Backyard Garden Ideas: 22 Spaces To Inspire (2024)

Thanks to full-height sliding doors, the backyard of this new home in Sydney’s northern beaches is allowed to bleed inside. Rugged bush surrounds have been honoured, while an expansive and well-kept lawn provides plenty of space for the owners’ son to run around.

The garden attached to this converted warehouse in Sydney’s Newtown is lush, rambling and full of variation. Also within the outdoor courtyard is an inviting swimming pool. The owners say their backyard is an “incredible place of peace and quiet”, despite being in the inner-city.

The expansive and easy nature of this backyard in a mid-century inspired Torquay home perfectly suits its owners, a family of five. Being north-facing, it enjoys protection from from southerly sea breezes thanks to the house.

This tropical retreat belongs to a Brisbane family home who’s design is something of a contemporary take on classic Queenlsanders. Here, a large internal courtyard has been built around a Canary Islan ddate palm, taking up the space between the front and rear of the home. At the side of the pool, Heliconias line the raised garden bed.

Perhaps the hero of lovingly restored and renvoated Bundara Farm in Berry is this festoon-lit pergola, which is fully set up for entertaining and lazy long lunching. The pergola was an addition by the property’s former owner, Anna Fraser, over which a climbing grapevine cascades.

The path to the main door of this modern Southern Highlands farmhouse is lined with buxus and oakleaf hydrangea. At the rear of the home, a ornamental grapevine climbs over the pergola, giving the deck a Mediterranean feel.

Natural stone was used for the paving and landscaping of this low-tox Byron hinterland home. The tones and shades of the locally sourced limestone are echoed in the home’s interior, which heavily features northern beech timber floorboards.

White Wisteria floribunda ‘Alba’ and Rosa ‘Soaring Spirits’ climb over one of the beams that gives the Arbour Walk its name in this stunning formal garden on Mount Tamborine. Along the walk are weeping Japanese maples, hydrangeas, irises, lilies and violets.

Working with a large sloping site, landscape designer Claudia Nevell shaped a many-layered tropical wonderland at her home on the New South Wales’ North Coast.

Studying native plants and garden design led Kathleen Murphy to create a water-wise oasis at her home where clients can see her work firsthand. Her stunning garden with panoramic views of the Macedon Ranges features a variety of Australian native plants and a contemporary take on the latest in garden ideas and plantings.

Indigenous plantings and a coastal aesthetic help blur the boundaries between a new coastal native garden and its beachside location.

This rooftop garden in Sydney features a custom barbecue, tandoor oven and an evergreen tuckeroo tree as a focal point. The open fireplace can be lit at a moment’s notice with logs of wood kept nearby.

Strategic placement of plants to complement the existing mature trees and climbers, which include wisteria, bougainvillea and star jasmine, created privacy and depth in the garden of this updated Georgian-style home.

Once its pebblecrete stepping stones were removed, this Sydney garden could be rezoned into equal parts lawn and outdoor living. Sandstone stepping stones mark the transition from lawn to paved terrace.

‘Renae’ climbing roses, hydrangeas, orchids and white crepe myrtle enhance the lawned central courtyard of this Italian-inspired Palm beach villa.

Sculptural hedges and graved paths designed by Paul Bangay created a perfectly manicured courtyard garden in this restored Italianate mansion in Toorak.

Every spring, this historic property in western Victoria comes alive as thousands of daffodils dance at the feet of mighty river red gums, in orderly tiers of gardens.

The horizontal surfaces in this garden designed by William Dangar reflect some of the regimentation of the architecture – a plane of grass, a Japanese courtyard of white Cowra pebbles, the rectangular pool of aqua water.

An outdoor fireplace ensures this rooftop terrace remains a destination, even in the cooler months. The cantilevered L-shaped bench, clad in limestone offers abundant seating around the warmth.

A pebbled path in this stately Ballarat garden serves as a partition between the oval and square lawn ‘rooms’.