Winter Wonderland Garden Ideas to Warm Those Cold Days
Colder seasons bring many beautiful sights to gardens across the country. The autumn trees' orange, brown, and purple hues begin to give way to frost and snow balancing on tree branches. Snow gives way to sunny days with dancing icicles and visiting red robins.
In gardens around the UK, we tend to see wintertime as hibernation season for our outside space, but around the world in icy climates, we see many examples of how to bring our gardens to life and enjoy them all year round.
With creativity, lighting, heating, and winter garden structures, you can create a winter garden that is your very own winter wonderland. Below, we explore Harbour Lifestyle’s top winter garden ideas to embrace the beauty of the winter season in your outdoor space.
1. Add Greenery and Shelter With Evergreen Hedges
Monterrey 8 Seat Rope Rectangular Ceramic Firepit Dining Set in Grey - £3,799
Enjoying your garden in the winter becomes more second nature when it doesn’t look like a plain, barren, space. Choosing evergreen hedges to surround your garden or patio space ensures you can still enjoy deep, green hues in your garden all year round.
With many styles of year-long greenery to choose from, tall hedges provide an extra bonus in the colder months by shielding your patio from the wind. Shielding hedges make a great spot for your winter fire pit table or dining set, and attract visits from winter birds.
2. Expand Your Space With an LED Pergola
PergoSTET 4m x 4m Square Pergola with 3 Drop Sides and LED Lighting in Grey - £4,769
For the ultimate outdoor living space. Feel the crisp air on your face while enjoying the protection from wind and rain, adding a pergola to the side of your home can drastically change the feel of your garden.
Available with drop sides, LED lighting, and attachable pergola heaters, a luxury pergola provides the best of luxury outdoor living. Creating your ideal outdoor space is a breeze with these modern pergola ideas.
3. Turn Your Small Space into a Perfect Winter Spot
Globo Royal Double Seater Hanging Chair in Natural - £979
Small spaces can often be forgotten for outdoor living space design but they are no less valuable than larger ones. Cosy and intimate, you can create beautiful lighting effects and quickly raise the temperature with patio and wall-mounted heaters or lanterns.
For a relaxing place to take in the season outside, a hanging chair is a perfect cosy addition to make your ideal happy place for crisp winter nights.
4. Watch the Dancing Flames as You Gather Around the Fire
Monterrey 8 Seat Rope Rectangular Teak Firepit Dining Set in Grey - £3,999
For an instant relaxing ambience that is always a crowd-pleaser, a fire pit is the answer. No matter the season, humans have flocked around fire pits for generations, telling tales, eating and relaxing.
A pretty addition to an outdoor gathering in summer, winter fire pits have a much more traditional feel. Gathering around a winter fire with hot drinks and blankets brings people together, enjoying the season like never before. For more inspiration to transform your outdoor space with tabletop fire, these 17 spectacular fire pit ideas are invaluable.
5. Winter Dinner with a Gas BBQ in Minutes
Arosa 570 G TEX Gas Kettle Barbecue - £1175
For so many of us, cooking on a BBQ grill brings us memories of waiting hours for charcoal to heat, only to be rained out when we start cooking. With super convenient gas grills giving instant heat, you don’t need to know what the weather will do in five hours' time.
Grilling food makes delicious dinners and expands your culinary wheelhouse. In many colder climes, grilling hearty steaks on instant heat outside is a highlight of the winter season, and a perfect way to make a wonderful dinner quickly, while enjoying cosy nights indoors.
6. Invigorate Garden Colour with Winter Flowers
Brighton 4 Seat Round Dining with Glass Topped Table in Light Brown - £3,335
If one of the major advantages of sitting in the garden for you is sitting among the beautiful, varied colours, winter can make your space feel a little barren. Fortunately, there are many plants that actually flower in winter.
Introducing some pretty coloured flowers such as winter honeysuckle, violas, winter heather, cyclamen, and pansies that bring colour into your space can lift the mood of a sleepy garden.
7. Create a Relaxing Nook with an LED Parasol
Glow Challenger T2 3m Square Cantilever Parasol in Taupe - £725
Enjoying a winter evening with a hot cuppa, a good book, and a blanket can be one of life’s enviable treats. Pairing your garden furniture with an LED lighted parasol gives you some protection, and just the right amount of light to see what you’re doing.
Paired with a patio heater or rustic warming lanterns, your relaxing nook can be comfortable and remain covered all winter long.
8. Bring Pops of Colour From All Angles
Cloverly 10 Seat Rectangular Extending Dining Set with Ceramic Table in Green - £2,699
When the pretty colours of autumn have passed, and your spring garden is hibernating, it's normal to miss the pops of colour that made your garden so appealing to spend time in during other seasons.
In addition to introducing winter flowers, evergreen bushes, and colourful trees, you can add vibrance to your outside space by choosing garden furniture sets that add a pop of colour to your garden design, even in winter.
