This Throwback Garden Feature Is The Comeback Trend Replacing Pergolas

Pergolas have been popular additions to homes for a while now. They can add an outdoor room to the house, overhang a patio or deck, provide shade, and act as a structure upon which you can create a vertical garden. Add a canopy and screens to the sides of your pergola, and you'll have fewer bugs ruining a summer evening's barbecue. But pergolas have their limits. You may not have the space or home layout that will allow you to install a pergola. Pergolas are great for making a grand statement, but not so great if you're looking for the quaint, cottage-garden or secret-garden design. A great alternative to a pergola is an arbor, which adds a different look and feel to a garden while also sharing some of the pergola's features.

Arbors are primarily arches that plants grow on, while pergolas usually have multiple columns that support an overhead structure. They were especially popular in 1920s and 1930s garden design, but experienced a resurgence with the cottage garden trend of the 1980s. Now, as people are looking for garden accents they can fit into small spaces, the arbor is having its comeback moment.

The arbor is often the overlooked younger sibling to the pergola. (Search for "Arbor" in Wikipedia and you'll be redirected to "Pergola.") But give it a second look. Arbors are stand-alone items that can be tucked into nearly any space, no matter how small. And being smaller, you can more easily build a DIY garden arbor yourself or purchase and install a pre-built one from a garden center. As your garden grows and needs a re-design, you can even uproot your arbor and move it elsewhere.

Think of an arbor as a window, a doorway, or a small shelter to enhance your outdoor space. Acting as a window, an arbor is merely a way to focus the eye and separate spaces. Use an arbor to frame different areas in your yard – for example, to divide a vegetable garden from a flower garden, a shady area from a sunny area, or a child's play area from a patio where adults entertain friends.

As a door, an arbor can function as an entry point, framing a pathway or a door to the home. Plant an arbor at the street end of the walkway to your front door to welcome guests to your home. An arbor can also break up a fence and act as a gate, whether for decorative reasons or functional ones. Put an actual gate within the arbor to close off an area for added privacy or safety, such as to prevent kids from playing in a pool area.

You can also use an arbor as a shelter under which you can place a bench. Build a strong enough arbor and hang a swinging bench from it. Grow plants up the arbor's sides and you have a private getaway to read, relax, or stop and literally smell the roses.

What you grow on an arbor can depend on the material and structure of the arbor. Arbors usually come in metal or wood, but larger structures might be made of concrete. A simple DIY arbor can be made out of woven twigs or tree limbs. Unlike a pergola, however, an arbor usually doesn't rely on being attached  to a house to provide its additional strength. Growing heavy, invasive vines like Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) or Japanese wisteria (Wisteria foribunda) on a lightweight arbor may result in the vines toppling the arbor and wreaking havoc on your yard and garden.

Vines are an obvious choice to grow up an arbor. If your arbor is in full sun, you can plant vining annual vegetables like tomatoes, beans, peas, or cucumbers and replace them every year, giving yearly variety to your arbor. Flowering vines like trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana), trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), and Prairie rose (Rosa setigera) are all native vines producing an abundance of flowers. Just be sure to choose native varieties of these plants: some non-natives are invasive and can take over your garden. Choose the right colorful vines and the right spot, and you can have a charming 1980s cottage garden revival feature in your yard that will bring back all the best vibes.