Lawn garden design and ideas
Lawn garden design means treating the grass as part of the design, not what is left over: a lawn with a clear shape, borders that frame it, and a path or a seat that gives you a reason to walk across it.
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20 real lawn garden ideas
20 lawn ideas from real gardens redesigned with the app, from a patchy lawn given a new border to a dry lawn replaced with gravel. Tap Before to see how each started, or Get this garden to try the look on yours.
Garden lawn designs
Lawns kept and given a shape: curves, circles and new borders cut into them. 7 gardens
A lush lawn with a new border of euphorbias, grasses and silver leaves
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A narrow lawn with a new border of catmint, salvias and yellow daisies
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A round striped lawn ringed by gravel, grasses and lavender
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A round lawn, a pond and an oak gazebo where the trampoline stood
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A curving lawn edge with a bed of pink astilbes and white flowers under a young tree
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A family lawn with a swing and trampoline, a new fence and a border of shrubs
Get this garden →Lawn border ideas
Lawns framed by deeper borders of roses, foxgloves, lavender and summer flowers. 4 gardens
A fence border beside a lawn, replanted with clematis, foxgloves and roses
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A lawn by the house edged with deep borders of lavender and summer flowers
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Rose and delphinium lawn
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A stone path off the lawn into a shady border of hostas, hydrangeas and foxgloves
Get this garden →Lawn replacement ideas
Lawns taken up altogether for gravel, stone paths, paving or planting. 9 gardens
A dry lawn replaced with gravel and round beds of catmint, salvias and roses
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Stone path through apricot roses and foxgloves
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Gravel garden full of flowers, from the patio
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Grasses and gravel with orange daisies
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Agaves, tree ferns and pale paving
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A lawn turned into a gravel path between deep borders of foxgloves and lavender
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Front garden path with cottage planting
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Curved patio with clipped evergreens
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A long lawn turned into a stone path past a bird bath and deep borders
Get this garden →How to design a lawn garden
The few ideas behind the gardens above, and how to plan a lawn garden of your own from them.
What makes a good lawn garden
A lawn garden works when the grass has a clear shape and something round it. A rectangle that runs from fence to fence reads as left over; the same grass cut into a circle, an oval or a wide curve, with borders filling the corners, reads as designed. The borders frame the grass, and the grass gives the borders somewhere to be seen from.
Giving a lawn a shape
Lay a hose where the new edge will go and look at it from the house, and from upstairs if you can. Keep curves wide and slow; tight wiggles look busy. A round or oval lawn makes a small garden feel bigger, because the corners become planting.
Borders round a lawn
Make the borders deeper than feels natural, at least a metre and more along a long fence, so they can hold shrubs or climbers at the back and flowers in front. A clean edge between grass and border, in brick, steel or a sharp cut line, keeps that shape crisp.
When to replace a lawn
Grass that stays brown every summer, sits in deep shade or never gets walked on may be better as something else: gravel planted with lavender and grasses, a path between deep borders, or a meadow. Keep grass where children play or where you sit, and plant the rest.
See it on your own garden first
Garden Design App designs your garden from a photo. It reads a picture of your lawn, keeps the house, the fences and the trees where they are, and redesigns the garden round it with plants you could genuinely grow.
From an idea to a plan you can plant
When one of the designs clicks, the Pro and Max plans turn it into a planting plan: every plant named, how big each grows and where each goes, with a month by month flowering calendar so the garden has something in flower from spring to autumn.
12 plants for a lawn garden
Plants for the borders that frame a lawn: long flowering, soft at the front edge, and tall enough at the back to hide the fence.
- Hardy geraniums
- Catmint
- Salvias
- Lavender
- Alliums
- Roses
- Foxgloves
- Euphorbia
- Ornamental grasses
- Achillea
- Clematis
- Japanese anemones
More lawn garden ideas
A patchy lawn under a wisteria pergola becomes an oval lawn framed by deep borders for bees.
A lawn gone brown between a wall and a fence becomes slabs in pebbles round a fire pit: one answer to what to do with a dead lawn.
A thinning lawn becomes pale gravel and flagstones with drifts of lavender, one of our alternatives to lawn.
Other garden styles
Lawn garden design questions
What can I do with a garden that is just lawn?
Give the lawn a shape and plant round it: cut borders into the corners, run a path across it to a seat, or replace part of it with gravel or a meadow. Plain grass is the easiest place to start, because there is nothing to clear first.
How do I make my lawn look beautiful?
Give it a shape and a frame. A lawn with a clear edge, whether a circle, an oval or a wide curve, and deep borders round it looks better than a perfect lawn with nothing round it.
Should I keep my lawn or replace it?
Keep it where you use it, for children playing or a seat in the sun, and give it a clear shape. Replace the parts that stay brown every summer or sit in deep shade with planting or gravel, which will look better there.
How deep should the borders round a lawn be?
Deeper than most people expect: at least a metre, and more along a long fence. That leaves room for shrubs or climbers at the back and flowers in front, so the border still looks full when the front plants are over.
Can I see a lawn idea on my own garden?
Yes. Add a photo of your garden, choose a style, and see it redesigned in about a minute. Your house, fences and trees stay.
Are the plants real, and can I buy them?
Yes. With the Pro and Max plans every design names its plants: garden centre favourites and RHS Award of Garden Merit winners, chosen by a professional gardener, with how big each grows and where each goes.
Is it free?
Your first 3 designs are free, with no card needed. The Pro plan is £29 and the Max plan is £49, paid once, with nothing to cancel.
Can I try more than one lawn garden idea?
Yes. Make different designs and compare them on your own garden. Your first 3 are free, and Pro, one payment of £29, gives you 20 designs over 14 days, two at a time, so you can see several looks side by side.
Why does my redesign look like high summer?
We show your garden at its peak, in full flower, so you can see how full it can look. It is an artist's impression: your real garden changes through the seasons. Every paid design comes with a flowering calendar, so you know what flowers each month, and evergreen shapes help it look good in winter.
Turn plain grass into a garden.
Try any of these lawn garden ideas on your own garden in about a minute. Your first 3 designs are free.
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