Garden & yard art are a great way to add focus and interest in the garden. Use this element either in colder months when less is in bloom, or to bring a different dimension to a garden full of life. Either way, art belongs in the garden. After all, nature is our best art inspiration. Since your garden is already such a wonderful expression of self, use the opportunity to create DIY garden decor and art for your yard, using these ideas for inspiration!
Yard Art & Garden Decor Ideas
In love with this creative metal yard art from ‘Zest It Up‘. This garden sphere is made from wine barrel hoops, and has a complete tutorial on how to make your own.
Also from ‘Zest It Up‘ is this cool copper wind spinner. You could make one for every tree in your garden, and it’s not an expensive piece of metal garden art to create. Easy to follow tutorial with lots of step by step photos.
Love flowers? Add your own DIY yard art flowers with this easy how-to from ‘Urban Gardeners Republic‘. And you are recycling, because this is repurposed garden decor made from old bottle caps. Love it!
Make these copper garden art flowers with this tutorial from Stephanie at ‘Garden Therapy‘. Made from copper sheeting, these pretty garden decoration ideas will age with your garden. (And, in a good way!)
Make this funky and fun DIY yard art dragonfly from old license plates and an old chair leg. This upcycle garden decor piece has complete how-to instructions over at ‘Birds & Blooms‘.
Now, this is real garden art! This totem pole is painted by ‘Patina & Paint, and she shows you exactly how to make your own. We love the colors, and you have to go check out the photo at night. The solar light on top makes it a 24 hour piece of art!
You can make this flower garden spinner yourself with this tutorial from ‘Instructables’. This DIY yard art is made from metal ducting and a copper pipe. You have to go find out how they got this amazing color!
So if you have access to a welder, or even a welding student, here is another DIY dragonfly garden art piece that is awesome! Also from ‘Instructables‘, this tutorial takes you through exactly how to make this using scrap steel.
This garden decoration idea will blow your mind, because anyone can actually DIY this project! From ‘Made By Barb‘, check out this giant concrete leaf orb. And, she has other concrete orb tutorials as well, all of them amazing.
So. Freaking. Cool. The ultimate garden art is something that is beneficial for the garden as well. Well, let us present this gorgeous bug hotel yard art from Stephanie at ‘Garden Therapy‘! This is nature’s beauty at its finest, and yet it also attracts the “good” bugs to your garden! This is easy to make from simple items you can find around your yard as well. Love. Love. Love!
You can make this lovely DIY glass flower art. Just jump on over to ‘Infarrantly Creative‘ and find out how simple it really is! Plus, you will never have to wait for spring for flowers in the garden again!
Create this garden globe yard art with anything from washers to glass beads to pennies. We would love to make one covered in stones from the garden for a natural look. How about rusty old metal parts for a rustic look? Find out how at ‘HGTV‘.
Check out this beautiful diy garden art idea. Use a masonry bit and drill each stone, and then place a piece of rebar into the ground to slide the stones on to the rebar. From ‘Indulgy’.
Take old wooden ceiling fan blades and create yard art, like these dragon or butterflies. Polyurethane them well to prevent warping. The bodies are old table legs! Photo by ‘Lucy Designs Online‘.
Love this gorgeous garden decor idea… Drill holes randomly in a wood fence, then place in colored marbles for the sun to shine through.
Which one of these garden decoration ideas would you like to try, and why? Check out our posts on DIY Garden Mosaic Projects and DIY Garden Trinkets! And if you are looking for something for indoors, check out our Branch Chandelier Air Plant Display Project over at OhMeOhMy!
Note : This post has been freshened with updated projects.
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Hey,
Your ideas are spectaculous, amazing, and very interesting.
Good job, keep it up.
Thank you for sharing such useful information with us. I am glad to read this article.
There is certainly a lot to know about this topic. I
really like all of the points you have made.
beautiful site! love it.
Wow! Thanks so much for including me in some of the prettiest backyard garden art ever! I have seriously thought about doing the fence marble art more than once… I love your blog and know that it’s going to be a favorite of mine!
Thank YOU Tammy for such a great project!
For those asking about finding smooth river rocks, why bother? Use what you can find locally. They don’t have to be smooth or even round. Just try to mix and match so they look good together and stack appropriately for your area. I would think a good mix of different shapes, colors and types of rocks would be much more interesting and fun. Don’t get my wrong, I love the “river rock tower”. I would just mix it up more. I have gathered some petrified wood over the years that I might use in one.
I’m stumped as to how to keep the marbles from sliding when gluing onto bowling ball. Suggestions please? thank you
I use flat glass beads in small areas and if they slide I use masking tape to hold them until the adhesive has dried. It’s a very time consuming process.
Use e6000 glue and do one small area at a time, use a large empty coffee can to to put your bowling ball into while gluing your pieces … also a good idea to rough up the bowling ball surface first with heavily gritted sand paper … I used black grout as being out in the garden it is much less mainence to clean it each yr. My Mosiac ball stays in the garden yr. round with absolutely no problems.
Love all your ideas! Thank you for sharing! :)
I would love to make some stepping stones for my garden with coloured stones, flat glass stones etc. What is the best thing to use for the stones? Lovely site. Thank you.
One of the best places to start is with simple concrete stepping stone from the home improvement store, like Home Depot. Hope that helps!
I agree with Patti. Drilling through stone with a masonry bit is not that easy. It takes more work than you think.
I tried this and gave up. I’m open for any suggestions.
Try using water to lubricate the rock and wash away the grit as you drill. Just a small trickle. Battery operated or one that is safe around water.
I love the stacked stone and it gave me an idea to make a different type of fountain. Need a base and concrete bits.
I’m pretty sure you cannot drill through stone with a masonry bit. Would someone who has actually drilled through stone please tell me how you did it?
