Lawn Alternatives and Ground Cover Design Ideas and Photos

What to use instead of thirsty turf — groundcovers, native grasses, gravel, stepping stone paths and where a small lawn is still worth keeping. Lawn is the most demanding surface in most gardens: it wants water, feeding, mowing, edging and full sun, and it repays that effort only where people actually walk on it. The intelligent approach is not to abolish lawn but to shrink it to the shape and size that gets used, then replace the leftovers — the shaded strip, the awkward corner, the nature strip, the slope — with something better suited. Groundcovers do the job where light foot traffic is occasional. Native violet in shade, dichondra for a soft green carpet, myoporum and grevillea prostrate forms on banks, thyme and chamomile in sunny pockets where crushing releases scent, and pigface or succulent mats in coastal heat. Planted at proper density with mulch between while they establish, they knit into a continuous surface within a season or two and need only an occasional trim. Grasses and gravel handle the rest. Lomandra, dianella, poa and carex in blocks give movement and structure and never need mowing. Decomposed granite or crushed stone with steel edging makes a beautiful, permeable...

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Pergola Designs

Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres and Long Dining Table,

Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres, Glass Screens and Slim Posts, Espaliered Citrus, Herb Planters and. this image created by www.homedesign-photos.com — Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres, Glass Screens and Slim Posts, Espaliered Citrus, Herb Planters and Trailing Greenery, featuring a Long Dining Table, Outdoor Kitchen and Warm Festoon Lighting, balanced by Clean Sightlines, Shaded Retreats

G1 Rear is part of our Pergola Designs collection — one of 90 large-format widescreen concept visuals in this section. It is presented here at full size so you can study the layout, the planting, the surfaces and the way light falls across the design before you commit to building anything on your own block.

Louvred, timber, wisteria-clad and resort pergolas, patios and shade structures. Use this concept as a starting point: note the proportions between built form and greenery, where shade and shelter sit, how paths and paved areas move people through the space, and which materials repeat to hold the whole scheme together.

Every visual on this site is a design idea created for Home Design Photos. Browse the rest of the Pergola Designs collection, or open the complete image catalogue to see every home, garden, pool, pergola, furniture, lighting and beach house concept in one place.

← Vine-Clad Garden Pergola Design with Chunky Oregon Beams and Poolside Lounge Zone and Sheltered Vine-Clad Garden Pergola Design with Chunky Oregon Beams and Poolside Lounge Zone and Sheltered →

More Pergola Designs concepts

Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres and Long Dining Table,

Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres, Glass Screens and Slim Posts, Espaliered Citrus, Herb Planters and Trailing Greenery, featuring a Long Dining Table, Outdoor Kitchen and Warm Festoon Lighting, balanced by Clean Sightlines, Shaded Retreats

Vine-Clad Garden Pergola Design with Chunky Oregon Beams, Charcoal Steel Brackets and Ceiling Fans, Tropical Foliage Screening and Deep Green. this image created by www.homedesign-photos.com

Vine-Clad Garden Pergola Design with Chunky Oregon Beams and Poolside Lounge Zone and Sheltered

Vine-Clad Garden Pergola Design with Chunky Oregon Beams, Charcoal Steel Brackets and Ceiling Fans, Tropical Foliage Screening and Deep Green Understorey, featuring a Poolside Lounge Zone and Sheltered Alfresco Dining Area, framed by Generous Paved Terraces and Warm Ambient

Vine-Clad Garden Pergola Design with Chunky Oregon Beams and Poolside Lounge Zone and Sheltered

Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres and Long Dining Table,

Louvred Roof Patio Design with Blackbutt Decking, Matte Black Framing and Woven Cane Shades, Wisteria and Ornamental Grape Trained Overhead. this image created by www.homedesign-photos.com

Louvred Roof Patio Design with Blackbutt Decking and Adjoining Sun Deck, Bar Bench

Louvred Roof Patio Design with Blackbutt Decking, Matte Black Framing and Woven Cane Shades, Wisteria and Ornamental Grape Trained Overhead, featuring an Adjoining Sun Deck, Bar Bench and Built-In Bench Seating, finished with Sculptural Feature Planting and Inviting Outdoor

Louvred Roof Patio Design with Blackbutt Decking and Adjoining Sun Deck, Bar Bench

Complete image catalogue

Aerial Top View Garden Layout Design Ideas and Photos

Why looking straight down reveals a garden's real design — grids, axes, proportion, circulation and the layouts that read beautifully from above.

Photographed from directly above, a garden cannot hide behind planting or clever angles. The plan is exposed: the proportion of paving to green, whether lines relate to the building, how circulation actually works, and whether the spaces have deliberate shapes or are simply what was left over. That is why designers draw in plan first, and why aerial photographs are the fastest way to learn what makes a layout work.

The strongest layouts are built on a grid taken from the house. Extend the lines of walls, window openings and doorways into the garden, and use them to set the edges of terraces, lawns, pools and beds. Paving modules aligned to that grid, a path centred on a door, a pool parallel to the main elevation — these decisions cost nothing and they are what makes a garden feel resolved even when the planting is young.

Proportion and shape do the rest. Give each area a clear geometric footprint — a rectangle of lawn, a square terrace, a long rill — rather than curves drawn to avoid obstacles. Where curves are used, make them generous and confident, struck from a single centre rather than wandering. Leave one area deliberately open, because a garden with no empty space reads as clutter from above and feels busy at ground level.

Garden Plans design ideas photo from the Aerial Top View Garden Layout Design Ideas and Photos feature. this image created by www.homedesign-photos.com

Then check circulation and light in plan. Paths should follow the route people actually take, with widths that suit two people side by side on the main run. Mark where shade falls at midday in summer and midwinter and place the seating accordingly. Finally, look at the ratio of hard surface to planting: the gardens that photograph best from above are usually around one third built and two thirds green, no matter what style they are.

House Design Photos is a HUGE Library Gallery and Directory of Home Design Photos

Lawn Alternatives and Ground Cover Design Ideas and Photos

Resort Cabana and Shade Structure Design with Powder-Coated Aluminium Louvres and Long Dining Table,

More Pergola Designs concepts

Aerial Top View Garden Layout Design Ideas and Photos