup-shaped flowers attract hummingbirds. Plant ‘Prairie Sun’ gloriosa daisy and you’ll likely have butterfly visitors.

Fix the awkward traffic flow and expand your too-small concrete patio to make an enjoyable place to sit and relax. To really step up the functionality of this makeover, surround your patio with an attractive edible landscape that will create a beautiful transition from patio to lawn.

Expand your concrete patio with an edible landscape

Start by expanding the patio to accommodate comfortable seating. Use new materials that share the same color range as the original, even if they differ in their scale. Here, concrete squares on one end and a crushed stone pad along the other edge extend the patio and create more usable space. Rather than putting the seating area in the middle of the patio, push it to the side to allow 3 to 4 feet between the deck steps and the back of the chair. This lets traffic move around easily.

How to install a paver patioHide a security camera in your garden

Design your garden beds with attractive fruits and vegetables

What’s so great about an edible landscape? Many fruit and vegetable plants also have many other practical benefits that add to a well-designed garden. Here’s a run down of how to design an edible landscape with attractive plants:

• A highbush blueberry shrub border offers definition, back-of-border structure and delicious fruit.
• Thyme grows beneath the tree, and alpine strawberries fill the narrow gaps between steppers for great ground covers.
• Potted herb gardens hang from deck railings and soak up the sun at the patio’s edge.
• Vegetables with dramatic foliage are beautiful focal points and can also be tasty: Rows of colorful ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard and ‘Lacinato’ kale are ideal front-of-the-border row plants.
• Size limitations prohibit planting a standard fruit tree, but an espaliered dwarf ‘Kieffer’ pear fits perfectly in the narrow foundation bed. Espalier is a pruning technique that allows typically large trees to grow along a structure or wall, in a flat, two-dimensional plane. According to folklore, having a pear tree in your yard brings good luck.

Double-duty edibles that are tasty and gorgeous

How to care for and harvest this edible landscape

Here’s how to grow the plants in this design:

• Get the cooler season greens in the ground in early spring. Both the ‘Lacinato’ kale and ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard can be direct-sown as soon as the soil can be worked. Start harvesting the leaves when they reach 5 to 8 inches in length. They will not like the summer heat, so consider sowing again in late summer for a fall crop. If you ever find yourself with a short gap between harvest and second sowing, drop in some edible scented geraniums (Pelargonium spp. and hybrids) or another midseason annual for color.
• Enjoy warmer spring temperatures on the patio surrounded by an abundance of white blooms from the alpine strawberries, highbush blueberry bushes, crabapple and pear trees. As an added treat, the blooms of the ‘Kieffer’ pear are highly fragrant. To grow your best strawberries, check out our solutions to common strawberry problems.
• Get creative in the kitchen during harvest. Gather alpine strawberries, pears, blueberries and currants to mix with granola and yogurt. Or save the pear for lunch to top off your baby mesclun salad. It all tastes good!
• Learn more about caring for each plant by clicking through the slideshow below. 

We have another great patio planting plan for you. Click here to check it out!

How to plant around a gazebo

A gazebo in the backyard is a great getaway destination. But it can look lonely and uninviting just surrounded by turf. Plantings help integrate it into the landscape and make it more appealing. This gazebo is viewed mainly from the front, so that’s where most of the interest is focused. Low-maintenance mockorange, an easy-to-grow, pest-resistant shrub, makes a great backdrop. This cultivar blooms in late spring and off and on again during the summer. That means you’ll get to enjoy its fragrant white flowers over a longer period. To get color on the structure itself, train a climbing vine, such as clematis, up the railing.

See more Garden Plans

Create a colorful entrance

Around the front steps, a mix of evergreens and flowering plants help the garden have interest in every season. You, and passing butterflies, moths and hummingbirds, will love the fragrant four o'clocks that open only in the evening. Both the coreopsis and the salvia are compact cultivars, so they don’t need staking. Check out a few more maintenance tips below.

Maintenance tips:

• Start four o'clock seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before average last frost date
• Cut clematis vines (this one is pruning group 3) almost to the ground early each spring
• Clip back Japanese holly in early spring to keep it growing in a dense mass
• Deadhead spent blossoms on coreopsis and salvia to keep them flowering through the season

With this easy-care garden, you’ll have time left over to sit back and enjoy the view as you sip a glass of lemonade. To find out more about all of the plants here, click through the slideshow!

See also [Plant Guide](https://www.gardengatemagazine.com/articles/flowers-plants/plant-guide/ "Plant Guide")

Decks give you lots of extra living space, and they’re less expensive than adding a room onto your house. But many decks look like they’re simply tacked onto the back of the house and privacy is also usually an issue, especially if there are other houses nearby.

Dress up your deck with plants

A deck should fit in with the house and garden around it. That means you need at least a few trees and shrubs to give it structure all year and lots of flowers to entice you outside in spring, summer and fall. Adding plants will also help add privacy to your outdoor space.

Check out our design tips and planting plan below. Even if your deck isn’t exactly like this one, go ahead and adjust them to personalize your own backyard living space.

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Add plants with multiseason interest

When designing a garden around your deck, make sure at least some of the plants have [more than one season of interest](https://www.gardengatemagazine.com/articles/flowers-plants/plant-guide/9-multiseason-plants-for-your-garden/ "9 multi-season plants for your garden"). For example, the serviceberry in this garden plan has white flowers in spring and red-purple fruit in summer. Then in fall the foliage changes to shades of yellow, orange and red.