9. Add Cosy Lighting to Set the Scene
Santiago Rattan Sofa Dining Set with Rising Firepit Table in Grey - £2,399
Stark, winter-looking gardens and outside spaces are not destined to be that way. They are often simply neglected. Our interior rooms too, would look dark and unappealing in winter if we didn’t add lighting to create our cosy and welcoming space. The exterior is no different. The personality of your house exterior and garden can drastically change with the installation of some warm-toned, outdoor wall lighting to brighten up the mood. If your garden feels dark and could use some light, these lighting ideas can help.
10. Give Your Garden Ski Lodge Inspired Design Features
Cosiscoop Pillar Lantern in Teak - £889
The ambience of the ski lodge doesn’t have to stay up a mountain. By blending the rustic look of wooden lanterns with stone, and other natural materials, you can bring a little of the Alps into your outdoor space.
With the convenience of instant light and warmth, lanterns seamlessly blend into all garden and patio designs. When paired with patio heaters and outdoor garden structures such as pergolas or parasols for additional heat and shelter, you can feel the comforts of the ski resort in your own back garden.
11. Hot Homemade Pizza Nights All Year Long
No takeaway night compares to the warmth, smell, and experience of having hot, crispy, and delicious homemade pizza from your very own pizza oven each week.
With instant gas or wood-burning options, baking piping hot pizza on a crisp winter night is a game changer for quality dinners and family time. Whether you dine outdoors by your fire pit or take your homemade delights inside for movie night, this outdoor space game changer gives you options.
Take a look at our guide that discusses outdoor kitchen ideas for more inspiration.
12. Curl Up on a Comfy Daybed
Bermuda Daybed in Slate Grey - £1,499
Getting outside is good for us, even if it is simply sitting and enjoying the crisp air and natural light whatever the time of year. In the wintertime, comfort often gets in our way of spending more time outside.
Having a super comfortable, cushioned daybed to curl up on with warm and cosy blankets turns your winter garden into the perfect spot for reading, listening to your favourite podcasts, or simply enjoying a hot drink and a catch up with a friend.
13. Create Ambiance for Dark Nights with Flame Lanterns
Höfats SPIN 120 Table-Top Fire in Silver - £139
When you want to change the mood in your outdoor space but wall-mounted lights are not an option, tabletop flame lanterns can easily create a beautiful relaxing or romantic mood.
Giving some natural warmth and a fascinating flame-watching centrepiece, portable lighting puts you in charge of the design of your space every time you use it. Perfect for smaller spaces that only need minimal light, and harder-to-reach bottom of the garden nooks to create a pretty hideaway from the winter blues.
14. Traditional Heat and Delicious Meals with a Masonry BBQ
Buschbeck Wellington Masonry Barbecue - £785
Add a classic take on winter heating and cooking with a masonry BBQ grill and wood burner in your outdoor space. Enjoy the delicious smells and tastes of winter BBQ and listen to the crackle of burning logs.
Relax with peaceful evenings under the winter stars with a traditional wood grill that seamlessly blends with any garden design. By choosing a fire that doubles as a grill, you open a whole world of outdoor winter cooking and heating options.
15. The Perfect Party Patio - All Year Round
Quadrilateral Patio Heater in Stainless Steel - £479
The winter can be cold, but it has a lot of entertaining opportunities in it. With Christmas and winter holidays giving way to Valentine's Day, there’s plenty of chance to extend your patio party season by adding a patio heater.
A stylish, strong, standing heater opens your space for winter parties, dining, or simply enjoying quiet time alone. Having an outdoor heater without needing to work a fire or man a grill is the perfect alternative for easy, fast heat that allows you to spend maximum time with your guests and doesn’t fill the air with smoke.
16. Make the Bottom of Your Garden a Magical Space
PergoSTET 3m x 3m Steel Square Pergola in Grey - £1,399
Adding a pergola to the side of your home can increase your living space and options all year round, by using creativity, you can carve out a magical spot in any area of your garden. Adding a pergola in a special spot in your garden creates an extra, separate, and usable space. It can become a charming, cosy hideaway at the bottom of the garden, or a striking, eye-catching feature right in the centre of it. Getting creative with modern pergola ideas, your new outdoor space can be anything from an outdoor yoga area, a perfect entertaining spot, or a secluded getaway area away from the house.
17. Help your Neighbourhood Pollinators Out
Kalama 4 Seat Rectangular Bar Set with Teak Table in Charcoal - £1,649
Life for bees and other pollinators is getting harder whatever the season. With populations in decline, the winter season is becoming particularly tough on our hard-working friends, who are seen out and about more often during winter than they used to be.
Adding some pollinator-friendly winter flowers to your garden in beds or pretty pots, can help our bee neighbours, and bring your garden some much-needed colour. With pergola climbing plant ideas for incorporating greenery into your structures, you can help the environment while designing your ideal pergola.
Final thoughts
Creativity in designing and enjoying your outside space doesn’t have to end with the warmer weather of summer. Each season offers something beautiful about spending time outdoors and winter is no exception. With enchanting ideas for heating, cooking, lighting, and cosy furnishing for your outdoor space in winter, Harbour Lifestyle can help you find the right style to suit your space.
