Contemporary garden design ideas (2024)

The winners of the 2022 Society of Garden Designers (SGD) Awards share some of the best contemporary garden design ideas from the winning gardens.

The annual SGD Awards ceremony took place on 23 September and celebrated some truly beautiful gardens created by leading contemporary designers. Discover the ingenious elements of the winning gardens and get inspiration on how to give your own outdoor space a first class makeover with these contemporary garden design ideas.

Prairie planting

To keep your garden looking good all year round, take inspiration fromMatthew Childs, winner of the prestigiousJudges’ Award.

The designer usesPrairie-style plantingin his Surrey garden, combining ornamental grasses with late-flowering perennials to form distinct blocks of colour and a tapestry of height, texture and form. The result is a garden that looks beautiful throughout the year.

Prairie gardens are reminiscent of the American plains when planted ona large scale. If you’re short on space, though, you could still create a prairie border or a mini prairie. Simply mix flowering perennials such as Rudbekia, Achillia and Crocosmia with ornamental grasses and planting in small groups. Underplant with bulbs to extend the season.

Built-in benches

Small gardens can easily become cluttered with garden furniture, leaving little room for anything else. In this London garden, however,Mandy Buckland MSGD, winner of the Big Ideas, Small Budget category at the SGD Awards, has created built-in benches which double up as storage boxes.

Created using Larch cladding, which has a natural resistance to decay, the benches are surrounded by lushgreen foliage to create acalm and restfulenvironment. The planting includes tree ferns, Fatsia and Hakonechloa among sculptural clipped balls of Pittosporum, Bay and Teuchrium.

Urban forest

For city dwellers looking to bring a touch of the rural to their urban life, this garden designed byStefano Marinaz MSGDfor a terraced house in London uses lush, generous planting to create the feeling of an urban forest.

Winner in two categories atthe SGD Awards,Garden Jewel andPlanting Design, Stefano underplants a dense upper canopy of tree ferns, Japanese Aralia andCoral-Bark Maple with hydrangeas, geraniums and astrantia. The result is a feeling of immersion that tricks you into feeling you are in a forest.

Stefano says that to get the full effect, “It’s importantto green up the garden parameters too so that it’s hard to tell where the property ends.”

Cuboid steps

If yourgarden is on different levels and you want a creative wayto move from basem*nt to ground level, this garden byTom Massey MSGDhas an ingenioussolution.

Tom won the Small Garden category at the SGD Awards. In this garden, he uses blocks of cast concrete, inspired by the cubist shapes of the adjoining house,to create a series of sculptural steps. These lead through a sloped bank of lush green planting and cascading water features.

The steps are designed to bring a sense of adventure and fun to the garden. Meanwhile, the softness ofdensely planted grasses provides a counterpoint to the hard landscape.

Wildlife friendly

If you are concerned about the environmental impact of your garden,Kristina Clode,winner of theDesign for the EnvironmentAward for the second year running,demonstrates numerous waysyou can create a garden that benefits the planet in her ‘Wildlife Friendly Eco House Garden.’

Beautiful basem*nts

Garden space below ground, however small, can be an oasis if you choose the right plants, pots and materials. In this tiny city courtyard,Gavin McWilliam MSGDandAndrew Wilson FSGDcombine the tones and textures of limestone paving and wood cladding with dramatic vertical planting. The result is a warm, socialspace for relaxing and entertaining.

Contrasting vertical and horizontal surfaces createvisual and architectural interest, while an antique mirror helps to open up the space. A floating cantilevered bench in English limestone delivers a dramatic focal point.

Edible flower garden

While more and more of uswant to grow our own food, many of us also want ourgardens to be pretty and ornamental.

In her award-winning gardendesigned for RHS Wisley,Ann Marie Powell MSGDdemonstrates just how beautiful a productive food garden can be. She features borders of vegetables, fruit,herbs and edible flowers.

Beautiful plantssuch as French marigold, red amaranth and chard appear in organically shaped beds. Elsewhere, arched pergolas festooned with edible climbers – brightly coloured squashes and exotic passion flowers, for example – demonstrate howa plot-to-plate experience can be achieved whether you garden is big or small.

Parasol trees

Nothing beats the leaves of a tree for filtering out harsh rays of midday sun.Trees transpire in the heat, so the shade beneath them is cooler than under other structures.

In this garden, which won the Grand Award at the SGD Awards, designerTommaso del Buono MSGDuses roof-trained lime trees arranged in a geometrical formation. These are punctuated by topiaries of Bay and Phyllireato create shading for the piazza-style terrace.

An elegant alternative to sun umbrellas, the trees addstructure and a natural architecture to the garden. In asmall courtyard or town garden, they can also offer privacy to those seated beneath them.

About the Society of Garden Designers

For help bringing your garden up to date, the Society of Garden Designers provides access to designers across the UK. SGD members offer a complete garden design service including planting plans, hard landscape design, construction drawings and specialist design elements.

The comprehensive Find a Designer search facility on the SGD website allows you to search by name, postcode, county or country.For more information, visitsgd.org.uk.