The multistemmed river birch adds a casual, natural look. Its flaking bark really shows off in winter. Remove some of the lower limbs as the tree grows so you can see it better.

Deck planting maintenance tips:

• Mow off the old foliage of the lilyturf each spring to keep it looking fresh.
• Be sure to remove the spent iris flowers each spring to encourage a new batch for fall.
• For winter fruit on the holly, plant a male cultivar nearby to pollinate the white spring flowers.

Meet the plants in this garden plan

Learn more information about the rest of the plants in this deck planting plan in the slideshow below. See corresponding letters on the illustrated plan above.

Upgrade your patio with a garden

Grow a garden around your patio so you can enjoy the colors, fragrance and beauty plants have to offer up close. When you look at the plan below you'll see it's enclosed by the house on two sides and the garange and privacy fence on the other. That provides a lot of protection from the elements and helps hold heat later into the evening so you can sit outdoors on a chilly evening and still be comfortable. Most of this 35×20 foot garden is situated in full sun and the dry-laid stone patio makes it easy to lift, set aside and reset if you need to access pipes or utilities below ground.

Add fragrance to your patio garden

This sheltered backyard is the perfect place to grow fragrant plants. The scent lingers for maximum enjoyment because the breeze is blocked by the house and other structures. Open the windows in summer and you’ll instantly know when the first lily (Lilium hybrid) blooms! Oso Easy Honey Bun shrub rose has a lighter scent but blooms from spring to frost. Pruning is easy, just remove dead branches in early spring.

A a small bed of herbs, such as sage (Salvia officinalis), basil (Ocimum basilcum) and oregano (Origanum spp.), will scent the air when you run your hands through the foliage. Give these plants plenty of sun and you'll have lots of stems to cut what you need for cooking or to share with friends.

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Fruits & vegetables — perfect for patios!

Who says vegetables have to be rowed out in big rectangles? Tuck a few around your patio for easy maintenance and easy harvest. Here they're placed along the privacy fence where they’re out of constant view, yet close at hand for whatever recipe you have in mind. Tomatoes, peppers, beans or zucchini can provide a good sized harvest with just a few plants. By late summer you’ll get enough fruit from these columnar apple tree varieies for a pie or two after you enjoy some of the fresh fruit.

Meet the plants in this patio garden plan

Check out the lettered plan above and see the corresponding plant information in the slideshow below to find out more about the hard-working, sometimes fragrant, plants in this beautiful patio planting.

Colorful patio border planting

Looking for a space-saving way to add color to your patio? The right plants can become the perfect complements to an outdoor patio in your yard; being surrounded by flowers will make the escape to your patio more enjoyable when you want to relax outdoors. Even if you have a small space to work with, make the most of it.

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Small patio space? No problem!

We didn’t have room for a big garden on this patio. [(See how we built it here)](https://www.gardengatemagazine.com/articles/projects/all/how-to-install-a-paver-patio/) But this small border does a lot more than you might think. For one thing, it’s just plain pretty. All those colorful flowers are a pleasure to look at while you’re enjoying the view. Beyond that, it provides a visual boundary between the patio and the rest of the yard, which adds to the feeling of getting away while you’re sitting there. The warm reds and oranges contrast with the cool gray from the concrete pavers and fence stain. They stand out even better against a backdrop of green shrubs.

It's only 4½ ft. wide and 15½ ft. long, so maintenance won’t take up your whole day. Follow the planting plan below or mix up a grouping of your own favorite annual flowers. If you let the boxwoods grow to their mature size — 3 ft. tall and wide — they’ll take up most of the planting area and you’ll need fewer annuals. But these shrubs are super easy to prune, so keep them whatever size you want by trimming the tips back in early spring.

Plant annuals in your patio border

The great thing about annuals is that they bloom from spring until frost. After you plant, remove all the flowers to encourage your new plants to put their energy into getting established. A 2- to 3-in. layer of organic mulch, such as bark chips, will help conserve moisture and keep weeds from crowding out your new tenants.

Maintenance tip

As flowers mature, deadhead spent blooms to encourage more. Just follow the spent stem back to where it meets a leaf and cut it off.

Attract pollinators

While you’re enjoying the pretty flowers around your patio, don’t be surprised if you notice you are attracting lots of winged visitors. Butterflies love zinnia, celosia and mealycup sage flowers, too!

Small-space patio border plant list

A) Boxwood (Buxus ‘Green Velvet’)
Type Shrub Blooms Evergreen foliage Light Full sun to part shade Size 24 to 36 in. tall and wide Hardiness Cold zones 5 to 9, heat zones 9 to 1 Number to plant: 5

B) Zinnia (Zinnia Profusion Mix)
Type Annual Blooms White, orange and apricot flowers summer to fall Light Full sun Size 12 to 18 in. tall and wide Hardiness Heat zones 12 to 1 Number to plant: 23

C) Mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria’)
Type Tender perennial (usually grown as an annual) Blooms Purple spikes summer to fall Light Full sun to part shade Size 18 to 24 in. tall, 10 to 12 in. wide Hardiness Cold zones 8 to 11, heat zones 12 to 1 Number to plant: 7

D) Celosia (Celosia argentea cristata ‘Prestige Scarlet’)
Type Tender perennial (usually grown as an annual) Blooms 3-in. wide red flowers summer to fall Light Full sun Size 10 to 24 in. tall, 8 to 10 in. wide Hardiness Cold zones 10 to 11, heat zones 12 to 1 Number to plant: 9