Looking for Some Large Garden Design Ideas?

Picture the most beautiful garden you've ever seen. Was it the gardens of Versailles, Kew Gardens, the Villa d'Este Gardens, or maybe just the most perfect cottage garden in the Cotswolds? Now, picture that garden featuring mostly edible plants that you can come and snip from before dinner. And then let's downsize it to fit in your backyard and suit the style of your home. Is that a place you could spend your time and grow your gardening abilities? I'm willing to bet so!

If you have a clear, relatively flat area that's roughly 20ft x 20ft, you have the perfect blank canvas to create the kitchen garden of your dreams—and an entertainment area, peaceful outdoor sitting area, or whatever else you want that space to be.

If you still need a little inspiration for how you can fit a large, productive, and beautiful garden in your space and be able to grow a bit of your own food, here are some pictures from my Houston-based company, Rooted Garden, to get your creative energy flowing.

Let's first explore the best layouts for large backyards/gardens.

One: A Four-Garden Classic Is a Clean and Simple Large Garden Layout

If you have a large space in your backyard that's square in shape and at least 15 feet wide, you could fit a four-garden classic. Using four raised garden beds makes creating that symmetrical space that's so pleasing to the eye really easy.

The four-garden classic pictured below includes four trees to anchor the borders of the garden area and to provide vertical interest in this large, flat space. Two modern arch trellises help to tie the raised beds together and provide more growing space for climbing plants.

Four-garden classic kitchen gardens were inspired by the traditional four-square layout that is a hallmark of English cottage gardens. Four-squares typically had four garden plots separated by intersecting paths. Rooted Garden uses rectangular beds in our four-garden classics, though I recently added four square 4ft x 4ft raised beds in a diamond in the middle of my own kitchen garden for a little twist on the classic.

The four-garden classic design provides ample yet flexible growing space, allowing you to separate vegetables and plant methodically if you choose.

Two: A Formal Potager Is Our Favorite Large Garden Layout

This garden layout goes above and beyond a few raised beds. A potager describes a space that includes additional features like fountains, fruit trees, seating areas, etc.

I like to think of formal potagers as the grand foyers or ballrooms of gardens (except much more relevant to modern life). If highly ornate is not your thing, that's okay too. The potager layout can be as informal and relaxed as you want.

The formal potagers designed by my Rooted Garden team are often four L-shaped raised beds around a central focal point, and the effect that’s created feels like you’re inside a maze or a special enclosure. Potagers can make even large outdoor spaces feel intimate.

We design all of our gardens using raised beds, but potagers also leave a lot of space for creative groupings of containers, oversized pots, statues, and more.

If you’ve got space in your landscape (an area that’s more than 20 feet wide and long), you have the opportunity to have something really special with a formal potager. Think of all the delicious leaves, fruits, and vegetables you could harvest from four or more raised beds.

Three: A Long Strip of Twin Gardens Is an Easy Large Vegetable Garden Design

If you have a large space that's significantly deeper than it is wide or wider than it is deep, like the space pictured below, a row of twin gardens is your solution to garden design.

This garden has 6 sets of twin gardens, for a total of 12 raised beds. And just look at how much is growing here!

The two large modern arches tie the halves of the garden together and give vining plants, in this case the cherry tomatoes, so much more room to grow and stretch out.

This garden manages to maximize total square footage for growing edible plants without sacrificing accessibility or style. I love how the bistro lights and unexpected accents like the sign and colored glass orbs add visual interest and inject some personality into the space. This welcoming garden just begs for you and your friends to come out, sit on the edge of a raised bed for a chat, and grab something yummy for dinner.

Create an Entrance

I'm sure you've seen traditional cottage gardens surrounded by white picket fences, right? I'm willing to bet there's a good reason that image has stuck around for hundreds of years.

In your own yard, you can use arch trellises, arbors, or garden gates to create clear entryways into your garden space. Pick a style of entry that reflects the mood you want to create within your kitchen garden: formal, whimsical, laid-back. Train your favorite flowering or fruiting vine to climb up your entryway so that you and your guests are welcomed by something beautiful and know that to step into the garden is to enter a special part of your home.

Establish a Focal Point

A common theme in large garden layouts is symmetry. You'll typically see raised beds arranged in a grid-style with designated pathways in between. Use these paths to draw the eye to something special in the middle of the kitchen garden, such as a sculpture, a trellis covered in vines, a fruit tree, a seating area, or a fountain, to tie the entire space together.

Line Your Garden to Make a Large Space Feel More Intimate

Picture your garden as an outdoor room. In the same way that walls can make a room feel cozy, you can close off your garden to create your own private retreat. Historical kitchen gardens were often enclosed to protect the plants growing inside (and perhaps the gardener themself while they were busy tending).

Masonry walls, privacy fences, hedges, or even closely planted trees along the border of your garden will turn your space into an enclosure. Espalier trees can be trained along a fence, and bonus: they're edible! The more solid your barrier is, the cozier you'll feel inside your garden.

Add Vertical Interest with Trellises

Garden design means using more than just the horizontal space available in your yard. Building height is incredibly important too for the overall health and appearance of your kitchen garden. Nothing accomplishes this quite like the right arch, obelisk, or panel trellis. When designing large gardens with several raised beds, I love to connect two beds with an arch trellis spanning the opening. Few things are more beautiful than an arch trellis covered in tomato vines or another climbing plant. (Explore our complete list of what to grow up garden trellises.)

The cedar raised bed garden below features three of our traditional diamond rounded arch trellises.

