Modern & Contemporary Garden Design Ideas for Every Budget

Embrace simplicity and style with a modern, contemporary garden. Suitable for gardens of all shapes, sizes and aspects, this design style embraces clean lines, geometric shapes and simple colour schemes to create a relaxing space that acts as an extension of your home.

Modern garden designs feel sleek, ordered and uncluttered. While contemporary gardens don't have to be truly minimalist, you rarely see the abundance of colours and textures characteristic of more informal styles. Clean, sharp lines are created by encasing plants in raised beds, and materials are chosen to create an unblemished, high-end feel. The primary purpose of the garden is for relaxing and entertaining, and seating often takes priority over large areas of planting. 

Your choice of plants is wider than you think and doesn't need to be confined to clipped topiary or evergreens. Modern garden planting typically focuses more on lush texture rather than riotous colour, but in a sunny, dry bed, combining feathery golden grasses with structural perennials like Kniphofia and Eryngium can create similar contrast and a lighter, more prairie-like feel.

Whether you're in search of modern back garden ideas, small contemporary garden ideas or modern garden ideas on a budget, follow our guide to create a tranquil space that feels miles away from the hustle of day-to-day life.

 

How to design a contemporary garden

Structure and layout

Contemporary style gardens are highly structured with a focus on straight lines or strong curves, symmetry and geometric patterns. Lawns and paths have sharp edges, and beds are often raised or clearly edged to create a defined boundary between plants and hard landscaping. Planting can be formal or relaxed, but looser planting schemes are combined with strong architectural lines and boundaries to retain the sense of structure.

Modern, contemporary gardens are often seen as an extension of the home with defined zones for seating, planting and lawns. There is often more of a lean towards hard landscaping, though you need to ensure sufficient soft landscaping and structural planting to have a comfortable balance of mass and void.

While the simplicity of a contemporary garden may appear low maintenance, keeping lawns and topiary perfectly trimmed, training plants to grow in a very specific way and clearing gravel beds of every last leaf and blossom can be time consuming. It may feel counter-intuitive, but a more informal planting scheme (contained within planters or raised beds to give the required structure) often needs less work to keep it looking good.

When designing a contemporary garden:

• Include sufficient planting, soft landscaping and structural elements to strike a good balance of mass and void and soften hard landscaping.

• Focus on geometric shapes, simplicity and clean lines.

• Used raised beds, planters and garden edging to encase planting areas – avoid clusters of smaller pots.

• Keep lawns neat with trimmed edges.

Contemporary garden patio ideas

Modern garden designs for small gardens often include a large proportion of hard landscaping. While this is often necessary to prioritise entertaining space, it's important to balance patio areas with planting and create a sense of height and depth. This can be done structurally by creating level changes or including a sunken seating area, or visually by incorporating trees, shrubs and generous planters. Painting walls or fences black or dark grey helps them recede, giving the illusion of depth, and using climbing plants or green walls can give even the tiniest garden a lush, rich feel.

When designing your patio areas:

• Consider how much space you realistically need – for example, when planning a dining area, you don't just need space for a table and chairs, you need space for people to walk around the table and push back their chairs (without falling into a flowerbed).

• Create a sense of intimacy using bamboo or timber screening or evergreen planting, particularly if you have multiple seating areas in a garden.

• Think about how to add shade if your patio is a sun trap.

 

Contemporary outdoor garden lighting 

Garden lighting needs to be both practical and decorative, particularly if you're planning on sitting out in your garden at night. In a minimalist contemporary garden, lighting illuminates aspects of the garden rather than being a feature in itself. There are no ornate lanterns; instead, integrated lights under steps or under the edge of raised beds light up your path. Uplighters are used to highlight specimen plants or subtly illuminate sections of the garden.    

When choosing contemporary outdoor lighting:

• Use warm lighting to create an elegant ambiance that's kinder to nighttime creatures.

• Choose key features to highlight, for example a specimen tree or series of bamboo plants.

• Integrate strip lights into steps and under benches to light up wide areas.

• Use recessed spotlights to light up key areas without disrupting the sleek lines of your paving.

 

Contemporary garden water features

Contemporary garden designs may incorporate water in one of two ways; either as a standalone feature, such as a water bowl or fountain, or as a landscaping feature. When using water as part of the landscape, stick to geometric shapes and lines. Long mirror-like ponds are popular in larger gardens, whereas narrow rills look particularly effective in small spaces. Rather than a traditional waterfall, use a stepped rill to navigate a drop in height.

When deciding how to incorporate water into your modern garden design:

• Go bold with standalone fountains or water bowls for dramatic impact.

• Ensure larger features are in proportion and follow the same geometric lines as the rest of your hard landscaping.

• Incorporate pools and rills at ground level.

• Match your materials to give a cohesive feel.

 

Modern garden furniture

Seating is the focus of most small contemporary gardens, so you want your garden furniture to be an integral part of your design, not an afterthought. The biggest decision is whether you opt for freestanding furniture or built-in seating. In larger gardens, you may have space for both, particularly if you break the space up into smaller garden rooms.

Sunken seating areas are popular in contemporary gardens, particularly if entertaining is at the centre of your design. They create a wonderful sense of intimacy, but you'll likely need professional help to ensure proper drainage. 

Fixed seating helps you make the most of space in small gardens. Matching materials to those used for raised beds or walls helps the seating blend into the overall design. Alternatively, you may prefer the comfort and flexibility of freestanding furniture.

When choosing modern garden furniture:

• Look at the space you have available and what you'll be using it for most of the time, for example dining or lounging.

• Make sure it's comfortable as well as aesthetically pleasing. 

• Match the colour or material of your seating to elements of your landscaping.

• Consider if your furniture needs to incorporate storage. 

