Create an oasis around your deck
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. 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.
