The territory of the summer cottage should be perfect in all respects - pleasant for relaxation and comfortable for work. The beauty created by one’s own hands is doubly pleasing, and today's innovations in design make it possible to perfectly decorate the territory of the site. Arches for flowers have a very special decorativeness, allowing you to create comfortable places to relax, zoning the space, to place expressive accents.
The species diversity of structures and their place in the garden
A separate arch will be a spectacular accent of the garden area, with the help of a group of arches you can create a tunnel or gallery of amazing beauty, the beautiful wall of their flowering trellises can hide the rest area from prying eyes, or hide not very presentable outbuildings. Arches can also form something like a gazebo - a cozy place to relax.
Much depends on the appearance and material of the structure, as well as on which plants will be used to braid it. For the manufacture of arches, materials such as wood, metal, plastic, natural stone and their various combinations are used.
Garden country arches for flowers have many forms - vaulted, trellis (when several lattices are connected into a single whole), trellis (a lattice supporting climbing plants) and the shape of a voluminous arch with repeating elements (pergolas).
Today, there are many ready-made arches for sale - various wooden structures (from simple to very complex), inexpensive plastic and a wide variety of forged ones. Forged arches with thin, graceful lines are especially beautiful. For them, it is even better when the plant does not completely braid the arch, allowing you to admire the beauty of the work.
You can buy a ready-made arch for your garden, but if you wish, an arch for flowers in the country can be made independently. A self-made flower arch will look no worse than a finished one. We will describe an example of creating a simple design that everyone can do.
We make an arch of wood ourselves
You need to find 4 or 6 wooden poles or beams (height 2 m, width 100/100 mm or 75/75 mm). The vertically mounted posts will be the supports of the pergola, to which two lateral transverse beams are attached, and the crossbars are attached to them. For the crossbars, a edged board (20/200 mm) is suitable. Poles are installed in recesses with a depth of 0.5 - 1 m. The depth depends on the type of soil, for loose soil it should be greater. For the design to be practical, the part of the pillars that will be buried must be treated with bitumen and wrapped with roofing felt, roofing material or other waterproofing material. At the building level, check the vertical installation. Empty space in the pits can be covered with gravel, but concreting will, of course, be the most reliable way.
It is pleasant to create beauty in your country house by your own efforts, and such a pergola will be a wonderful decoration and shelter from the heat. It can be positioned along the track in the recreation area. The presence of 4-6 pillars makes it possible to create a real gazebo, in the shade of which you can hide and relax.
In order for the plants to grow well and braid the pergola, twine can be pulled between the posts. If you stuff bars between them, the pergola will look very nice. To prevent the tree from being exposed to insects and atmospheric influences, be sure to treat all parts of the pergola with a special composition. Lattices can also be placed on the roof - this is more convenient for plants and in general the design will benefit from this.
Related article: Wooden pergola: how to build and effectively decorate with your own hands
Here is another example of the construction of a wooden arched structure:
An example of the construction of this garden structure is quite simple, but if you paint it, use carved decorative elements, you will get a very nice garden arch.
There are also several videos on our topic that may give you some ideas:
How to plant plants to decorate the arch?
After making and installing the arch, you need to think about which plants you want to plant as decorative. Both annuals and perennials need to be planted closer to the base of the structure. Perennials grow slowly, so in the first year or two their growth will be small and there will be no special decorative effect. You can plant next to them annual curly plants - Ipomoea purpurea, sweet peas, decorative beans. They can decorate the arch in the first year. Alternatively, you can hang beautiful ampoule in a cache-pot or in pots - begonia, petunia, pelargonium. This will give the arch a picturesque look, and you will not need to wait until, for example, clematis or climbing roses grow.
When the plants completely braid the arch under the flowers, it will become a wonderful place - shady and beautiful. The arch is good and when fresh greens cover the structure, but it looks most impressive, of course, during the flowering of plants. It is no coincidence that today it is fashionable to decorate wedding ceremonies with blooming arches - arches create a wonderful solemn atmosphere, demonstrating the beauty of nature and the ability of human hands.
The video shows examples of creating an arch and decorating it with curly and ampelous plants: