Our landscaping plan, if we have one, typically pays more attention to our front yards – the curb appeal factor – than the back. If your front yard has garden beds with annuals, lilac bushes, and English holly or the backyard is underutilized and messy, spring is the ideal time to get ready for summer. Use these landscaping trends in 2026 to transform your property into outdoor living spaces that support sustainability and environmental consciousness.
Climate Adaptive Planting
Climate adaptive planting is a landscaping trend in 2026 that focuses on native and hardy plants and flowering shrubs. If that’s sounds like eco-friendly landscaping, you’re right. However, there is a distinct difference between the two. When you select sword fern, salal, Oregon grape, and Pacific bleeding heart, native plants such as these reduce watering needs, attract pollinators, and ensure your landscaping survives changing climate conditions.
Drought-Tolerant Gardens
Related to eco-friendly landscaping, a drought-tolerant garden utilizes plants specifically chosen to survive our Pacific Northwest climate. While the lower mainland is known for its annual rainfall, we do experience summers with lots of sun and little rain. Plants for drought-tolerant gardens are selected to survive a long, dry summer, excessive rainfall, frost in fall, and cold temperatures and snow in winter.
Wellness- Centered Outdoor Living Spaces
Outdoor living spaces that promote physical, mental, and emotional wellness are definitely a trend this spring. Create a secluded niche for reading; build a yoga or meditation platform; install a hot tub or lap pool. Areas intentionally designed to give you a new lease on life where you can relax and be rejuvenated have lasting health benefits.
Low-Maintenance Backyard Ideas
The upside of climate adaptive planting and drought-tolerant gardens is they tend to be low-maintenance and sustainable. Because they have adapted to the local environment, soil conditions, and grow where they are planted (they don’t become invasive), native plants and shrubs require less maintenance. Applying a thick layer of mulch helps keep the soil moist, eliminates the need for pesticides, and strengthens their defenses against illness and infestations.
Replace all or a part of your turf grass with a combination of native grasses and plants, a rock garden, edible landscaping, or a rain garden,
Install a patio with permeable pavers spanning the length of the yard. Create zones for dining, gathering around a fire pit, and relaxing in the shade. Bring vegetation into the outdoor living spaces in the form of container gardens, raised flowerbeds, or vegetable and herb gardens.
If you want to add a pool to your backyard, choose a lap pool over a full-sized swimming pool. Lap pools cost less to maintain and operate and are eco-friendly when designed with sustainability in mind.
Install a Water Feature
Make your outdoor living spaces more inviting with a water feature. This spring landscaping trend can be a used as a focal point in either the backyard or the front yard. Ways in which water features such as a fountain, goldfish pond, and water garden enhance everyday living include:
- Visual appeal
- Reduces stress
- Promotes relaxation
- Masks noise with the soothing murmur of moving water
- Attracts wildlife like birds, butterflies, and frogs (good for pest control when not being brought inside by your curious child)
Sustainability is the common denominator in spring landscaping trends this year. When implementing a new landscape design keep it low-maintenance and incorporate natural and eco-friendly materials like permeable pavers, stone, brick, and wood.
