A decorative bridge in the garden is a special design that is not only good for its functionality, but for its ability to decorate the surrounding landscape and make the overall landscape picture complete. Therefore, when planning to build bridges in the garden with your own hands, you need to consider all sorts of principles for placing structures, their types, and then create your own original, stylish, not like other options.
What material to prefer?
Of course, in the construction of architectural forms of a small type in a garden or park, natural materials - stone and wood - look advantageous. They harmoniously combine with surrounding plants, flower beds, wooden buildings, dry streams of stone, pebbles and sand. But buildings made of metal and concrete look no less attractive.
Classifying designs by the material of manufacture, there are several types.
Wooden bridges
They are great for a suburban area with already installed buildings and wood decor - a bathhouse, gazebos, tables, benches, a well. For the wood to last longer, choose one of the most valuable species - larch, cedar or oak. Special antiseptics, impregnations and varnishes increase the service life and give the wood the desired shade.
Stone bridges
Beautiful, noble and almost eternal buildings. When installing a garden bridge with your own hands, do not forget about the weight of natural stone. For the installation of structures made of sandstone, marble or granite, construction equipment may be required, therefore, sometimes a lighter analogue is used - artificial stone.
Metal bridges
Forged designs are exquisitely beautiful, especially surrounded by flowers and greenery. They require special attention and timely processing, as the metal is susceptible to corrosion.
Concrete bridges
They look monumental, serve for a long time and, with appropriate decoration, can decorate a garden with a lot of stones or plants. Finishing with colored tiles, stone chips or acrylics will advantageously hide gray concrete.
The combination of several materials will make the garden bridge unique, help to give a little personality. Well combined metal and wood, stone and wood.
Examples of good accommodation
The main purpose of the bridges is to cross the reservoir, but often on the territory of the infield they are installed for a completely different purpose - to enrich, diversify the design.
Good places for the installation of decorative structures are the following objects:
- small lakes, artificially created ponds, streams;
- natural ditches and ravines;
- dry streams;
- flower beds and separately decorated flower beds;
- paths and trails.
The traditional placement of a structure above a body of water is subject to certain rules. A crossing over a stream or a pond is installed in the narrowest place, since the small structure is much stronger and looks more decorative. Dacha bridges for a garden with a dry stream have such qualities as compactness, miniature, grace. The material for their manufacture should be combined with the surrounding coating: they are like a continuation of the tracks.
When installing small architectural forms, including bridges, it is necessary to take into account the style chosen for the garden. Suppose wooden structures, simple and slightly rough, are ideal for a country-style garden plot.
The choice of form and design
Before drawing up a sketch, you should consider all existing forms and their options, and then decide on a choice. You can conduct the following experiment: take a picture of the proposed installation site of a decorative bridge for the garden, print a large photo and try on various designs cut from paper. It will be seen what shape design fits perfectly into the overall picture.
By their configuration, bridges can be divided into several types:
- Direct - they are optimal for self-manufacturing;
- Zigzag - these are guests from the East, where the violation of the direct is a protection from evil spirits;
- Arched - look artistic and suitable for any style;
- Step by step - ideal for dry streams and shallow ponds;
- Step - remind two staircases with wide steps, united by a common platform;
- Suspended - complex structures that require compliance with safety rules.
Here is a photo selection of each of the options:
Master class: make a bridge of wood
The easiest way to decorate your homeland is to create a composition of a pond and a wooden garden bridge, both of which can be done with your own hands. Let us dwell on the construction of a cross over structure made of wood.
To install a simple structure, a concrete foundation or piles driven into the ground will not be required, but if the bridge connects the high banks of the stream, then additional reinforcement is required.
The base of the bridge is two slightly curved beams with a cross-sectional size of 0.2 mx 0.35 m and a length of 2 m. They can be prepared from straight blanks, using a jigsaw and a chisel to remove excess wood. A flooring of boards (3.5 cm), evenly distributed along the length of the beams, is attached to the beams.
Between the boards it is necessary to leave spaces 1-2 cm wide. All parts are dried before installation and are treated with impregnations and antiseptics from all sides.
The design of the railing may be different. The simplest one is curved arches mounted on several balusters. The railing is decorated with bamboo inserts, thick hemp rope or carvings.
A simple decorative garden bridge, without decorations and frills, can complement the park area, stylized as a wild forest.
The video shows an example of landscape design, where almost all the structures are made by the owners of suburban estates.