Garden Structures Create a Mood

Using arbors, trellises and statues in a garden.

  • Topic: Garden Design
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: arbor, trellis, statues, vines, Garden Design, gardens
  • Date: March 2003

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When I was little, an old woman lived at the end of the alley. Mrs. Kraft had the most wonderful garden, and what made her garden so special is none of the neighborhood kids I ran with had to ask if we could play there.

“Let them come whenever they want,” I remember her telling my mother. And it became one of our favorite romping spots.

Looking back, I don’t think it was the profusion of plants that drew us so much as the way the flowers and vines grew: up trellises, over arches, around posts, along fences. Her backyard was a fairyland of wonder. There were all sorts of places to crawl around in. Hide-and-Go-Seek was a marvel at Mrs. Kraft’s. In making her garden she’d planned it on the most basic of principles: structures. And it was how her place at the end of the road was designated: The house with the arbor.

Structures define gardens. Even if a crop field ends at the edge of a wilderness, that edge defines the space. But most of us want something a little fancier, a little more gardenesque. Like Mrs. Kraft’s. And creating this can be as effortless as a tepee for beans or as exotic and complicated as a tiled roofed gazebo.

Whether planned or happenstance, garden structures end up building a mood in a planted area, and this can be formal or informal. For example, a picket fence sets a different mood than woven wire or coyote, and a pebble pathway offers a different kind of beckoning than flagstone set in concrete. It’s all in how you want your garden to present itself—to you and to your visitors.

What’s so neat about gardens is so much innovation is possible, so many variables, and when it comes to structures the choice is almost endless. There is something nostalgic about an old gate that doesn’t go anywhere but only serves to support vines. In one of our Garden Center books, “Garden Structures” by Linda Joan Smith, hundreds of ideas are given for fences, arbors and walls.

A bent willow-stem arch draped with honey suckles or even squash vines over a pathway invite such a feeling of tranquility. And a wooden bench offers a casual spot for sitting. But after these traditional garden elements come the little structures, the unusual oddities that can perk up a garden in no time.

If you don’t have the time or money for the larger structures, it’s fun to plug in ceramic mushrooms among your herbs. It’s fun to come upon large painted wooden flowers, iron and stained glass sculptures, or concrete and mosaic birdbaths. It’s fun to dangle wooden chimes from tree limbs.

Also it’s been a long tradition to place Madonnas, Buddhas and saints in strategic spots among flowers. But don’t forest the elves and frogs. Mrs. Kraft had a whole little population tucked here and there under leaves and flowers. Her garden is still something to aim for to create that full garden experience.

But whichever way you want to go—traditional or unusual—structures are a way to add depth and interest to any garden.