7 Design and Landscaping Ideas for Your Backyard

Summer in Quebec is too short not to enjoy it fully! The patio allows you to enjoy the outdoors, the barbecue, and summer festivities. It’s up to you to arrange your yard to get the most out of the warm season.

Here Are 7 Types of Designs and Layouts for a Backyard

1. How to Recreate a Bistro/Bar Atmosphere in Your Yard?

In spring, the snowbanks have not yet melted when warm rays guide passersby toward patios. The winter burnout makes us content with a table, chairs, a pint of beer, and nachos to share. However, bistros and bars that have planned ahead by setting up a patio ready to welcome crowds in maximum comfort quickly become highly frequented places. Why not recreate this enthusiasm in your yard?

Forget the patio as an extension of your home; rather, highlight your yard’s area by installing a concrete or wooden platform in the center. On this island, place a wooden counter where you can set down your glass and lean to chat, accompanied by a service counter. For lighting, string garden lights like lanterns throughout the yard, but arrange them to accumulate above the island. This way, there will be an illuminated meeting spot and a darker periphery for more privacy without losing the unity of the place through lighting.

All that’s left is to install a sound system, or better yet: bring in live musicians.

2. Erecting a Pergola in Your Garden

In the Tuscan estates where vines and olive trees grow in valleys dotted with cypress, large outdoor tables that support family feasts are found under a pergola. It is not a shelter that protects from rain but a structure on which climbing plants cling. The rays that pass through it reflect off the foliage, flowers, or clusters. Generally, the pergola consists of horizontal beams crossed in a roof shape, resting on four columns.

If you have a large area, nothing prevents you from installing a pergola built lengthwise, creating a tunnel of greenery like those found in the Old World. Retailers sell different models made from various materials, including retractable ones. Some manufacturers make custom ones to match their design with your house’s architecture. This block of greenery gives stature to your yard, harmonizing with landscaping full of shrubs, flowers, and plants.

You can add a fountain, a statue, or an artificial pond.

3. Nordic Summer Through Scandinavian Design

From Viking longships to contemporary Finnish designs, passing by Norwegian churches, Nordic peoples have developed expertise in woodworking. The forests of northern Europe, which resemble those of northern Quebec, stretch across vast spaces covered in snow half the year. Thus, using wood for a patio must respect practical aspects, the natural panorama, and simplicity in design.

Instead of building a small patio as an appendage to your house for a staircase landing or extending a deck between your patio door and your pool, Scandinavian expertise suggests installing a platform along your house. A large square or rectangular wooden platform, preferably elevated, offers many layout possibilities. The idea is to emphasize this horizontal flat effect by layering wooden planks lengthwise. Blocks made of wooden slats, hollow inside and shaped like an “L,” can form a bench or daybed arranged differently.

Install a wooden counter under your kitchen window to set down dishes you pass out through the window.

4. Back to the Countryside Without Leaving the City

What’s better than preparing a salad with leaves you just picked, the tomato you just harvested, and some chive sprigs you just pulled from your vegetable garden? Beyond growing your own vegetables, the founders of the urban hives Alvéole offer Montrealers the possibility of having their own chicken coop to get fresh eggs. The POC POC project includes two hens, a coop, as well as food and bedding for the first season at a cost of $1200.

Each hen lays an egg about every 26 hours. The boroughs Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, Mercier–Hochelaga–Maisonneuve, Ville-Marie, and Sud-Ouest have amended their regulations to allow the 30 families participating in the project to raise hens in their yards.

From the chicken coop, arrange your yard as if you were in the countryside. Build a terrace and garden furniture from barn wood. If you have a large tree, why not hang a tire with a cable or a wooden platform with cushions to lounge on? There’s always the hammock. Plant strawberries, raspberries, and rhubarb.

Forget golf-course–style trimmed grass; instead, make space for rustic items like an old milk can or a tractor wheel.

5. Installing a Fire Pit in Your Backyard

In the forest, camping, or at the cottage, gathering around a fire under the stars is unmatched for a good evening. A friend strums his guitar, another plays the drum to the rhythm of logs burning lazily… and the marshmallow bag makes its rounds around the circle.

If your municipality allows it, there are several models of outdoor fire pits you can place in your yard.

Among ferns and tall grasses, a concrete cylinder with edges forming seats around the flame in the center. A wooden platform elevated on gravel, cut in the center to install benches bordering a concrete fire pit in the middle. Pouring a concrete slab that occupies a large part of the yard area with a raised part whose center is empty to accommodate the flame. A white brick chimney in front of white garden chairs resembling indoor armchairs placed on the whitest possible concrete slab creates the surreal impression of having a living room outside.

A paved walkway leading to a circular fire pit bordered by massive benches creates a very aesthetically interesting effect. To accentuate this effect, spread gravel or wood chips around the fire pit to create the impression of a zone devastated by a volcano or another cataclysm. Isn’t this the best setting for turning a spit roast?

6. Creating a Playground for All Ages

Opposite the central platform, the patio-pool mix, or the European garden, you can cover your yard with tall, voluminous vegetation. Imagine your lot as a giant square of turf.

It’s up to you to carve paths through this mass of greenery and prune oases where you can place a bench, a table with chairs, a swing, a fire pit, or a hammock. Beforehand, you can install an artificial pond or water basin, which will delimit the areas where you’ll plant vegetation. If you have a large tree, why not install a platform on a branch? You’ll have a place to perch above this wild flora.

On another note, those with a knack for math will enjoy organizing their paths and hedges into a maze. Bring out all your measuring tools: tape, ruler, rope, square, level, compass, etc. It’s best to consider your entire lot to make it a flat, empty surface. That way, there won’t be any discrepancies with your blank sheet as a plan. Bet on the design.

7. Installing a Shelter

Sometimes summers are rainy. You’re not going to stay inside without enjoying your yard! By building or installing a shelter, you prepare for that.

The built shelter can be an extension of your home, consisting of two side walls connected by a roof and attached to your house’s wall. If you cover the inside with a material that contrasts with the exterior covering and illuminate this shelter from within, at night you will feel like you’re creating a block of light. Sheltered inside when it’s pouring, it’s the rain that closes the enclosure. Summer will seem shorter if you can bury yourself in your novel or do some activity behind a rain wall.

The other option is to install a “high-tech” garden shelter that looks like a tent whose cubic structure is covered with canvases. This shelter comes with retractable canvases made of weather- and UV-resistant fabrics. Increasingly, lighting systems controlled by remote are integrated into shelters to create an atmosphere. Also, electric heaters can be integrated into the posts or freestanding.

To see examples of landscaping and exterior renovation projects carried out by contractors affiliated with SoumissionRenovation.ca, check out our article 10 Examples of Landscaping Projects.

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