Your backyard is your oasis, and while there’s nothing wrong with some plain old green grass and a few patio chairs, we believe in elevating your experience – even in your own backyard. Curated backyard designs can range from active to social to meditative, but they all share one thing in common: a well-designed backyard oasis rises to the moment, whether that moment is quiet contemplation or an all-day scorcher of a summer cookout.
There's no place like home – especially if you can turn your backyard into your own sweet spot.
Speaking of sweet spots, enter Camino’s Sweet Spot Summer Sweepstakes for a chance to win $20,000 in prizes.
Zen-Inspired Backyard Oasis Ideas
With a zen garden-inspired atmosphere, this backyard retreat emphasizes simplicity, peace, minimalist aesthetics, and relaxation. Perfect for your morning matcha and a touch of tai chi, or chill hangs with friends.
Cut the Grass
Well-trimmed greenery definitely works with this approach, but especially if you live in a drier clime, eco-friendly grass alternatives like gravel, stone, and wood can make your backyard pop. And you can still bring life to the space with potted plants, intentional shrubbery, and small trees.
Incorporate Stones
Artfully stacked stones, massive decorative pieces, winding stone pathways – they all suit this sophisticated style beautifully, and they give you a wonderfully meditative project to work on. Even better if you can accent them with a touch of raked sand or a trickling water feature.
Gently Glow
When night falls on your blissed-out backyard oasis, you don’t want to blast it with over-bright flood lights. Try warm, gentle paper lanterns for both practicality and mood-setting. For a more elevated look, rattan or burlap lamps do the trick, too.
Hang Out
Imagine slowly swaying in a macrame hammock while the last rays of the day make that perfect little strip of warm light across your face. Now, stop imagining and make it happen.
Embrace Symmetry
While zen-inspired design includes both asymmetry and symmetry, a touch of symmetrical elements – like topiary, decorative stones, or scene-framing furniture – just makes the brain feel nice. As scientist Alan Lightman puts it, "Symmetry represents order, and we crave order in this strange universe we find ourselves in… [It] helps us make sense of the world around us".
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Backyard Ideas for Activity Lovers
Cool backyard ideas for activity enthusiasts aren’t just limited to kids’ games (though an activity-oriented backyard retreat is great for them, too). From classic to contemporary, these backyard ideas create a space that makes boredom impossible – and makes your backyard retreat the life of the block party.
Get a Grip
Pro tip: You don’t have to live in the Rockies to bring a nice, healthy climb to your (back) doorstep. With a pack of resin rock-climbing holds and a sturdy surface – whether it’s a DIY wood wall or an existing tree – you can bring all-ages climbing adventures right to your backyard.
Bring the Drive-in Home
Digital movie projectors with built-in streaming apps and easy phone connectivity are more accessible than ever. Whether you’ve got a blank wall, a solid fence, an inflatable projector screen (it’s a thing), or a cute homemade solution (think a canvas blanket held up with wood posts supported by a couple of sturdy planters) to throw the picture on, everyone loves movies under the stars.
DIY Your Pool
If you’ve got a full-sized pool, your backyard retreat is already well on its way to becoming the active hangout spot of the summer. But if $60K isn’t quite in the budget, try DIYing a stock tank pool for a few hundred bucks. You won’t be swimming laps, but it’s perfect for taking a gummy and catching a vibe.
Pick a Few Classic Games
Cornhole? Bocce ball? Classic outdoor bar games like the ring toss on a hook or big wooden lawn dice? How about a putting green, lawn bowling set, croquet, badminton, or horseshoes? They’re all classic for a reason, and they all have ready-made, relatively affordable starter sets available, too.
Don’t Neglect the Tabletop
Not everyone wants to get up and move, especially when it feels like Satan’s armpit outside. If you’ve got a big table, keep it stocked with an oversized Jenga set, pong cups, Pick-Up Sticks, or Connect Four. Keep them on the table, and they will come.
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Social Backyard Ideas
Some backyard designs are about more than just aesthetics — they’re about curating a space to make people feel more comfortable connecting with each other. With these backyard ideas, you can transform your spot into a warm and intimate space focused on spending quality convo time with the people you love most.
Fire It Up
You knew this was coming. Few centerpieces encourage comfy socializing like a good fire pit. Take the name itself as inspiration, and model the space around it, taking cues from the conversation pit architectural style that was popular in the ‘70s, with ample, ultra-cozy seating entirely surrounding the center.