Best modern landscaping materials

Contemporary gardens give you scope for a wide range of landscaping materials, from porcelain, stone and concrete to metal, wood and glass. The right choice of materials for your garden will depend on both the aesthetic you want to create and the style of your home.  Light-coloured paving and render is common in contemporary garden designs, often contrasting with dark planters and fencing to create a monochrome effect. If you prefer a warmer feel, incorporate rich-toned wood as decking, seating or screening.

Although the range of materials you can use is wide, how they are applied is key. The modern style is all about smooth surfaces – think sawn stone rather than weathered paving slabs. Using gravel can help bring down the overall cost of landscaping materials, but you want to retain the structured look, perhaps by incorporating square or elongated paving slabs in paths. 

When choosing materials for your contemporary garden:

• Make sure the hard landscaping complements your home so the design feels cohesive.

• Stick to three or four materials for your paths, patios, raised beds and other structures.

• Treat the garden as an extension of your home by matching your external paving to internal flooring on either side of patio doors

 

Small contemporary garden ideas

Modern garden designs are ideal for very small gardens and urban spaces. The courtyard garden above feels like a private oasis of tranquility, with a lush planting scheme of shade-loving grasses, hostas and foxgloves surrounding an elegant marble bench. The rusted metal sculptures add drama, but you could create a more relaxed backdrop with a painted fence or trellis and an evergreen climber like Hedera 'Sulphur Heart'.

When coming up with modern tiny garden design ideas:

• Make seating your focal point, so you can sit out and enjoy the space you have.

• Splash out on premium materials, such as porcelain, slate or sawn stone, to give a luxury contemporary feel.

• Choose plants that will thrive in the sunlight your garden gets – you can't afford for plants to look ropey or scraggly.

• Create a lush feel by mixing evergreen plants with different textures and heights. If you have a sunny garden, consider planting a tree in one corner, to give height and shade.

Check out our post on 18 small garden design ideas for more inspiration.

 

Modern garden border planting ideas

Contemporary gardens are sometimes thought to be extremely minimalist when it comes to planting, but this is more a design choice than a rule. When minimalism is taken to the extreme, plants must be carefully chosen to ensure the garden still appears balanced. A more common approach is to restrict the varieties of plants used, but repeat the planting pattern to create full borders.

It's also untrue to say that contemporary gardens are all about manicured trees and hedges. While many gardens do have a formal feel, incorporating clipped topiary, evergreens and a limited colour palette, others adopt a more naturalistic planting scheme of grasses and herbaceous perennials. What's important is that this relaxed planting is contained within a structured bed or frame that gives that planned, geometric feel. 

This flexibility gives you the scope to choose plants that suit your garden's microclimate and growing conditions as well as your personal tastes. A planting scheme of drought-tolerant perennials and ornamental grasses will suit sunny, dry gardens, but would be less likely to work in a shaded, damp courtyard garden.

When choosing plants for a contemporary garden:

• Select a combination of plants that work together and repeat this pattern throughout the garden.

• Position evergreen shrubs and trees first to add height and structure.

• Make every plant work for its spot in the garden, ideally by offering interest through multiple seasons.

• Opt for a limited colour palette; green is typically the dominant colour, but you can add pops of brighter colours – just be sure to keep the structure and repetition.

• Don't be afraid to be bold: large, tropical plants can be a striking alternative to topiary,  and combining black foliage with white flowers creates a stunning monochromatic effect.

 

Top 10 contemporary garden plants

• Sarcococca confusa (sweet box) is an excellent alternative to box for shaded gardens. In addition to its compact evergreen foliage, it produces masses of highly scented white flowers in winter. 

• Fatsia japonica is an architectural shrub with large, exotic looking lobed leaves. It makes a great statement plant for a contemporary garden, and it's easy to grow and hardy in most parts of the UK.

• Fargesia 'Pingwu' is a tall, non-invasive, low-maintenance bamboo that's ideal for use as a privacy screen or to soften a slatted fence.

• Gardenia 'Kleim's Hardy' has glossy evergreen leaves with elegant flat white flowers in summer and autumn. Plant it near a seating area to make the most of the fragrant blooms. Gardenias are often grown under glass, but this cultivar is suitable for outdoor use year round in mild areas.

• Carex 'Everillo' is an easy-to-grow Japanese sedge grass with bright chartreuse foliage that turns golden in autumn. Plant it with hostas and ferns for contrasting texture or as year-round colour in a border with flowering plants. 

• Ophiopogon 'Nigrescens' (black mondo grass) is a striking perennial with inky grassy foliage and small white flowers in summer. Plant it with Heuchera 'Lime Marmalade' or Japanese forest grasses for dramatic contrast or with snowdrops and hellebores for a monochrome winter bed.

• Agapanthus 'Poppin Purple' adds a splash of colour with clusters of purple trumpet-shaped flowers from mid-summer through to autumn. Plant this African lily in a sunny bed with evergreen grasses for structure. If you prefer a classic green-and-white colour scheme, Agapanthus 'Mi Casa' produces clusters of white flowers on long stems that will rise above low-growing topiary.

• Stipa tenuissima 'Pony Tails' is a compact ornamental grass with yellow-green flowing foliage that sways in the breeze. It's drought-tolerant once established and ideal for a sun-baked garden. Use it to soften the hard lines of contemporary planters and add movement, sound and texture to your garden.

• Betula utilis jacquemontii (Himalayan birch) has striking white bark that contrasts beautifully with its green leaves. Use it as a specimen tree for shade or, if you have the space, plant a group of trees for a dramatic, contemporary look all year round.

• Agastache 'Blackadder' adds height and colour to a border with tall spikes of violet flowers that are loved by pollinators. This hardy perennial is renowned for its long flowering period and is a perfect choice for contemporary wildlife gardens and prairie planting schemes.