Just because the winter is here doesn’t mean your yard can’t look fantastic! While you’re not planting new flowers during the freezing winter months if you live in the Albany, Saratoga, or Colonie, NY areas, there are plenty of ways to add some seasonal flair to your landscaping. To help inspire you, today we’re talking about outside winter decor ideas to complement your hardscaping.
Outside Winter Decor Ideas to Try This Season
The leaves have fallen (and you got rid of them by doing fall cleanup before winter, right?), the temperature has dropped, and now it’s winter time for sure. We guess that means your yard is just dead for the upcoming months, right? Wrong!
For starters, if you followed our winter lawn care tips then your yard should be prepped and ready to return looking lush and green next spring. If you haven’t taken care of your seasonal checklist yet, take the time to prepare your lawn for winter before freezing temperatures and harsher weather set in.
Once your lawn is taken care of, it’s time to consider some outside winter decor ideas that will complement your hardscaping and keep your home looking great throughout the colder months! Some of our favorite outdoor winter decorating ideas are:
- Embracing the hygge style
- Decorating with evergreen container plants
- Adding lighting to walkways and driveways
- Decorating trees during winter to complement outside hardscaping areas
- Getting creative with water features in winter
Embrace the Hygge Style
The first thing on our list of outside winter decor ideas is to embrace the hygge style. What is hygge? Pronounced “hue-gah” or “hoo-guh” (bet you didn’t get that right the first time!), hygge is a Danish expression that represents an attitude towards finding the charm, coziness, and joy in everyday moments. It’s a style that has become very popular in the US over the years.
Hygge style is often accompanied by lots of texture, candles, embracing natural elements, and being indulgent rather than extravagant. Embracing the hygge in outside winter decor ideas to complement your hardscaping might include things like decorating a covered bench with a warm blanket, some LED candles (or real, if you think they won’t blow out), a few natural elements such as wood pieces or pinecones, or a sled. Combining cozy elements just right can make your front porch or backyard patio installation look inviting and cheerful this season.
Decorating With Evergreen Container Plants
Next up in our list of outside winter decor ideas is adding evergreen container plants to your back deck, patio, or front porch areas. These plants are easy to add during winter and typically cost efficient. Since they maintain their green color (with some producing colorful berries, as well), evergreen container plants are the perfect outdoor winter decorating ideas to add some cheer to your landscaping this season.
Your evergreens don’t have to be limited to porch containers, either! If you want to get really creative this winter, try making evergreen window boxes for a festive touch to the facade of your home. Another way to spruce up your evergreen container plants is to add LED lighting. Not only does the lighting help during the shorter days, but it makes your home look absolutely stunning.
Adding Walkway Lights or Illuminating Your Driveway
Speaking of lighting during the winter months, let’s take a look at the possibilities for these outside winter decor ideas! As we said, daylight hours during winter in the Capital Region of Upstate NY are much shorter than their summer counterparts. Many homeowners may find themselves leaving in the morning before the sun comes up and returning home after it’s already dark again.
Adding lighting to landscaping, walkways, and driveways is an ideal way to provide safety while also making your yard look beautiful this season. For example, something as simple as a row of small posts wrapped in LED lights can provide a chic illumination for any driveway. Not only does this help homeowners see the boundaries of their space, but it can safely light up the path to a mailbox, as well.
Installing walkway lights is actually part of taking care of your lawn year round, not just part of your outside winter decor ideas. Whether it’s the winter months now or summer months next year, illuminating walkways adds safety and helps your yard look incredible. It’s a simple, yet effective, way to complement the hardscaping services you had done.
Once you’ve gotten your walkways and driveway lit up, what about landscaping? Instead of leaving your flower beds to be empty and boring this winter, embrace outdoor winter decorating ideas and use that landscaping to boost curb appeal! Outdoor LED light nets cover bushes and shrubs perfectly, bringing some cheer to your home during the dark winter months. You can also consider creative ways to celebrate the season by adding lights to trees, flower beds, and even hardscaping elements like a pergola or gazebo.
Bonus Tip: LED lights generate almost no heat, so they’ll glow underneath the snow instead of melting it, creating a magical winter wonderland for your home!
Decorating Trees During Winter
Just because the leaves have fallen doesn’t mean your trees have to look barren. During the spring and summer you might’ve focused on landscaping around trees, but during the winter we want to decorate them! As we’ve mentioned, adding LED lighting to wrap the trunk and branches is a fun and festive way to light up your yard during the winter season. This can help illuminate your backyard patio or deck, making it a comfy and cozy place to sip hot chocolate (or skip that and have a snowball fight!).
If you want to take your outside winter decor ideas for trees to the next level, you might consider adding outdoor fabric to the branches for a unique touch. Your imagination is the only limit here, so don’t be afraid to dress up those trees and make them stand out this winter.
Getting Creative With Water Features in Winter
Last, but not least, on our list of outside winter decor ideas to complement your hardscaping is getting creative about what to do with water features in winter. Most often, backyard water feature installations are drained and closed up for winter. This protects the water pump and pipes from damage during freezing winter weather, making it an important part of maintaining a water feature after installation.
Does closing up your water fountain or pondless waterfall mean your beautiful water feature design goes to waste during winter? No way! One way to enjoy your water feature all year long is to get creative during winter. Once your water feature is secured for season, consider filling the empty basins with evergreens for unique landscaping that keeps your hardscaping seasonally festive. If you’re worried about potentially needing to water the plants, you could opt for fake ones, instead.
Adding evergreen to the empty water feature basins of your fountain or pondless waterfall also gives you another place to add LED lighting. Imagine the possibilities for creating a winter wonderland on your backyard patio or surrounded by gorgeous landscaping. This is one of our favorite outdoor winter decorating ideas that makes having a water feature installation all the more exciting!
We hope this guide to outside winter decor ideas to complement your hardscaping has given you inspiration for the season. Just because the temperatures drop doesn’t mean your landscaping has to be empty until spring. Don’t have all the hardscaping you’d like just yet? It’s never too early to use our Project Planner to get a jump on planning and budgeting your spring projects.
For more tips and information on winter home and business care, check out these resources:
