With spring fast approaching it doesn’t take long to start getting excited about getting out of the house It’s time to enjoy the warmer weather, and get started on all those backyard projects you dreamed up through the winter. This is also when your landscaping plans should start to take shape, your lists of needs made, and your budget planned.
If you have been wanting to create any major focal points, now is also the time to begin researching those ideas, and mapping out where to place things such as backyard waterfall ideas, or backyard bridge ideas, and their associated surroundings. Some of our favorite plans are illustrated below to help get your creative juices flowing. Consider how you might mix and match the ideas you love.
Backyard Bridge Ideas
Just because many bridges become a part of a backyard landscape design doesn’t mean you can’t plan to use one elsewhere. These popular ideas provide ways to incorporate bridges into just about any landscape vision you may have.
Easy Crossing
If you are lucky enough to have a river or stream of a respectable size you get to think large scale, rather than small (although there is no reason why you can’t size down a design if needed). This arching walkway helps keep your feet dry as you meander amongst the grounds and gardens, and give you an elevated viewpoint of all your hard work.
Bordered Bridges
This delicately whitewashed, bordered bridge provides a good guide for small vehicles when taking a leisurely drive around the property. This is a bridge made wide enough for golf cart-sized, or all-terrain vehicles, to take advantage of the entire property without having to get their feet wet!
Go With the Flow
Seasonal streams and steep banks are the perfect places to include a bridge of some sort. This gently arching walking bridge connects the pathways found on either side of this embankment so the property can be enjoyed year round. Plus, it makes it more accessible to those who cannot walk down, and back up, steps cut into banksides.
Splash of Color
Don’t hesitate to use your bridge as a splash of color and a main focal point for your landscaping plans. Not only will it draw your eye through the growing season, but will serve as an interesting piece in the cold of winter.
Peaceful Paths
Bridges don’t have to go over water. They can double as a pathway through vegetation or over the property as a statement piece. So if you don’t have any water features to take advantage of, don’t be discouraged as bridges can serve many purposes if you have your heart set on one.
Contrasting Paths
Mix and match your walkway textures to highlight the meandering pathways through your property, and to provide contrast to your bridge design and materials. The many different shapes of the rocks in this garden provide a flow of shape and color that mimic the arches of the bridge.
Pond Crossing
Even if you are tight on space, a small, artificial pond can benefit from the elegant touch a customized bridge can bring to it. Turn your overlooked water feature into the main focus with your own personalized touch.
Forging the Way
Forged iron and stained boards provide an eclectic, old-fashioned feel to your yard. Strong and supportive, yet elegant and delicate, iron can provide long-lasting interest to your landscape.
Eclectic Appeal
Your dry stream beds will benefit from the eclectic appeal of a small, handcrafted bridge. It creates flow and harmony to your garden plantings. A few cut posts and thick rope helps create a vision from the past.
Fit For a Fairy
Miniature gardens and bonsai plantings are all the rage for fairy gardens. This small wooden bridge is exactly the touch you need to make your small garden visitor feel right at home and to keep their feet from getting wet!
Lovely Little Footbridge
This lovely little footbridge hemmed in by tall woody plants, provide the perfect backdrop to your meanderings through the gardens. Green mossy pathways and pops of color and texture complete the look.
Welcoming Entrance
Welcome your guests across an inviting arched walkway that opens into a small patio for visiting and overlooking the evening garden lights. Small yards can benefit from this type of landscape design. It takes advantage of what land you do have for varied vegetation and interest.
From the Undergrowth
These carved rails and staggered bridge flooring looks as if it may have risen from the forest floor itself. Don’t be afraid to have a vision and make it complete no matter how unconventional.
Garden Bed Perfection
Bridges don't need water to complete their task, instead use a bridge to gap garden bed styles and to help bring together pathways in unique ways. This small footbridge is hardly a necessity but helps complete the look of separating a private meditation spot from the rest of the garden all the same.
Lighted Paths
For looks only, this little bridge is a unique way to bring illuminating lighting to your garden by night and doubles as a fun addition by day. Create a pool of ground cover, or pond of pebbles to complete the look.
Bridge to Solitude
In figurative terms, a bridge is a perfect way to create a feeling of solitude. Simply cross over to your happy place, or in this case, a private gazebo overlooking the river where you can rest, relax and contemplate in peace.
Necessity Endeavor
You may have a scenario where a bridge is a true necessity in order to avoid any accidents from occurring when trying to access parts of your property. Functional bridges blend well with the landscape may be a good choice in these cases.
