Proper landscaping around your home enhances the street appeal, makes it more attractive and utilises all those small or narrow spaces that are otherwise never used.  By using your imagination and thinking outside the box you will be able to make every part of your garden and lawn look amazing and get the best use out of it all instead of only some of it. Even narrow or very shady parts at the side of the home can be renovated so that they look wonderful instead of like the town dump.

Here are 4 landscape ideas to make your Landscape Design pop.

1. Add a water feature – there are many water features that do not take much effort or skill to install. Even a small backyard will rock with a water feature installed on the fence or wherever you want it. You can even have one on the back deck. Water features can be as simple as a half a wine keg filled with water, a plant and a fish. It can be a column topped with a glistening ball, a waterfall running into a pool, a statue with a spray of water coming from it or a set of three tipped up buckets that water drips out of. Simple or complicated, water in the garden will certainly make it pop.

2. Convert some of the lawn area by adding a big square of pavers and even a roof over the top so you can relax in the shade. Adding some pots with colourful flowers in them and a small table next to your garden furniture will enhance this relaxation space.

3. Add an archway. An archway over the gate or in the middle of the lawn will create a great deal of interest and you can grow a climber at one or both sides. This creates vertical interest that can guide the eye into other areas of the garden. For instance, an attractive statue or urn, or a small pond several metres behind the archway so that the eye is drawn through the arch to it, will look great.

4. Add a larger element such as a gazebo or a fishpond. The latter may not be a good idea if you have toddlers who tend to be drawn to water. However, you could surround the pool with plants and an edging so that children will not be able to access it so easily.

Pathways and retaining walls are also effective as design elements in landscaping. Pathways can be as simple as poisoning a narrow strip of grass – lr laying down black plastic – and adding gravel or pine bark chips. You can use pavers to keep your feet dry.

One way to deal with that narrow side strip that many homes seem to have is to lay pavers in a diamond shape along the length and fill in the alternating dirt squares with perennial ground covers. Hang some pot-plants along the wall of the house or the fence.

If you have children and want to keep a lot of playing space for them, placing centre attractions may not be the way to go. Instead, you can grow a garden of shade loving plants under the trampoline, or keep gardens and shrubs to the edges or back of the yard. What you do with your landscaping depends on your lifestyle and needs, so these should be considered before going ahead.