When designing your gardens and outdoor spaces, consider the frames you are creating with your trees, perennials and garden structures. By carefully considering the placement of your frames you can direct views to maximize the best features of your space. It can be as easy as pruning carefully and adding a flowering vine, or as complex as adding a series of outdoor structures. Join me today as we check out some gardens that are using natural and manmade framing to create beautiful pieces of landscape art.

Browse garden design photos | Find a landscape architect This stone structure in Edith Wharton's gardens at The Mount gracefully frames a view from both sides. Plantings have been added to soften the heavy walls. Amy Renea Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA, is arguably one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, and it is a masterpiece in framing. Everywhere you look are beautiful framed vignettes and vistas. My favorite spot for framing at Longwood however, is the arboretum. The arboretum is full of gorgeous, ancient specimens of various trees collected by the Pearces and abuts directly onto the meadow. Full of bright sun and wildflowers, the meadow is a grand contrast to the deep shade of the arboretum. The trees have been pruned into graceful, natural looking arcs that frame the fields beautifully. Amy Renea The arcs are so well placed that many of them directly frame trees in the distance. Notice how this tree with a wide, squat habit is framed with a subtle curve. Slater Associates Landscape Architects Using trees is an excellent way to create frames, but you can create literal frames in your garden with structures. This beautiful stone wall has included two cutout windows that frame views and the garden in both directions for visitors on either side. Kathleen Shaeffer Design, Exterior Spaces If your home is more modern in its design, you can frame your views with streamlined, geometric designs in stucco, concrete and other materials. This doorway and window provide beautiful frames for horizontal lines of plantings.

Note the color blocking of gray and brown concrete that reflect the green and gold color blocking of the planting beyond. Kathleen Shaeffer Design, Exterior Spaces Here is another framed view in the same garden. A secondary doorway frames horizontals of green and deep aubergine in the meadow. This garden also offers framed views from the seating area through wooden gridwork panels. Amy Renea In this more traditional garden, the framing is created with a large iron trellis. Open on four sides, the trellis creates framed views of various parts of the garden. This particular section frames a small vignette centered upon the potting bench and leading to the white trellis and pathway beyond. Mark Dodge Design The framing of your garden doesn't have to always be exterior framing. Framing starts inside, with the placement of your doors and windows. Notice how this doorway perfectly frames the path with a little ceiling of green thanks to the neighboring tree. Additional views are framed through the small-paned windows. Amy Renea Do you have beautiful views that could benefit from a little framing? Do you have a wide open space outside your garden that would look beautiful framed within the boundaries of a rustic trellis? Perhaps you can prune a few trees to perfectly frame plantings in the distance.

Take a little time to look around your gardens carefully and be aware of the natural framing that already exists, or create a few frames of your own.