Backyard Landscaping Ideas On A Budget – 6 Ways To Transform Your Yard For Cheap

If you need backyard landscaping ideas on a budget, there’s a plethora of great ideas that won’t break the bank.

An outdoor seating area surrounded by greenery
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Landscaping projects range from complex to simple, but anything you want to do costs some money. When you don’t want to spend a fortune, a budget is critical. Can you improve your outdoor living space without breaking the bank? Fortunately, the answer is yes! Here are some great backyard landscaping ideas on a budget.

6 Low-Cost Backyard Upgrades

Here are our 6 favorite ideas for improving your backyard living space without breaking the bank.

1. Add an Affordable Fence

A simple fence made of sticks and wire

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Good fences make good neighbors, as the old adage goes, and they also are important features in garden landscaping. Fences can play many roles on your property, from delineating the borders of your land to keeping pets in and wildlife out. When you’re looking for cheap backyard landscaping ideas for fencing, consider updating existing fencing, opting for lower-cost fencing designs, or using repurposed materials for construction.

2. Use Free Stones for a Plethora of Projects

Flat stones in a gravel path

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For textural interest in a garden, nothing is quite as elegant as rocks and stones used for boundaries, edging, or walkways. If you’ve started pricing them out, you will have discovered that gravel, regular rocks and boulders are all pricey. But never fear, we’ve got some tried and true budget-friendly ideas for locating free rocks for your garden.

3. Upcycle Materials for a Sustainable Landscape

Yellow cosmos in a tin can

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Why toss unused household items in the trash when you can recycle them into landscaping materials? This ‘win-win’ idea is one way to upcycle unneeded items and use them in the garden or larger landscape. Ready to get creative? It’s time to look into ideas for using upcycled materials as garden fixtures or art.

4. Do Double-Duty With Ornamental Edible Plants

close up of orange nasturtium flowers and leaves

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When it comes to a garden bed, are you torn between veggies and flowers? Why choose? You can add color and interest to your garden by selecting the prettiest edible plants. This could be as simple as berry bushes and grape vines, but how about edible flowers like nasturtium or borage, or pretty, flowering herbs like thyme or rosemary? We have lots more inexpensive ideas choosing garden plants that multitask. They are part of our small-budget backyard landscaping ideas.

5. Create Raised Beds on a Budget

A cinder block raised garden bed

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Raised beds are so good for a garden, improving drainage, warming the soil, and making it just a little easier for the gardener. Most landscaping firms raise their bids if you talk about raising your garden beds as part of a revamp of the backyard. But raised beds don’t have to cost a lot and it is very satisfying to create your own raised beds for cheap by using materials that are already available. Talk about good backyard landscape ideas on a budget!

6. Plant a Low-Maintenance Wildflower Meadow

A colorful wildflower garden

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Forget formal English gardens if you are on a budget. The design alone will cost a fortune and they are high maintenance. Why not opt for a native wildflower garden in your backyard? It’s easy and inexpensive to create, and wild and magical when created. This is low-maintenance, low-budget backyard landscaping at its finest and truly inexpensive, easy to plant, and simple to maintain.

Teo Spengler
Writer

Teo Spengler has been gardening for 30 years. She is a docent at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Her passion is trees, 250 of which she has planted on her land in France.