Take the Leap
Even if your water feature is easy to cross by foot, why not spruce it up with a little detail? A small footbridge that you can paint or stain, whether for yourself, children, pets, or simply to enjoy looking upon, always provides the perfect touch.
Non-Traditional Look
Powder coated steel lasts a lifetime and can help provide a unique, non-traditional look to your garden beds. This flower bed motif design would look well amongst the greenery and seasonal blooms of a shade garden, and its 4-foot size isn't going to overwhelm your yard.
Functional Flow
Small yards don't have to have small design features. This pool may take up much of the square footage, but there is no reason to isolate parts of the property due to the main focal point. Bridge your pool for easy access and convenience.
Linear Looks
If you are lucky enough to have some of the native plantings of the area hemming your yards, tie in main focal points through the shapes and colors that mimic your natural surroundings. This simple, traditional bridge had upright lines that help create a natural flow between it, and the trees that surround the yard.
High Adventure
Another pool crossing solution, this one incorporates a sense of adventure with a wooden rope bridge to span your yard and allow an alternative access to a hidden water slide feature. This is definitely one of the most imaginative pool features I’ve ever seen!
Walking on Water
This large, Japanese inspired landscape design takes a page from the harmony and flow of nature that is so inspired by the culture. Texture, color, and element variations all come together as a whole, connected by meandering pathways and bridges to new visual experiences.
Protective Path
When you have delicate plantings or grounds that retain moisture, simply walking over them can cause longer-lasting damage than you might like. Elevated walkways and bridges through these areas provide both protection, and an eclectic focal point to help guide visitors through the area.
Bridge with a View
Enjoy your surroundings, elevated above the property, with a well-placed bench or two built into your backyard bridge designs. This uneven terrain definitely called for a bit of stability when it came to mobility. The bench additions are just pure genius.
Pond Bridge Designs
Ponds, both large and small, natural and manmade, can benefit from the grace a bridge lends to it. Not only do they provide you a vantage point to overlook this type of water feature for relaxation and enjoyment, but it also allows for an added depth to your overall design.
Peaceful Pond
The perfect touch to these lily ponds is the graceful arch this bridge lends to the landscape. With a rich, warm brown hue, it stands out as a major focal point through all seasons.
Rein in Nature
This carefully constructed pond uses the terrain and existing materials found in nature to create a landscape design sure to blend in with the surroundings. The weathered bridge is the perfect touch to provide the look of an aged feature without sacrificing durability.
Hidden Beauty
Ponds that seem to bubble up from the ground, and are carefully planted to blend in with the natural order of the landscape, are fun to stumble upon when exploring new gardens. This bridge mimics this idea as it rises from the vegetation to provide you with a gentle path.
Unexpected Rise
Ponds that seem to bubble up from the ground, and are carefully planted to blend in with the natural order of the landscape, are fun to stumble upon when exploring new gardens. This bridge mimics this idea as it rises from the vegetation to provide you with a gentle path.
Rockway
Bridge footpaths do not need to follow a traditional wooden pathway and are easy to design to continue the textures and materials used throughout the rest of the garden. This bridge utilizes cut rock to provide an easy flow to your walking path.
Mysterious Ways
Climbing this bridge provides you with a completely unexpected value to your walk through these gardens. It allows for a sense of mystery before you reach the other side. When designing your bridge, feel free to create an unexpected value.
Into the Mist
If the mists rise off your waters in the mornings, then take advantage of a bridge crossing.It will seem to appear and disappear with the changes in temperature. This traditional bridge design needs nothing more special as the surroundings provide the perfect complimentary setting.
Simple and Effective
Simple, yet effective, DIY designs provide all you need for this pond crossing. A sturdy frame and level boards complete the look while allowing you the access you need to the rest of the property.
Stone Materials
Nontraditional materials, such as carved stones, can be rather effective in completing your desired look. This pool is made to look to like a natural pond, and the smooth, worn rocks provide an inviting look for family and friends alike.
Daisy Chained
A string of bridges brings you through the ornamental gardens of this country home. The rich hues and textures of the vegetation, rock, and wooden details provide a peaceful, meandering pathway.
Floating Reflection
Creating an illusion of walking on water, these well-supported slabs of stone provide a floating reflection along the surface of the water. Allow them to lead you areas of tranquility, or even a well-designed guest house for complete privacy for your visitors.
