Colorado backyard landscaping ideas will assist you in creating an incredible and lovely backyard that will soothe you every time you sit there. However, some people may find it challenging to design the landscape and select the appropriate plants and materials, especially those who have never done so before.
In order to assist you in creating a tranquil environment in your outdoor living area, we have provided the following 22 backyard design ideas.
Contents
- A List of Colorado Backyard Landscaping Ideas
- 1. Indigenous Plants
- 2. Water Features
- 3. Living Space at Outdoor
- 4. Privacy Features
- 5. The Right Color
- 6. Creative Hardscape
- 7. Maintenance
- 8. Tiered Stairs and Walkways
- 9. Xeric Plants
- 10. Xeriscape
- 11. Drip Irrigation
- 12. Rock Garden
- 13. Rain Garden
- 14. Rain Barrel Station
- 15. Artificial Turf
- 16. Downsized Lawn
- 17. Bluebells (Mertensia Ciliata)
- 18. Columbine (Aquilegia Caerulea)
- 19. Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon Strictus)
- 20. Blanketflower (Gaillardia Pinnatifida)
- 21. Scarlet Gilia (Ipomopsis Aggregata)
- 22. Purple Coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea)
- Conclusions
A List of Colorado Backyard Landscaping Ideas
1. Indigenous Plants
Numerous native plants can be found in Colorado. Hence, you can utilize these plants in your backyard. They won’t just require less maintenance, but they’ll also give your landscape a special touch. Additionally, the climate of Colorado is ideal for growing ornamental grass species.
Also, they expand to a size that offers privacy and adds a dash of greens to your landscape design. In addition, Colorado is home to more varieties of wildflowers than you might imagine. By planting several different varieties of these lovely flowers in your garden area, you may add color to your landscaping.
2. Water Features
For a peaceful atmosphere, you might add a pond or a fountain to your backyard. It is a fantastic method to draw wildlife as well. You may improve the aesthetic of the landscape by adding water features to the landscape.
The pond will look beautiful if you add some water plants underneath or around it. Furthermore, by including rocks or a rocky texture, you can make the fountain appear more natural.
3. Living Space at Outdoor
If you have sufficient outdoor space, you might think about extending your backyard with a deck or a patio. You’ll have a place to enjoy and relax and take in the open air without the need to leave your house, thanks to this.
Nothing beats resting on your lawn on a calm evening while watching the sun set behind the mountains. These factors have led to the popularity of outdoor living spaces and larger seating areas in the landscapes of Colorado.
4. Privacy Features
A major element of relaxation is privacy. You might want to think about including some privacy features in your backyard if you live in a busy neighborhood and wish to relax on a quiet afternoon or evening.
A hedge or a high fence might be added to help make the area feel cozier.
5. The Right Color
The appropriate color scheme can make your backyard even more beautiful. Fortunately, Colorado’s landscape is already incredibly vibrant. So, you won’t have to put too much effort into your search for plants to provide color and comfort to the landscape.
Your backyard may truly stand out with a few carefully placed color accents. It also affects what colors you pick for the fence, rocks, and other landscape elements. Therefore, keep these aspects in mind while you develop the landscape design.
6. Creative Hardscape
There are some stunning rocks and stones in Colorado. You can employ them in your design for the backyard. They will undoubtedly give your yard a lovely texture if you include them in your design.
The pond or fountain that you intend to add to the landscape can have rocks in it or around it. Additionally, you can create lovely rocky walkways to keep people off your lawn’s grass.
7. Maintenance
It’s essential to take your maintenance level into account while choosing the landscaping for your backyard. Low-maintenance materials and plants are best if you don’t want to devote a lot of time to maintaining your landscaping.
However, this does not imply that you remove all the trees from your Colorado lawn. There are several low-maintenance trees available that would look great in your landscaping. To name a few: Sawtooth Oak, Plum Tree, Apricot, Autumn Blaze Maple, Colorado Blue Spruce, etc.
8. Tiered Stairs and Walkways
We are all aware of how hilly the terrain in Colorado is. Such a curved landscape might not be desirable to others. Instead of fighting the ridges and bumps in your yard, you may embrace them by transforming them into aesthetically pleasing brick and stone steps.
Such steps will undoubtedly improve the aesthetics of your backyard’s landscape. Natural rocks can be used to save costs, or if you have the budget, you can use more expensive rocks to decorate.
9. Xeric Plants
Xeric plants can be used to create a landscape that is resistant to drought. Low water requirements make xeric plants ideal for xeriscape landscaping. Growing Colorado native xeric plants is a unique landscaping idea. Local pests, diseases, and levels of soil fertility have all led native trees or plants to adapt to the environment.
Because of this, these plants require less maintenance. Moreover, they draw hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees, among other local pollinators. Non-native plants, on the other hand, require a lot of attention because they are unfamiliar with the local environment. Typically, they need a lot of water, insecticides, and fertilizers to survive.
10. Xeriscape
A form of drought-resistant design concept known as a xeriscape thrives with little to no additional water. Even in harsh climates, a well-planned xeriscape may survive on the amount of rainfall in the area. Xeriscapes can be visually beautiful and include a variety of plants.
Hardscape elements, such as walkways and patios, as well as drought-tolerant, drought-resistant, or xeric plants, succulents, cactus, mulch (both inorganic and organic), sand, and rocks (both small and large) are all included in a xeriscape.
