For most of the last year, the outdoors was totally in.
Our backyards and garden spaces became havens, ways to connect with nature and a sense of life beyond limitation. Landscape designers say gardens also took on new identities as clients yearned for “outdoor rooms” — dining spaces, play areas, offices or oases for spread-out outdoor gatherings. (One San Leandro client wanted to create a space for a dozen ukulele-playing friends to practice outside.)
“We’ve asked a lot of our yards the last few months,” says Allison Messner, CEO of Yardzen, an online landscape-design platform based in Sausalito. “For a lot of us, our yards have been the only green space we could access during that time, and we needed them to serve these whole new functions.”
Even as things gradually move toward normalcy, these new functions aren’t going anywhere. So for 2021, we gathered some of the top ways to create beautiful and useful outdoor settings.
1 Garden as office
Working in the garden has a whole new meaning now. Aerin Moore of Oakland’s Magic Gardens Landscaping has created designs for a number of executives who say a garden office has changed their lives.
“They loved moving outside of the house to the middle of their garden, setting up a nice wooden desk, a hot spot for their computer,” he says. “They said it was so peaceful, and they actually felt like they got so much more done.”
Heather Reid Johnson of Orinda’s Hey Nice Garden says, “I’ve never designed and built more pergolas in my life” — and many were specifically designed for outdoor office space. “They approximate the actual indoor office in many ways,” she says. “Scale is usually around 12- by 16-feet, enough room for a table, chairs and plenty of outlets” to plug in a printer or a coffee pot.
And some people are going all in, according to the folks at Houzz, a Palo-Alto-based website and online community about all things home and landscape. Their recent survey noted “the rise of the backyard cottage or ADU” (accessory dwelling unit) to use as dedicated work spaces, gyms, meditation areas or study rooms for students.
2 The Year of the Pergola
“If you want to create an inviting outdoor living space, you’ll likely need shade to do it. And a pergola is a relatively quick and affordable solution,” a Houzz spokesman says. “There are simple shade structures which can be built and installed in a day or two.”
Going hand-in-hand with the popularity of pergolas are fire pits, says Patricia St. John of Berkeley’s St. John Landscapes. “Almost every job for a family or young couple has included a fire pit,” she says.
And get ready for a retro dip – tubbing is back! “Cedar tubs are making a comeback,” Messner says. “They were very popular in the ‘60s, and we’re seeing a lot of requests for cedar tubs and also for what are called plunge pools or cocktail pools that fit in a smaller space without the commitment of a full built-in pool.”
3 Eat your heart out
St. John regularly designs spaces to grow edibles in raised beds or containers for greens and lettuces or in pots for herbs by the kitchen door, “where it’s easy to go harvest right before making a salad,” she says. “I know that’s a trend that’s been around for a while, but it’s only growing.”
One new element she’s noticed of late is more requests than ever before for fruit trees. “They don’t have to take up a lot of space,” she says. “Citrus can be grown in containers their whole lives, as long as you move up the size as the citrus grows.”
4 Borrowed views
Not everyone has an expansive yard to work with, but designers have tricks to make small spaces seem larger. “One way to do that is to use borrowed views,” Moore says. “Maybe your neighbor has beautiful trees that rise up over your back fence. We’ve sometimes created almost-doorways and fences to make it look like the garden goes on. I have some small gardens that have mature planting and the neighbor’s garden all around them — you can’t really tell where their gardens end and their neighbor’s starts.”
5 Gardens as inspiration/mood
While many people are looking outdoors to create more space for dining, lounging and playing, others are seeking quiet spaces: peaceful gardens that provide a tranquil break from work, school and stressful news cycles, according to Houzz.
Moore had a former client, a well-known author, who requested designs for very specific parts of the garden in terms of mood.
“She wanted to create these specific mood areas for different kinds of inspiration, so she could write,” he says. “There was a really sunny bright area, then a somber area with a beautiful waterfall, which was more Zenlike and tranquil. She said it really worked. I think that’s what gets left out of garden design so much — the emotive element instead of just the utilitarian.”
6 All work, plus play
With at-home schooling, backyards have become play areas for “recess,” says Reid Johnson, who has been putting in more artificial turf and multipurpose concrete pads for half-size basketball courts and hanging swings from well-established branches of trees.
Often, you can’t just put a full-sized, store-bought playset in a space, Messner says. “And a lot of people don’t want something big and plastic and primary-colored in their yard anyway. Tree houses, trampolines and rope swings are among our most requested elements in family-friendly yards,” she says. “A lot of homes in the Bay Area have mixed elevations, areas with a little bit of slope – perfect for a slide rather than installing a structure.”
Another Yardzen client who had to take down an unhealthy tree had the arborist cut the tree into rounds. The family then used them as stepping stairs for the kids to climb on. “People are wanting play structures that blend into the environment.”
7 Functional Front Yard
This trend has been a clear result of pandemic restrictions. “We’ve heard from clients that they want to connect with their neighbors, but not too close,” Messner says. “So some have put a patio out front or even a fire pit, some Adirondack chairs. It’s been a way to find a sense of community and connect with neighbors while remaining socially distant.”
8 Environment-friendly environments
More and more, clients are moving toward sustainable landscapes, St. John says. “As we talk about climate change, people want more low-water and low-maintenance plants. I’ve either reduced or eliminated lawns in most,” she says. “People want more pollinator plants attracting more birds and bees — lavenders, plants that have berries. Milkweed attracts the monarchs. Some people are raising monarch butterflies from caterpillars. There’s such an interest right now in being more aware of our natural habitat.”
Along those lines is a movement called “re-wilding,” Messner says, restoring urban and suburban yards to life-supporting habitats. “It’s about restoring wildness,” she says. “Bringing native and climate-adaptive plants into residential spaces, using materials for hardscaping that aren’t going to foster water accumulation, so water can flow the way nature intends. We’re also focused on creating wildlife corridors – if you and your neighbors along a street do this, it restores an amazing habitat for creatures.”
9 Firescaping
Unsurprisingly, many Californians are increasingly looking for fire-resistant landscapes, St. John says. “You want plants closest to the house that have moist leaves, that are easy to bend – things like coral bells, low-growing sages,” she says. “Within the first five feet, you don’t want wood chips. Maybe pea gravel or decorative rock. A little further away, use organic mulches that have a lot of compost, which tend to be moister. Deciduous trees rather than evergreens.”
10 And side gates
A peripheral pandemic-related trend is designs that include side-entrance access. It makes sense. If you plan to have friends visit in the backyard for outdoor distancing, it defeats the purpose to have people traipsing through the house, St. John says.
“I hadn’t even realized it until now,” she says, “but pretty much every job we’ve had lately has requested that: side access and gates.”
The friends, of course, are up to you.
