Polish Your Garden's Look With Metal
When building our gardens we are apt to use brick, stone or wood. But what about metal?
Gates and fences have traditionally been the clear uses for metal in the backyard, since the material is durable and cost effective but not always very decorative. In the past several decades , though, metal was used more often as part of ornamentation and the construction.
Let us look at how metal has burst out of easy fencing to various elements of garden design: surfacing, containers, water features and sculptures.
D-CRAIN Design and Construction
It requires another look to realize that the walls and steps within this modern front lawn are made of steel. Since it has a easy finish, the material is the best complement to the contemporary structure of the house.
The touches of rust create a more natural texture, but do you be courageous enough to use metal as the principal building material in your own garden?
The Garden Design Studio
Let rust bring metal nearer to nature. Using rusted metal in backyard design is becoming more popular, perhaps because it takes away the clinical look of the material. Rust brings its hues that are associated with the earth and gardens: reds ochers and browns.
The rusted steel used as retaining walls here has an almost natural appearance with its color and texture. The hardness of the material is softened by clever plantings, including a row of purple Berberis contrary to the reduced wall that virtually picks up the colours of the rust.
D-CRAIN Design and Construction
The stonecrop ground cover (Sedum reflexum ‘Green Spruce’) superbly blankets the hard edges of the stone wall and flows easily down the front.
Banyon Tree Design Studio
Combine metal and stone for a harmonious characteristic. Not all steel in backyard construction comes in the form of sheets. Here gabions are used to make an cost-effective and interesting retaining wall. I suppose the stone is the design characteristic that is true, with metal carrying the string, but both combine well.
Gabions are easy to use, as they’re supplied flat packed and then pumped together. They will rust in time, however, some producers promise them for 50 decades.
Use corrugated iron for more than simply roofing the barn. There are alternatives to flat steel for a conventional barrier or fence. Galvanized iron panels, so preferred as a roofing and building material in the past, are used here as a decorative feature, place to comparison against a yellow wall that was gorgeous. The shadows made along the lines of the corrugation give the steel a excellent feeling of texture contrary to the flatness of the wall.
Edb designs
Exactly the same corrugated galvanized iron was used here to create large utilitarian stock tank planters. They are easy to position or move and may be used for a vast range of plants — from decorative shrubs and climbers, as shown here, to vegetables and fruit.
Zeterre Landscape Architecture
Convey quality with stainless steel. From low-cost corrugated panels we move to high-end stainless steel. Stainless steel may be expensive and overpowering at great expanses, so using it in small segments as decorative inner barriers is most likely the most cost-effective alternative.
Stainless Steel requires more maintenance than galvanized or Cor-Ten steel; it requires regular polishing to keep the surface clean and reflective.
WA Design Architects
Stainless steel is used here as a display but in an entirely different format. The screen’s opennessallows the landscape to show through.
Castanes Architects PS
Produce the perfect entrance. Its low price and ease of use has made metal the perfect material for gates for eons. If you feel your backyard layout won’t require a full-scale steel fencing, then maybe just including a steel gate, like this laser-cut Cor-Ten one, would add that special touch.
Andrew T. Crawford
Not all gates have to be so functional and modern. Since this gate exemplifies, Metalwork doesn’t have to be utilitarian. Gates could be unstructured and, being this one shows, amusing.
Zeterre Landscape Architecture
Use strong metallic lines for contemporary appeal. I just love this contemporary approach to using metal in this simple garden layout. The strong lines of the steel tubes are reminiscent of these spikes of cordylines or phormiums while echoing the color of these ground-cover plants. The steel and wood seat finishes the picture, with the beautiful bit of plants growing across the chair and under it.
Exteriorscapes llc
Combine water and metal. This simple water characteristic, generated from rusted steel, enables the various textures of the stone, steel and water to comparison. A additional comparison can be made by the still, clear stream feeding the waterfall and the tumultuous result below it.
Randy Thueme Design Inc. – Landscape Architecture
Make a statement. Ultimately, this slick, trendy and modern steel pergola is an announcement in its own right and doesn’t need clothing made of climbers. It’s a strong effect on the backyard and with the correct siting enables the drama of light and color.
More: Ideas for using Cor-Ten steel in the home and garden