How Garden Art Can Make Your Yard More Whimsical

Homeowners are beginning to understand that an uninterrupted expanse of grass is not only boring, but harmful to the environment. Grass lawns consume an inordinate amount of water, and too many are treated with harmful herbicides and pesticides, which can run off into ponds and streams or leach into groundwater supplies.

Those who are aware of the harm grass lawns can cause are transforming their yards into beautiful gardens featuring native plants that thrive in the local environment. They select trees and shrubs attractive to birds, and they plant flowers that specifically appeal to pollinators.

These front yard meadows and gardens are lovely to look at and require less maintenance than grass lawns. They can be even more attractive and pleasant as outdoor retreats or welcoming spaces for visitors. The best outdoor spaces have features that provide different types of visual interest, gentle sounds, and variations in height and texture. Here’s how garden art can make your yard more whimsical.

Express a Theme

When planning a garden or transforming a lawn into an outdoor retreat, it can be helpful to pick a theme to guide your choice of garden decor. You could highlight birds, bees, and butterflies, or choose nostalgic garden art that features images of rural life in bygone days. You could decide that your garden is the perfect home for fairies, or a place where angels dwell.

Seasonal themes offer the flexibility to change your garden art along with the seasons, emphasizing holidays and colors that change throughout the year. A seasonal theme also offers you the opportunity to highlight your garden art during the winter, when, depending on your location, many plants go dormant. This gives your decor the chance to stand out against a blanket of snow or among the seed heads left by perennial flowers.

Think Sustainability

Adding garden décor to make your garden more interesting and whimsical is easy, but make sure the pieces you’re adding are made for the outdoors or will weather attractively.

Many gardeners use flea market finds, old garden equipment (like wheelbarrows or buckets), or colorful bottles to add color and interest to the garden. Recycling old equipment by creating a wall display, making a planter, or designing a garden sculpture not only enhances your garden but also keeps the items you use out of landfills.

Provide Different Levels

Decorative yard posts add height to areas with low-lying plants, or a splash of color among evergreen shrubberies. Choose art poles that display messages of hope, love, or welcome, or add poles that display seasonal colors.

Planters among the garden beds provide nice mid-level interest and offer you a chance to add annuals to your perennial garden without having to dig anything up. Studio M offers a wide variety of artist-designed, decorative planters that coordinate with or complement our collection of art poles.

Include a Water Feature

Water attracts birds. A birdbath art pole offers both height and the attraction of water to your garden. Place a bird bath where you can watch your visiting feathered friends splash and cool themselves on a summer day.

You could also add a battery-operated fountain or a small pond to your yard. Another option is taking advantage of your yard’s grade by creating a pebble path to allow rainwater to drain away, mimicking the action of a mini-stream.

Don’t Forget Sound

Hang bells or wind chimes strategically from tree branches or your front porch ceiling, where they’ll catch the passing breezes and gently clink or ring. Bells can coordinate with a flower or butterfly theme to add sound to your whimsical garden experience.

Greet Guests With a Flag

Garden flags mark your borders with messages of welcome, whimsical holiday vignettes, or colorful blooms and butterflies. Place them along walkways, within garden borders, or flanking your front steps. Choose from a broad selection at Studio M, where you can find a garden flag that suits just about any theme or season. They’re easily interchangeable and fit well with several other products, like our welcome mats and door décor.

Add Figurines

Nothing says love, peace, or faith better than a smiling angel tucked in a cozy spot in your garden. You can enhance your angel’s garden home with miniature furniture, vehicles, or tiny ceramic flowerpots. Elevate your angel with a stand to allow it to hover over your garden and spread peace and love among the flowers.

Start at Your Mailbox

Make your garden more whimsical starting all the way at the end of your driveway. Choose a magnetic mailbox cover to set the tone or introduce a theme to guests as they walk toward your front door.

You can also extend your garden whimsy by planting around your mailbox pole. Check with your local post office to ensure you stay within regulations so there will be no interruption of your mail delivery service.

Once you’re sure your plan will comply with post office rules, you can plant vines, evergreens, or flowering shrubs at the base of your mailbox post, and allow them to grow up toward your whimsically decorated mailbox. Like garden flags, you can easily change magnetic mailbox covers to fit the season.

Play With Light and Shadow

Add solar lights on either side of a garden path to provide a soft glow at night. During the day, an outdoor shade with an intricate cut-out pattern of leaves gives a dappled look to porches and bright garden spaces that could benefit from a little shade.

Attend Garden Walks for Ideas

If you’re at a loss for how to make your garden more whimsical, attend local garden walks or expos. You’ll see many different ways garden designers and neighbors express their creativity through their outdoor spaces.

The easiest way to make your garden more whimsical is to shop our themes here at Studio M. You’ll find inspiration and products that express your chosen theme throughout our collections.