11. Drip Irrigation
Using drip irrigation can help you to conserve water. It’s likely that you’re losing water if you use a garden hose to irrigate your backyard garden. Sprinklers only use roughly 70% of the water they apply to the plants. But the drip irrigation technique is about 90% effective.
Using a drip irrigation system, water is slowly and precisely delivered to the roots of the plants. You can not only set it above the soil’s surface but also set it underneath. Compared to a sprinkler or garden hose, a drip irrigation system won’t actually lose as much water to heat or erosion.
12. Rock Garden
Using rocks is one of the smartest backyard design ideas for creating a landscape that can withstand drought. There are many different ways to arrange rocks, and the arrangements look stunning. Why not highlight certain rocks in a rock garden if you have access to them and the resources to do so?
Rock gardens are a wonderful way to display your prized boulders or fine river rocks. Plants that can withstand drought, mulch, garden accents, or tiny features of water can be used to highlight the rocks.
13. Rain Garden
Before the soil in the lawn has time to soak up the liquid, the rainwater may occasionally flow out into the storm drains from the backyard. By creating a drought-resistant rain garden, you may benefit from preserving rainwater for use in your landscape. Perennial plants are commonly seen in rain gardens.
Deep roots of the perennial plants catch and purify rainwater. Your rain garden will receive all the moisture it needs after a rainfall, in contrast to other gardens that could lose water to erosion or runoff. The adoption of native, drought-resistant plants is the secret to a flourishing rain garden in springs.
14. Rain Barrel Station
It is better to conserve more irrigation water if you want to develop a drought-resistant landscape. You can include the concept of constructing a rain barrel station throughout your landscape plan to make the most of the rainwater. Installing a rain barrel underneath a downspout can help you get the most use out of it.
To make the rain barrel fit nicely, you might need to trim your downspout in half. You may collect 0.6 gallons of water per each inch of rain that accumulates on 1 sqft of your roof. For instance, if the roof area is 100 sqft in size, your rain barrel can hold up to 30 gallons of rainwater after a half-inch of rain.
15. Artificial Turf
Artificial or man-made turf installation is a great idea if you want to enjoy a comforting lawn in Colorado springs but don’t want to maintain it too often. Synthetic grass doesn’t require a drop of water to live, unlike a regular lawn which requires a lot.
Additionally, artificial or man-made turf doesn’t need any pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, or fungicides, unlike traditional turf. After installation, you don’t have to maintain your lawn frequently because it is mostly constructed of plastic. It doesn’t even need to be mowed.
16. Downsized Lawn
Although it looks beautiful in the environment, turf needs a lot of water to be properly maintained. If your lawn is vast, downsizing it will enable you to create a landscape that is more water-wise. Parts of the lawn can be replaced with almost anything, including rocks and gardens.
Hardscapes and groundcovers that can withstand drought are further replacement possibilities. Low-growing plants that cover the ground are called ground coverings. Heuchera Sanguinea (Snow Angel) and Juniperus Horizontalis (Blue Chip) are examples of water-wise groundcovers.
17. Bluebells (Mertensia Ciliata)
Native to the western United States, Bluebells can be found in Nevada, California, Oregon, and Utah. It frequently blooms in damp environments like creek banks and subalpine meadows.
Large areas of grassland and slope are frequently covered in blue-green foliage and sweet-smelling bluebell blossoms.
18. Columbine (Aquilegia Caerulea)
Columbine is a perennial herbaceous plant. It can reach heights of 8-23 inches (20–60 cm). The flowers come in a wide range of colors, including pale blue, white, pale yellow, pinkish, and others.
However, it is very typical for the flowers to be bicolored, with sepals that are a different shade from the petals.
19. Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon Strictus)
The herbaceous perennial Penstemon has a few stems that rise pretty much straight up from a large crown.
The stem leaves are smaller than the basal leaves, making them long and narrow. The entire leaves are smooth and are downy close to the petiole.
20. Blanketflower (Gaillardia Pinnatifida)
A perennial, Blanketflower can reach a length of 22 inches (56 cm).
It features a single flower head with 7–12 yellow ray petals and a lot of tightly clustered orange-brown to purple disk petals on the top. Three lobes make up the ray flowers.
21. Scarlet Gilia (Ipomopsis Aggregata)
The distinctive red trumpet-shaped petals and basal leaves of the Scarlet Gilia grow from a single upright stem.
Height can vary significantly depending on elevation, from 12 inches (30 cm) in rocky alpine locations to over 59 inches (150 cm) in some parts of southern Texas. The colors might be red, white, pink, or orange-red.
22. Purple Coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea)
The Purple Coneflower is a perennial herb that can reach heights of 47 inches (120 cm) and a width of 10 inches (25 cm). It blooms all summer and into the fall, depending on the weather. Its cone-shaped flower heads are typically purple, but not always.
Its individual florets are hermaphrodites within the flower head. Bees and butterflies both pollinate it.
Conclusions
So now that you are aware of several landscaping suggestions for Colorado backyards, you can easily create a relaxing landscape. For example, you can combine the idea of making a rain garden with adding native plants like Scarlet Gilia as suggested above.
This way, you will have a customized landscape. You can ask us in the comments if you have any other questions about a backyard landscaping.
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