How to Make a Trendy Terrace Garden That You’ll Enjoy for Years

A terrace garden is a great way to add value and visual interest to the exterior of your apartment or home, while also creating additional outdoor living space. When properly designed and landscaped, a terrace garden can serve as a stylish, green oasis.

Are you tight on space but still want to transform your terrace into a place you want to actually spend time? Here are some inspiring ideas for making the most out of your terrace garden, and some tips for how to get started making one.

What Is a Terrace Garden?

A terrace garden is an outdoor garden on a slightly raised and level area that’s finished with a paved, tiled, or wood-planked surface. It can be located next to a building, or on the rooftop of a building if you live in an apartment building or condo.

Because of the location and its typically small area, terrace gardens usually involve plants that are grown in containers or raised beds. Terrace gardens are especially popular in urban areas, where gardeners want to grow their plants—both edible and ornamental plants—but only have a small space to work with.

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What You Need to Make a Terrace Garden

Setting up a terrace garden can be costly when first getting started, but the upkeep of it is often affordable. To turn your terrace into a lush green oasis, you may need the following materials:

How to Make a Terrace Garden

Before filling your garden with plants and decor, make sure the terrace site is level. If you plan on finishing the floor with tiles, wood planks, or another material, this is the time to install it.

If your terrace garden is on a rooftop, you’ll want to make sure all your planting containers and furniture are heavy enough that they won’t fly away during a windy storm. If it’s alongside your house, you might want to prepare garden beds for planting.

Making a terrace garden is a highly customizable process. Pick colorful and lush plants that make you feel relaxed, select furniture you want to lounge in, and if you enjoy entertaining, add a fire pit or grill to the space.

Hand-watering plants grown in containers can be time-consuming. Installing drip irrigation—which uses up to 50 percent less water than conventional water methods—can save you time and effort.

10 Inspiring Ideas for Your Terrace Garden

Build Tiered Garden Beds

Update your landscape design by adding tiered garden beds. This efficient style of garden bed is a great way to maximize space. They can be planted with a number of different herbs, ornamental grasses, vegetables, or flowering shrubs, and if installed along the perimeter of your terrace garden, tiered garden beds have the added bonus of acting like a privacy wall.

Install a Pergola for Style and Function

A pergola can make your terrace garden both beautiful and functional. While it won’t shade you from much sun, installing one over a sitting area will add a customized and elegant look, as well as a touch of privacy.

Landscape With Native Plants for Easy Gardening

When selecting plants for your terrace garden, look for ones that are native to your region. Native plants are important for preserving biodiversity, but they are also naturally suited to your environment, which means they don’t need to be fertilized and might even require less watering—meaning less work for you in the garden.

Grow Tall Plants for Privacy

A terrace garden can benefit from being planted with tall plants—especially if it’s located in an urban area easily exposed to neighbors. When planted in containers, plants such as bamboo, dwarf fruit trees, or boxwood shrubs have a small footprint but tall coverage of foliage.

Utilize Planters in Different Sizes

Use different sized pots to create an eye-catching planter combination in your terrace garden. Experiment with their placement, varying the sizes and heights of each planter, with taller ones in the back to add depth. Select different kinds of plants for each container to add texture to the garden landscape.

Choose Cozy Outdoor Furniture for Lounging

A well-designed terrace can easily become a tranquil outdoor oasis. If you want to turn your terrace garden into a place that makes you want to sit and stay a while, add cozy outdoor furniture in a calming tone.

Lay Down Eye-Catching Tile

Lay down a patterned outdoor tile to add a pop of personality to a small terrace garden. And if you only have a concrete slab to work with, you can paint it with all kinds of eye-catching patterns, from geometric to lacy.

Plant a Vegetable Garden in Raised Beds

Who says a terrace garden can’t also double as a kitchen garden? There’s a reason rooftop gardening is so popular in urban areas. There are plenty of vegetables that you can grow in containers or raised beds, such as lettuce, radishes, peppers, tomatoes, squash, and more. Just make sure your apartment garden is getting enough sunlight and water.

Build a Potting Bench

If you have a terrace garden, chances are you live in an apartment or condo with limited outdoor space. If you don’t want to be dragging your soiled planting tools into your clean apartment, consider adding a potting bench in your terrace garden. This will give you a designated place to pot plants and flowers, keeping all the mess outside.

Add a Relaxing Water Element

Adding a running water feature can make your terrace garden feel more serene and calming. This is easiest to do if your garden is on the ground floor next to a building. If your terrace garden is located on a rooftop, it might not be possible to install a fish pond, but you could explore the possibility of a stone wall water feature.