Uses for the pergola

The possibilities for a pergola are really only restricted by your own imagination. So why not put on your thinking cap and start to imagine what style, size or shape of pergola you want and what a pergola could do for your garden.

Achieve a glorious shaded area with a pergola

A pergola was never intended to completely block out the sun, but to provide some respite from direct sunlight while allowing air to circulate freely. While the roof of beams will only provide partial shade, growing plants across the top is a great way to achieve this shade. Honeysuckle is a very popular and fragrant plant that thrives on pergolas and when it gets too thick, it can be thinned out without damaging the plant. Adding a bamboo screen over the pergola is another fantastic way to create a shaded area when the sun is at its hottest. You may even be inclined to add curtains, trellis or fence panels to the sides to make the pergola even more enclosed and intimate, even more important when built over a hot tub.

When constructed near to the house, the pergola can sometimes be used as a way of stopping the sun from glaring through windows and heating up the house in the summer and damaging your pictures and soft furnishings by bleaching out the colours.

Use a pergola as an extension

Outdoor dining with friends and family is one of the best things about summer, but during particularly sunny days some extra shelter may be called for, particularly if you have young children or pets. A pergola over a deck or patio can create a really lovely dining area, adding a perfect garden room without the cost of a fully integrated extension. What better way to enjoy that family barbecue?

Pergolas make great garden dividers

A single pergola can be used anywhere in the garden to create a partition, much like trellis can be used. You can train plants to grow up and over the pergola and eventually you will have a very attractive divider that adds shade and privacy.

Pergolas attract birds

Pergolas, particularly with vines and climbing plants will encourage wildlife to your garden. Many birds will use the pergola as a perch and many will feast on the bugs that make their home in the climbing plants. Maybe site a feeder nearby, or even on the pergola itself to attract more of our feathered friends.

Set the scene for another part of the garden, or level with a pergola

You may want to distinguish one area of the garden from another, perhaps to create different themes within your garden, separate seating and dining areas, or for other aesthetic reasons. A pergola may be used with short trellis panels and a gate to form a boundary for a pond or swimming pool. This not only looks great, but it will make a safer environment, particularly for the family dog and small children. Splitting up a garden with pergolas can also make it more manageable.

So, whatever you decide to do with your pergola, there are so many ways you can use it and customise it to your own individual needs.