Patti
I drilled thru 2 20″ high red quartzite stones to make trickle fountains. They turned out beautiful & attract numerous boards. I purchased a 2 foot diamond bit & drilled top to bottom with the stone submerged in water to keep it from overheating.
Love your site by the way!
Thx Sara!
I use plastic kids balls from the dollar store and make a small hole at the top and fill with cement. After dry cut off the plastic balk. I like mortar mix for these bc it’s so smooth. I reuse plastic lids (they are thick) from my work lunches to make 2 inch thick stepping stones for the garden.
Where can I buy stones for the ‘stone tower’? I really like those stones – Thanks!
Try a garden and landscaping center.
I run a horse riding school clients come from all over the world and I really strive to make my property welcoming as well as functional. Alas, I am not a creative person but your ideas inspire me and I look forward to Autumn when the weather cools down a bit and I can translate some of these ideas to make my little part of the world a more beautiful place
I love the stone towers and the dragonflies. I’m going to try both. I have a ton of rocks in my yard. Thanks for the ideas. Beautiful.
i wish I had a wood fence now to put marbles in! This really speaks to me!!
I know! I love how the light looks shining through!
Oooooh, I am inspired …LOVE your ideas and EVERYTHING is beautiful and creative…cant waitto try SOMETHING … though I confess I am so excited…”I am on my horse and going in all directions!” so will have to settle down and CHOOSE where to start! Gracias!
Hi, Sanette here from South Africa!
I love your site and find a lot of inspiration here. I have to however always keep in mind that we are opposite seasons to you guys in the Northern Hemisphere…..we are in Fall (Autumn over here) now and I go through a stage of itching to transform the garden as it goes into the slumbering season. I love the moss balls and since I am in the Cape of Good Hope area and we get winter rainfall, I would love to start on these to funkyfy the yard through the long, cloudy, rainy season. I am always at the loss as the garden becomes a miserable place to work in during the winter. Please let me know how I could go about getting diffirent kinds of moss as I do not think our nurseries sell it as plants…..
ALSO, how do I go about getting the moss to grow on the balls? Never seen anything like this around here – would be a real conversation starter! Any suggestions and advice would be appreciated!
Here is a recipe for growing moss on garden ornaments! http://www.pallensmith.com/articles/moss-soil-recipe
Hi Sanette! I understand the frustration about opposite seasons… remember, you can always search on the site for articles about the season you are in, even if they aren’t the featured posts that week! As far as the moss goes, I found this site online, thought I have no experience with them… Maybe they can help! http://www.mossacres.com
Any suggestions for where to get smooth rocks for the totem? It would be awesome in my yard!
Smooth rocks can be found at any stream or beach. It is water that smooths them. just be sure you do not take them from a protected or conservation area.
Oh my gosh, I love the marbles in the fence idea!! This year will be the year I give my poor old garden a much needed make over. I’m planning some veg pots, putting up some decking and have even found an outdoor rug to add some colour contrast And as my fence already has plenty of holes i’m going to add some marbles too. Thanks for the inspiration!
Having trouble finding see through, colored marbles, any suggestions? Thanks.
Michael’s hobby and crafts
Love, Love, LOVE everything here!!! Specially the dragonflies with the fan blades…can’t wait to get started!
I love these ideas! I can’t wait until spring to start on them. I have already collected 2 bowling balls, 4 fan blades, and the marbles for my wooden garden gate. Thanks for the inspiration.
I love unique projects for the garden too, let us know how they turn out!
Good stuff. I love the dragon flies idea…always frustrating to find such a cool diy project after I’ve tossed something out, like fan blades. Oy vey, I should know better, but my husband is convinced I am a hoarders when I say “but I know I can use it later.”
Love the stacked stones! Adds architectural interest and height to the yard without a lot of expense or work.
This is the best garden art post I have ever seen. Love the dragonfly and the mosaic bowling balls. Thanks for sharing.
Peggy
Love are the unique ideas! What size rebar is used for the smooth rock totem? Too bad there are no smooth rocks in my area.
Love the windows this just may be what I’m looking to do on an insanely hot and sunny western facing spot.
Dig the dragonflies too. How did you know I picked up a ceilng fan to replace my broken one just today.
I have been using the glass globe to make concrete balls for awhile. I teach garden art to kids. Which reciepe do you like if you are going to mosaic on top. I’d like to try one that makes them lighter for the kids
I’ve also made giant stepping stones useing a pan that is so pose to go under a water heater. They are very cool but super heavy. They’d make a great table top too
Thanks for the questions! If you want a lighter recipe, the hypertufa is definitely the way to go… the perlite really lightens it up… as far as the mosaic, I would pick recipe 2 or 3… though it would work, the straight Portland cement is a little harder to work with and tends to need to be thinner, and the hypertufa I think would be too rustic and compete with the mosaic… -Kathy
I like to use Styrofoam spheres and cover them in plaster like used for a cast then let it dry and cover with glass and grout as usual it’s soooo light my 6 yr old nephew can carry 3 at a time! The plaster makes them VERY strong or you can use a plaster of paris to cover it too!
Sounds very cool!
I have been making concrete balls by buying cheap beach balls as big as possible and then I cover them with drywall tape. Then I cover them with a layer or two of mortar and mosaic on top of that. When I want a real big ball I find a used fitness ball in a garage sale.. These balls are not heavy but they are also not very sturdy unless you add more layers of mortar. I made some with holes in it. Then I just pop the ball and take it out through one of the holes.
Great idea Moni, thanks for sharing that tip!
I have made stepping stones in old aluminum pie plates<< They are small but work fine.
I would love to do this, too! How do you remove the stepping stones from the pan?
They should just pop out after they dry.