Beginners’ Guide for Garden Pergola – Add More Aesthetic to Your Yard

If you have space to spare for an outdoor architecture that will provide a great venue for gatherings with family and friends, then a garden pergola is your best bet.

Here are some questions answered for those who are just starting out with their garden pergola.

Whether you prefer a rustic or a modern ambiance from the pergola design of your choice, it is doubtless workable.

What is a Garden Pergola?

A pergola is a garden structure that serves as an outdoor setting.

It is in the form of a “shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice.”

In reference to the 18th and 19th centuries’ gardening styles which were naturalistic to the brick and stone pillared pergolas of the 19th and early 20th century, the modern garden patio designs now include materials like wood, vinyl, fiberglass, aluminum, and chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPCVC) rather than brick or stone pillars.

Most often than not, woody vines are trained to add natural appeal and texture to the structure.

What Pergola Design fits Your Style and your Yard?

Here are 3 tips for designing a garden pergola according to experts. Consider these tips before you settle on the design:

• Get the aspect right. Where your Outdoor pergola will face will determine how much sun it will get or how much shade it will provide.
• Use quality materials. Choose materials that can withstand extreme weather conditions and temperature. These materials may cost more but will save maintenance costs. For example, a chunky hardwood can look good even when it goes a little rustic through the years.
• Detail trims. Do away with many details in the timber. Add nothing more to a square cut or a simple angle cut.

Now we come to the patio designs you can choose from. This will depend greatly on aesthetic and physical components.

Aesthetic components include elements (space, mass, line or outline, color, light and shade, texture, scent, and time as related to climate, season, and growth factors), the principles of design (unity and variety, rhythm and balance, accent and contrast, scale and proportion, and composite three-dimensional spatial form), and the design process.

Conversely, the physical components comprise the natural (earth, rock, water, and plants) and structural (earth-related structures, enclosure structures, shelter structures, engineering structures, special buildings, and sculptural components and outdoor furnishings)integrants.

Best vinyl, Heartland Pergolas, and Better Homes provided a brief list of garden pergolas that can be custom-designed for your yard:

Vinyl
Vinyl has always been a lower-maintenance alternative to wood. “Vinyl pergolas are becoming increasingly popular due to their affordability, durability, and universal design.”

Reinforcing vinyl pergolas by an inner core of aluminum makes it extremely durable. Heartland pergolas claim that this makes vinyl pergolas ideal for installing in all climates without worry about long term durability.

They added that vinyl pergolas are widely customizable, because they can be freestanding or attached, and they come in different columns and width making it easy to match the pergola to the property.

Open-Top
This is the usual design for a pergola to provide more open space for sunlight and air circulation. “Open-top pergolas are most often placed in the garden to create an appealing focal point and can add even more beauty to space with the help of trailing vines.”

Steel
In places often hit by adverse weather conditions, this design would be best. The steel frame can hold up even in extremely unfavorable weather. It is also likely to last the longest. However, Bestvinyl stated that steel pergolas are not very common because of their Avant-garde appearance.

Steel pergolas, however, are suited to houses with industrial design features. They perfectly fit into an urban environment with concrete rather than a property with soft gardens.

Sail
This is a shade-cloth roof design pergola. A piece of fabric is stretched in place of a traditional lattice roof. “This type of design provides a clean, modern look and more shade and shelter than an open roof design.”

Gable or Pitch
You would choose this design if you prefer a roof over your head outdoors. This proves to be a great choice in providing sufficient water runoff. Because it provides sufficient shield from the sun, rain, and other elements, this backyard pergola design is often used over decks, patios, a hot tub, or an outdoor dining area.

Freeform
You can create a pergola that does not particularly conform to a particular style of roof, but one that conforms to your home, considering different levels or zones.

Thatched
If you prefer the natural tropical feel, then this type of pergola roof would be your choice. This pergola is “typically made out of a thick, natural material which provides cool shade”.

Why Consider a Pergola in your Yard?

With so many aesthetics you can add to your yard or garden, a pergola is deemed a practical and utilizable addition. There are four main ways a garden pergola can work for you:

• Increase the value of our home. Ensure that your garden pergola is well-designed to win this benefit.
• Enhance your garden. It’s the charming touch the vines naturally offer. “Having climbing plants growing over your pergola will make the structure feel like it’s tied to the garden.”
• Your secondary seating area or resting space. Your pergola can serve as the outdoor living space where you can draw family and friends for entertaining, relaxing, and cooking — whatever you want people to do in that space.
• An extra touch of shade and privacy. Fix up your pergola with vines, curtains, shade-cloth, sheer fabric, lanterns, or fairy lights that can provide extra shade, privacy, or personality to your pergola.

Go ahead and accentuate your yard with a garden pergola. Fortunately, it is not that complicated. Create your own style, define your space, welcome that much-needed shade, and savor pergola-venue memories with family and friends.

However, you may consider asking around if you need to secure a permit for your project and do not hesitate to call Big Easy Landscaping for tough builds and expert backup.