X

5 Ways to Bring Your Garden Indoors for Fall

Bring the feel of your outdoors into your indoor space now, to enjoy all fall and winter.

Jessica Mordo

Fall can be a tough time for gardeners. There are still plenty of things to do to keep busy in the yard, but there’s a looming sense that everything’s wrapping up and going dormant soon. The best prescription is to keep the garden feeling going indoors. Garden lovers, go ahead and cart a favorite whirligig inside or lay a floor that looks like an outdoor path. Here’s some inspiration to get you started.

Carpenter & MacNeille, original photo on Houzz

1. Brick floor. Weathered brick makes for a lovely garden path or patio surface, and it also looks welcoming in a foyer. Brick floors add a rustic touch that says, “Come right in!” Here, a herringbone pattern helps the material make the transition indoors, as does a clear finish appropriate for indoor spaces.

Related: New Floor Coverings for Your Foyer

Kathryn J. LeMaster Art & Design, original photo on Houzz

2. Potting shed. If an outbuilding is simply too far from the house for you, devote a room in the house to gardening. You’ll have easy access to the dirt all year long.

Sunny arched windows, a blue ceiling, galvanized pipes that serve as hanging plant rods and a sturdy cedar potting bench pull the look together in this functional and beautiful room. An underused mudroom or an enclosed porch like this one is a good candidate for a potting room.

You can use the room not only to pot plants, but also to arrange cut flowers. I highly recommend adding an overstuffed chair so you can enjoy flipping through seed catalogs or pulling favorite garden photos into an ideabook from your garden’s HQ.

Country Club Homes, original photo on Houzz

3. Weather vanes. These charming follies are usually admired while looking up to a rooftop from the garden below, but weather vanes can spark just as much joy at eye level (if not exactly telling you which way the wind is blowing). These playful silhouettes can bring an eclectic farmhouse touch in kitchens, living rooms, on porches and in every other room in the house. The time they have spent outdoors leaves them with well-weathered patinas, which makes a collection like this one particularly interesting.

Leslie L. Hunt Interior Design, original photo on Houzz

4. Shutters. These architectural elements usually play an important role in the backdrop of a garden. Placing them on the wall creates the illusion that there is a window where there isn’t one. They can also be used to create a charming rustic headboard, as seen here.

Related: Are Plantation Shutters the Right Choice for Your Windows?

Amperdecor, original photo on Houzz

5. Leaves and berries. A botanical wallcovering can give a room a year-round garden feeling—particularly when paired with picnic-y red gingham as an accent fabric. This cheery kitchen is a cure for the I-miss-the-garden blues.

Related: Update Your Windows With Botanical Valances