Natural architecture for the garden landscape

Natural architecture is becoming a popular landscape design for those wanting an alternative garden. Choosing the right outdoor plants can provide you with a brilliant natural-looking environment.  

Certain garden plants can provide natural architecture in your garden - simply because they have shapes that allow them to behave somewhat like hard landscaping elements. These plants are strong of form and structure, with distinctive outlines and a bold, often symmetrical shape.

They can be employed in a garden in the way an architect would use walls or roofs or a doorframe in a building. They bring a sense of basic structure to the outdoor space, allowing the rest of the garden to be built around them.

Bringing natural architecture to life

"The best plants for bringing this architectural feel to a garden are evergreen and look pretty much the same all year round," says garden designer Cindy Leary, of Cinco Gardens in Warradale, South Australia. "They retain their form and structure through all the seasons, and are valued for their shape rather than their flowers, fruit, fragrance or colour."

Plants with interesting and appealing shapes that are features in their own right are most appropriate for this 'architectural' application. The sago palm (Cycas revoluta) is a good example of a plant with natural architecture potential.

Cindy particularly likes this plant for the stiff, dark-green fronds that grow out of its palm-like base and for its "almost prehistoric" appearance.

"Sago palms are quite slow growing, so they are well suited to pots," she says. "Their unusual appearance really draws the eye, and they work well as features in a Moroccan or Mediterranean themed garden."

Types of garden plants

Garden plants like yuccas and agaves are popular architectural plants in contemporary Australian gardens. They are particularly well matched to modern buildings, and can be used alone or in groups. They are low maintenance, drought hardy and relatively easy to grow.

"They've got nice clean lines and so really suit that modern, minimalist style of garden," says Cindy.

Pencil pines are great for providing important vertical elements in a garden and for defining boundaries and hard landscaping features like paths. They also work well framing a view or an architectural asset like a window or door.

Defining areas of the landscape design

A smaller garden plant that can be used is the Dianella 'Border Silver'. This is a strappy plant with stiff, upright leaves that have smooth, flat textures and a silvery trim. Cindy uses these plants to define paths, to draw the eye down a line or to create a bold focal point in the garden.

The Bird of Paradise (Strelizia regina - pictured) is another plant with broad flat leaves and a tall rigid appearance. The flower spike resembles a bird's beak and head, and can provide a spectacular focal point, as well as the strong form of an evergreen architectural feature.

Contact a landscape designer to discuss ways to bring your garden to life, naturally: