Do you dream of relaxing in a modern garden? According to recent research by Next, the minimal modern garden style is one of the most popular types in the country, but replicating the clean, orderly look can be tough.
To help you design a gorgeous modern garden you’ll adore spending time in, we’ve pulled together our experts’ top tips. With them, you’ll be able to make your contemporary garden dreams become reality. For more garden paving ideas, get in touch or book a video consultation to see how our experts can help you choose the right design elements.
What makes a Modern Garden?
Modern garden designs are typically minimalist, featuring straight lines, contrasting colours, geometric shapes, and an emphasis on function and simplicity.
Lawns are well-trimmed and cared for, while borders are typically stocked with highly structured plants that are easy to maintain. Paving areas feature more uniform materials like granite and porcelain paving. Gardens often seamlessly integrate indoor and outdoor areas, which means modern gardens are relatively low-maintenance.
Modern garden designs don’t need to be completely simple and pared-back, though. When surveyed in 2024, a group of top garden designers at the SGD Spring Conference felt that modern gardens could still blend Mediterranean and cottage-inspired planting with more contemporary features like crushed paving materials. The trick, though, is balance – these elements should stand out, not comprise large sections of the garden.
What Materials Are Best For a Modern Garden?
In modern garden design, the materials used to craft paving, paths, walls, and borders centre around cool, minimalist porcelain pavers and bright, light limestone.
These two materials come in a great variety of colour options, but one thing that unifies them is a lack of texture and a focus on uniformity of colour and pattern. Compared to other stones like sandstone, granite, and Indian stone, they have far less mottling, patterning, and uneven textures—a must for pared-back modern garden styles.
That said, more natural materials like wooden sleepers, decking, and aggregates like gravel and crushed stone can be used to contrast different areas of your modern garden while bringing some warmth and texture. Just don’t go overboard or you might dilute the aesthetic.
Layout and Design Principles for Modern Gardens
Thankfully for the novice garden designer, modern styles are uncluttered and spacious, as opposed to the winding secret gardens found in English cottage landscaping, or the pristine zen look seen in Japanese styles. Here are the main points to consider:
- Clean lines: Straight lines intersecting at 90-degree angles are a hallmark of modern design, giving the garden a clean sense of order. Consider this through seating areas, furnishings, footpaths, and landscaping.
- Plenty of space: While most of us aren’t blessed with acres of space, modern gardens typically have larger, more open areas accounted for within the design, which provide a calming, simplified look. A patio or neat, luscious lawn area is perfect for this.
- Smart use of levels: Levels contribute to the sense of order and structure in a modern garden. Think steps leading up to the home, raised beds, or a sunken patio area.
- Contrast: To go fully cool and contemporary, you can keep everything on the same wavelength with your modern garden, using the same shapes and design elements. If you prefer more variety, that’s fine too: mix things up with square and circular elements close to one another, or bright, standout plants placed within neatly cared-for raised beds.
- Upkeep: Modern gardens are well looked after. What might be seen as natural and wild in a more traditional country garden is unsightly and disorganised in the modern one. As such, if you’re not able to put a lot of time into garden upkeep, you need to consider how materials will age, how plants will grow, and how often they’ll need maintenance, particularly before winter.
Choosing a Modern Colour Palette
Your modern garden’s colour palette should be broadly informed by your home—are the brickwork, window, and door fittings lighter or darker? Next, you need to ask yourself whether you want a contrasting or complementary look—consulting a colour wheel can be a good choice at this stage.
In general, blacks, greys, whites and beige colours are a good base for the materials you craft your garden from – the patio, furnishings, raised beds, steps and so forth. From there, you can provide concert or contrast through your plant choices.
Which Plants Work Best for Modern Gardens?
Plants with a strong structure are perfect for modern gardens, though plant a mixture of levels to provide visual interest.
Consider bamboo for screening and the added benefit of a calming sound as the leaves are caught in the wind. Long grasses can make excellent border plants, with many coming in the pared-back beiges befitting of modern gardens. Yuccas and flaxes, with their tough, long, sword-like leaves are good for creating levels in borders, especially when paired with easy-to-care-for lily turf and hosta.
Modern Water Features, Lighting and Furniture
If you’d like to incorporate water into your modern garden design, go for simple, minimal features and reflecting pools. The same goes for lighting and furnishings: unfussy, geometric designs in more monochromatic colour schemes are a go-to.
How to Plan Your Garden
Ready to get planning? Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- Understand your garden: How much light does your garden receive? What areas suffer from poor drainage? What is the soil like? Armed with this information, you can be sure your garden will stand the test of time.
- Get some inspiration: Whether it’s our garden paving ideas page, Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest, look up ideas for elements you’d like to include in your garden, like steps and sleepers.
- Sketch out your ideas: A top-down sketch is perfect for planning your garden. Balance out different elements, properly label them, and account for anything that can’t be moved, like trees, underground pipes, or your water meter. Consider which plants will go where, using your understanding of where the sun hits different parts of your garden, the soil and drainage.
Create Your Dream Modern Garden with RF Paving
If you love the modern garden aesthetic, we have everything you need to craft a relaxing space you’ll savour spending time in. Explore our range of porcelain, stone paving, decking, landscaping supplies, and steps today.
Need some help choosing? Visit our showroom or book a video consultation today, and our experts will be able to help you find the perfect design solution for your outdoor space.