Utilize Pathways and Borders

The gravel walkways between raised beds serve several purposes. When done correctly, they prevent weeds, deter pests, protect the raised bed material, promote better drainage, and provide easy access to each bed. (Who wants to head outside to garden only to step in mud?)

Rooted Garden always uses gravel for the pathways in their garden installations for a clean aesthetic, and we keep the pathways between 2 and 4 feet wide. We sometimes add pavers to increase walkability of paths.

Both the walkways and the clear border help to delineate the garden as its own space, separate from the rest of the yard and landscape, which is especially important when you have a large backyard.

Remember Accessibility when Designing Raised Beds

Raised beds in large yards are typically accessible from multiple sides. If you can tend each bed from all sides, you could make each raised bed as wide as four to five feet. Anything beyond five feet, however, would make it difficult to tend and harvest from plants in the middle of the bed.

If you can only tend from one side (say, for example, one side of your garden would need to back up against a fence or wall), I’d recommend staying under two and a half feet, which is probably about as far as your arm can reach. 

A large backyard means you can have a large kitchen garden, right?

Well, something to keep in mind is that the size of a kitchen garden is not only limited by available outdoor space. Or in this case, I should say that just because you have a huge backyard, doesn't mean you should fill the entire thing with raised beds. The size of your kitchen garden will also be limited by your budget, of course, and how much time you have to tend your garden.

It's better to think about your time constraints (like working full time, chauffeuring kids to daily ballet lessons, or traveling a lot) now rather than after your beautiful 120-square-foot garden is already installed. If you only have a few minutes a day to prune and water, anything over 50 square feet of growing space might not be the best fit for your situation. I generally go with you'll need at least 30 minutes per 30-square feet of garden space per week.

If you want to fill a really large area with plants but don't have time to tend them weekly, consider setting up some raised beds and accompanying them with in-ground landscaping that requires less work from you. Here are three ideas for backyard landscaping in a large space.

Large Backyard Landscaping Ideas

The best landscaping will mirror or enhance the layout and style of the garden in some way.

One: An In-Ground Pollinator Garden

Pollinator gardens will attract beneficial insects to your garden but don't require as much attention from you as edible gardens.

I had a pollinator garden bordering the front pathway to my Chicago kitchen garden, and it quickly became one of my favorite spots in my landscape. Now that I've moved to Nashville and am setting up a new kitchen garden, I decided to make my pollinator garden an even larger feature. I added 3 feet of topsoil around the entire perimeter of my raised bed kitchen garden so I can plant an assortment of perennials, native plants, and pollinator-friendly flowers. I now have as much growing space for this laid-back landscaping as I do in my 8 raised beds.

This simple border landscaping has the same effect as a halo of diamonds around a central rock: it makes the whole thing appear way bigger. And it's good for local wildlife, so win-win as far as I'm concerned.

Two: Native Plants

If the cottage vibe of a pollinator garden isn't your style, consider planting native plants in containers, in-ground beds, or even rock gardens. Choose plants that are appropriate for your climate so that you don't have to worry about irrigating or tending these plants once they get established. This is a much more environmentally friendly option than covering large, flat areas of your backyard with sod.

Adding this type of landscaping to your backyard might come with costs now, but overall, you'll conserve water (which will lower your water bill), save yourself time, and free up other resources. You'll also be creating a little micro-habitat in your backyard that invites native insects and organisms, which in turn will help keep your edible plants healthier, all without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Native plants added to your landscape will prove that ecological can also be beautiful!

Three: Shrubs Along Walkways and Fences

The raised kitchen garden pictured below was designed to mirror the the squares present in the in-ground landscaping and the square plunge pool.

The evergreen shrubs alongside the walkways, home, and fence line provide year-round interest and marry the style of the home with the garden, while requiring only a seasonal trim and far less water than fruiting plants. The clean lines of the raised beds match the precision of the hedges for a cohesive look.

You could also use tall or fast-growing shrubs to add additional privacy to your backyard. That way, your garden will really feel like your own private retreat.

When it comes to additional features to add to a large garden space, the only limitations are your budget and your imagination!

Here are some of our favorite things to add to kitchen gardens:

• large planters containing fruit trees or flowers
• benches or seating areas so you can sit and watch the fruits of your labor grow
• an outdoor table and chairs for al fresco dining

Consider building a terrace, pergola, stone patio, wood deck, or even an outdoor kitchen next to your garden to maximize the time you can spend enjoying your space.

Here are two of our favorite backyard features we've seen from Rooted Garden clients to go with their kitchen gardens.

Extend Your Growing Seasons with a Greenhouse

Want fresh greens, vegetables, fruit, and cut flowers all year long no matter where you live? If you have the space for it, a greenhouse can truly elevate your gardening abilities and overall experience. A greenhouse has been on my wishlist for years, especially during those cold Chicago winters!

A greenhouse can heat up the air inside during extreme cold or maintain a more temperature environment during extreme heat. Because of the ability to regulate humidity and temperature, you could even grow things that you wouldn't normally be able to, such as tropical fruit trees or exotic flowers. All without having to fight the squirrels over your produce.

There's also something so elegant about the structure of a greenhouse, and you can go with materials that match your existing home, like this Rooted Garden client did so beautifully.

Pair a Kitchen Garden with Your Own Personal Golf Course

This is one of our new favorite combos and one of the best big backyard ideas we've seen. The couple decided to gift each other a beautiful place to carry out their passions: an edible garden for the wife and a backyard putting green for the husband. I'm betting this backyard is now a popular hangout for friends, neighbors, and family.

Thanks for being here and working to make your dream garden happen, whether it's the size of a golf course or a small container garden on your patio!