8 Pergola Ideas to Add Structure, Shade and Style to Your Garden

Exploring pergola ideas is a great way to expand your garden’s usable space and enjoy year-round outdoor living. In addition to practical considerations, a pergola also introduces a strong design feature to enhance the look of your outdoor space with a stunning focal point.

Functional as well as stylish, pergolas are ideal for zoning the space, too, as part of your backyard landscaping. You can use a pergola to add an outdoor room, either right up against the house or a freestanding one in a more secluded part of the garden.

Pergolas are also a great framework for climbing plants to make the space feel more private, as well as garden lighting to add a magical note at night. Available in a range of materials, including wood, metal, and PVC options, pergolas are one of the easiest ways to add a fast and easy designer touch to your garden. Now find out how to use the latest pergola ideas to enhance your space.

1. Create an Outdoor Room

"Pergolas have evolved from simple shade structures into fully realized outdoor rooms," says Anthony Musso, landscape designer at Hicks Landscape Design in New York. "In our landscape design-build projects, pergolas are designed as integral architectural features that shape how outdoor spaces are used and experienced."

Regardless of material or style, a successful pergola should feel cohesive with the home and landscape. It’s essential to consider how the space will be used, whether for dining, lounging, outdoor cooking, or as a focal point within the garden. This function-first approach should guide decisions around scale, placement, finishes, and features.

The joy of choosing a freestanding pergola is that it can be positioned wherever you want to enhance your outdoor living space. Accompanied by the right furniture and accessories, a pergola can become the go-to place to hang out all summer long.

2. Integrate Planting for Privacy

More of us are now designing our outdoor spaces as private retreats. Yardzen recently reported a 22% increase in privacy-driven features to create secluded outdoor zones. Pergolas can be a key component of this, as privacy can be easily achieved with a layered planting design that screens you from neighbors.

Choose beautiful pergola climbing plants as well as small trees arranged to form natural enclosures that also support biodiversity. "As traditional pergola roofs are open, they don’t block rain, but when thoughtfully paired with suitable climbing plants for pergolas such as wisteria, jasmine, or grapevines, they can evolve into a private space," says Anthony Musso.

Design pergolas with plant growth in mind, allowing the structure to change with the seasons. "As vines mature, they naturally increase shade, visual softness, and habitat value," says Anthony. "This creates a dynamic space that becomes even more beautiful over time."

3. Add a Louvred Pergola for Flexible Living

If you want to make the most of your deck year-round, adding a pergola creates a more sheltered space, especially if it’s partially enclosed by the back wall of your house or a boundary wall. Consider options like a retractable roof cover and sides to further enhance the ways you can use the space.

"A strong trend right now is louvered roofs and retractable canopies," says Henry Stoll, owner and founder of Enduria Structures. "These features offer you overall control in terms of the amount of sunlight and airflow you want. It creates a thoughtful design for your lifestyle, climate, and the space you want to adapt."

All it takes is a flip of a switch to create the cover you need. Constructed from aluminum and steel, this type of pergola is durable, low maintenance, and can be customized to suit your lifestyle with features like built-in lighting options, weather sensors, electrical outlets, and retractable side shades. They are the perfect fit for contemporary garden ideas, too.

Louvred Pergola Designs

4. Create A Secluded Space for Entertaining

This cool and stylish pergola set-up offers a separate area for lunch or drinks as the sun goes down. Surrounded by immersive planting featuring softly layered ornamental grasses planted in sleek raised beds interspersed with shrubs, this pergola design creates an ambient space for entertaining or relaxing.

Designed by Pennsylvania-based Lancaster County Landscapes, it's a perfect example of how introducing a pergola can help to upgrade your space. This is both a design statement with its strong architectural lines, as well as having a practical purpose in offering a covered space for dining and relaxing.

A pergola can be left unplanted like this one to show off its bold outline, with lush layers of planting around the pergola to enhance the space. Alternatively, add climbers to create a screen, and introduce potted palms to layer up the look and add a vacation vibe as part of your pergola ideas to transform your outdoor space.

5. Define a Balcony Space

Adding a pergola to your balcony or terrace can help to create a more intimate space, especially if it's overlooked. It can also add a touch of luxe to the look by making the area feel more 'designed' without carrying out a major overhaul.

Choose a simple, contemporary pergola design that complements your home’s architecture. Aluminum pergolas have an especially luxurious appearance thanks to their sleek, contemporary profiles and high-quality powder-coated finishes.

Find a similar design to the one pictured with this stylishly designed aluminum pergola by Blue Elephant, available at Wayfair for an elegant addition to a balcony or indeed any other garden area.

6. Enhance a Forgotten Corner

If you're a small-space gardener, adding a pergola to an under-utilized corner is a great way to create an extra seating area or utilize it for another designated purpose, such as a dining area or yoga space.

This type of L-shaped set-up works well to make the most of a cramped space and is one of the latest contemporary small garden ideas to make every inch count. Fitting a pergola into a corner in this way is a fresh take on space-saving solutions that are easy to do, plus it's an inexpensive option too.

Using the area where your garden wall meets your house is the obvious choice, but alternatively, you could use a corner at the end of the garden. Cover the pergola with climbing plants if your garden is overlooked and you want more privacy, or alternatively, leave it exposed for more of a modern design statement.

7. Choose Bold Color for a Modern Look

Using color in the garden by introducing a bold pergola creates a strong focalpoint as part of your design. A pergola like this one helps to draw the eye and define the journey through the garden, as well as adding drama. Find a similar wooden pergola here at Lowe's, which is perfect for customizing in a bright color.

Choosing a combination of striking colors like the tangerine and rouge-pink used together here is one way of making a bold design statement with color. It's an affordable option, too, if you choose a basic wooden pergola and paint it.

When it comes to planting, you can surround your modern pergola design with loose, naturalistic planting to create a contrast or continue with the modern theme and choose a more structured, formal design. Using pergola ideas to transform your outdoor space can be as simple as that.

8. DIY a Shady Seating Spot

"Pergola kits offer ease of installation, particularly for DIY enthusiasts," says Joe Raboine, vice president of design at Oldcastle APG. "Recommended kits come with pre-cut, pre-routed, and pre-riveted parts, requiring only a simple assembly using tools like an Allen screw. This eliminates the need for special tools or installation skills."

Additionally, they can be completely customized to suit your backyard's size, shape, and style, so using pergola ideas to transform your outdoor space makes perfect sense, whatever the layout.

"People are viewing these as an opportunity to expand their homes," says Joe. "With the cost of new construction at an all-time high, consumers realize they can get a beautiful pergola at a fraction of the price of an addition. With features such as pergolas, they can create beautiful outdoor rooms that really enhance their yard."

This sounds like a great project to tackle on the next fine weekend.

Build Your Own

That's our round-up of pergola ideas to transform your outdoor space. Now find out about gazebos and garden rooms for more ideas how to max up your garden's potential.