Creating Illusion
Separating your pool from your ponds to create an illusion of flow and consistency is easily done with the use of bridges. When used with well-placed lighting you can enjoy your water features by day or night.
Extended Decking
Extend your deck over and around your water features to allow access and interest to your landscaping design. These type of bridge design allow for an illusion of a larger pond and also provides depth to the space you are working within.
Rock and Wood
Don’t feel you have to limit yourself to only one material in the creation of your bridge landscape design ideas. The extended rock and wooden construction highlighted here is a unique take on a water crossing.It creates an entirely new look to admire year round.
Well Placed Overlook
Gaze down upon your Koi with this perfectly placed ‘floating’ bridge to provide both aesthetics and balance to your pond feature. Materials made to mimic the look and feel of wood keep from breaking down over time. But it still allows for a more natural, rather than man-made feel. It’s a great choice for these kinds of bridges.
Concrete Creations
This patio inspired look provides the symmetry and geometry that provide both a balance between color and textures so desired in a landscape such as this. It also allows for a simple solution for water crossings by using well placed concrete slabs.
Tea House Treatease
Tea houses play an important part of cultural custom in many Asian countries and are often well placed on properties for balance and visual harmony in accordance with customs. This bridge allows for a private, yet welcoming, entrance to a place for entertaining guests.
Infinity Pools
Infinity pools have become an increasingly popular landscape choice along the coast, and incorporating bridges allows for a further visual interest. The added height this bridge lends creates further depth and an awesome overlook of the surrounding ocean.
Stepping Stones
These stepping stones are an awesome way to add an original, and unique, touch to your pondscape. Since ponds are hardly restricted to backyard blueprints, this touch is sure to be a visual focal point within the neighborhood.
Waterfall Inclusion
A pump and waterfall set up are sure to bring peace and tranquility to the gentle sounds of moving water. This is a wholly unexpected idea and is a perfect conversation starter when entertaining guests.
Bridgeway to Relaxation
Simple and Efficient
Prefabricated bridges are the perfect solution when you have a limited budget or are on a time constraint to get your landscaping done. Not only do they provide simple, efficient, and durable choices, but can be installed with a minimal fuss.
Stone Garden Bridges
Shade and sun gardens alike can benefit from the use of a stone bridge to serve either as a major focal point or the perfect backdrop for your greenery and seasonal blooms. Although most bridges are often made of wood and metal, stone choices are the perfect alternative to more traditional materials and bridge construction.
Double Duty
Serving as both a bridge and covered walkway, this bridge does double duty and provides structure to landscape vegetation. Although time-consuming, carefully planned rock placement can last a lifetime and provide the vision you seek.
Old Fashioned
This type of bridge brings to mind old-fashioned roads and park and creates the feel of days long gone by, of walks in the park and meaningful conversations. Rock is a material that stands the test of time, as can be seen, it can help influence your backyard bridge ideas.
Neoclassical
Arching curves and straight angles complete this neoclassical look made of simple textures and light stonework. If you are looking for a more modern look with roots found in timeless design this is one way to make that happen.
Concrete Barriers
Concrete bridges stand the test of time, as well as provide a variation in look year after year due to environmental factors. Lichens, moss, and other vegetation can make itself at home within the rough texture of concrete surface- and provide an interest all its own.
Painted Stone
Stonework doesn’t have to be the grays and browns they are carved from. Stone and concrete hold color well and can be painted to provide a stark contrast to the surrounding environment.
Ebb and Flow
The ebb and flow of this landscape design call to mind a balance, with both the present and past, through the ages of the stone. It works well as a main focal point too. The grays of the stone slab bridge is highlighted by the greens, golds, and reds of the surrounding forest.
Ancient Application
Using century-old techniques, the creation of the arch was a breakthrough idea that changed the shape of architecture. This style uses well-placed stone slabs and a keystone, which taps into classic design and aesthetics in the modern day.
Sloping Architecture
The lay of the land may very well determine the shape of your bridge. Sloping stairways and gentle arches define this wholly unique bridge shape to provide the crossing needed through this terrain.
To Conclude
If bridges have been on your mind as an addition to your own personal landscape features, then hopefully this has been a helpful list of bridge ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Personally, I love to mix and match texture and designs to make a wholly unique look, and with these 55 ideas, there is no end to the combinations you can dream up.
We’d love to hear from you below which are your favorite, and what you plan to use for your own yard. And if this is an article you can’t do without, we’d love if you would save it for future reference.