Make It Cushy
Speaking of comfy lounging, fill your social space with cushions, boho-style. Outdoor-safe cushions, repurposed old indoor pillows with new, outside-friendly covers, cushions in covered spots – the idea is to invite people to lounge all over.
Get In the Zone
To emphasize a social atmosphere, focus your backyard designs on creating different little pockets of space, especially if you’re hosting a larger gathering. You might have a seating set under the pergola, chairs around the fire pit, and then a pair of facing benches hidden away in the garden. This way, you’ll encourage folks to form a variety of little social pods.
Hydration Station
Keep the conversation flowing—and everyone hydrated—by setting up a designated drinks area in your backyard. Go fancy with an outdoor mini fridge, vintage with a retro rolling serving cart, or keep it casual by upcycling an old kettle grill into the perfect, open-faced cooler (all you need is some sandpaper and spray paint to make it cute). Stock it with waters, seltzers, sodas, and canned cocktails—and use it as a designated spot for your backyard stash of Camino hemp gummies, for anyone who wants to partake, without the alcohol.
Light Up With Luminaries
You can go with the classic candles in a weighted paper bag look, or opt for a safer, upcycling-friendly project. Drill a few holes into some painted coffee cans, add sand and candles, and you’re on your way to a downright magical nighttime gathering spot.
Gather the Council
If your ideal soiree is a four-hour meal in the French countryside with the whole fam (or chosen fam), go big with your seating. Sure, patio tables and bistro sets are fine, but a statement table that seats six or eight guests truly allows you to bring the dining room outdoors.
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Backyard Garden Ideas
This backyard retreat finds inspiration from the dense, classical, almost fairy tale-esque cottage core aesthetic. Whether you’re hosting a book club or just pecking on the laptop under the wisteria, this gauzy, ethereal look can be downright transportative.
Tuck Away a Garden Bench
No secret garden is complete without a sitting bench nestled among your plants, pots, and statues. The idea here is to tuck it away and surround the bench with coziness. Wrought iron elements really work with this design style in particular.
Go Maximalist
This style yearns for big, bold, dense gardening. Fill your space with a variety of textures and pack it with plants, from flowers to shrubs to crawling ivy and hanging vines. All that added shade won’t hurt, either.
Eat It Up
Turns out, a secret garden is the perfect spot for a veggie garden, too! Whether you’re growing only a few herbs or a whole raised garden bed, a legit garden isn’t only practical, therapeutic, and healthy, it adds to the verdant style, too.
Invite the Birds
Hang or post a rustic birdhouse, because no austere literary protagonist is complete without a few whistling bird friends. Make it even more whimsical with a handmade fixture, if you can. Congratulations, you are now a bird watcher. We promise it’s actually cool.
Get Trellis Crazy
You want those plants to climb for this type of landscape, and you want density – tons of tall trellises get both jobs done. Plus, the added privacy makes your backyard retreat feel like a truly otherworldly escape (even if your kids could throw a ball into the neighbor’s window).
Relax Under the Pergola
A rustic pergola really completes any secret garden, especially if you can drape it with hanging flowers or vines. Not only does a pergola offer the perfect place to host, it presents a lovely opportunity to bring a little inside outside – tea tables, rocking chairs, and maybe even some rustic shelves or a shabby chic coffee table can really complete the space.
Pairs with: These backyard designs are bliss for your eyes – so pair them with bliss for the body and mind with hybrid-style Camino Watermelon Lemonade ‘Bliss’ gummies.
Set the Mood
We hope you’re feeling inspired to turn your backyard into your own personal oasis after reading this article. And whether you’re designing a space for relaxation, play, or something in between, be sure to stock up on a few tins of Camino hemp gummies while you’re at it. Delicious and carefully crafted with effects-based formulas, they’re the perfect way to elevate every moment.
Dan is a freelance writer, small business owner, and full-time creative living in Dallas, TX. In 15 years of writing, he’s been fortunate to collaborate with companies and publishers like Cannabis and Tech Today, Healthfully, Salon.com, ArtBase, The Seattle Times, USA Today, SF Gate, and many more.
Sources
Southern Living - 25 Small Backyard Ideas for Creating a Mini Outdoor Oasis
BBC - Why We Find Symmetry So Soothing
HGTV - 30 DIY Ways to Create a Backyard Summer Oasis
Bower & Branch - 24 Small Backyard Ideas to Transform a Space
