Want to transform your backyard into a functional and inviting space that aligns with sustainable design principles? Consider adding a pergola—an attractive and versatile structure that can enhance your outdoor living experience in multiple ways. In this post, we’ll explore the benefits of a pergola from a permaculture perspective, considering practicality, functionality, and thoughtful design. Let’s delve into nine practical and inspiring reasons to build a pergola in your backyard.
In the realm of permaculture design, the concept of “stacking functions” is highly valued. A pergola is a perfect embodiment of this principle, offering multiple functions within a single structure. By incorporating a pergola into your backyard, you can create a versatile outdoor space that fills many functions for the garden and home.
Why Build a Pergola?
Above are images of our pergola and a few of the ways we use it: support for grapevines, play, relaxation, and in the future it will provide even better shade as vines grow and cover it.
There are so many reasons to build a pergola, more than I’m listing here, but these are the top nine pergola benefits from a permaculture perspective:
1. Support for Vining Plants
A pergola makes an excellent support for vining plants. Grapes are the classic choice, but other great options include hardy kiwifruit, honeysuckle, passionflower, trumpet vine, or wisteria. Choose perennial vines that you can establish and train up the posts over the first couple of years.
In keeping with the permaculture concept of stacking functions, consider vines that offer multiple benefits. Here are a few features to consider when choosing vines for a pergola: aesthetic appeal, shade providing, edible fruit yielding, pollinator-attracting, nitrogen-fixing.
For additional growing area, attach a lattice or trellis to the sides or back of the pergola between the posts. This can support annuals such as scarlet runner beans, nasturtium, or even squash. When growing annuals around a pergola, consider the sunlight requirements of the plants to determine which side of the pergola to plant on. Most summer crop plants will do best on the south side, while cool-season crops could benefit from the more shady north side. Of course, reverse north and south in the southern hemisphere.
2. Create a Microclimate
The strategic selection and placement of vining plants on the pergola create a natural shade canopy, which not only keeps you cool but also creates a more hospitable environment for heat-sensitive plants to thrive beneath the pergola. Additionally, the vining plants’ foliage provides shelter, reducing wind gusts and creating a cozy and protected space. The transpiration process of the plants releases moisture into the air, increasing humidity, and creating a comfortable space, particularly in the heat of summer. This microclimate created by the pergola allows plants to flourish even in harsh weather conditions such as intense heat, wind, and low humidity.
When designing your pergola, consider the direction of the sun and the prevailing winds in your area. This knowledge will guide you in deciding where to position the pergola for optimal shade and microclimate creation. With a well-designed pergola, you can cultivate a microclimate to support the growth of a diverse range of plants, enhancing the overall resilience and productivity of your outdoor space.
3. Extension of Living Space (An Outdoor Room)
A pergola serves as an extension of your living space, transforming your backyard into a functional and inviting outdoor room. It provides a designated area for relaxation, dining, and entertainment, allowing you to fully enjoy the beauty of nature.
Whether you’re hosting a barbeque for friends, unwinding with a book on a lazy weekend, or sharing a meal with family, a pergola offers a sheltered space that flows with your home. The open design of the pergola creates a sense of connection to the surrounding environment while providing a level of protection from the elements.
4. A Landscape Focal Point
One of the more abstract benefits of a pergola is as a focal point, or to call attention to other features on or off your property.
A pergola becomes a focal point in your outdoor space, whether it’s at the entrance, near a patio, or as a transitional feature. Its presence draws attention, inviting you to explore and spend time in your outdoor sanctuary.
In addition to being a focal point itself, a pergola’s strategic placement can highlight other focal points or views from your yard. Consider your view from within the pergola. Perhaps the posts frame a view of the garden, the house, or a mountainside or lake view beyond.
5. Landscape Structure
Another pergola benefit is that a pergola adds structure to your landscape design, creating an element to build around. Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to begin when adding plants to your yard. In permaculture design, one way to get past this hurdle of not knowing where to start is to start at the edges – plant along a fence line or path and work your way into the middle. This strategy employs one of the permaculture principles, Use Edges and Value the Marginal.
A pergola provides another edge to design around. Start by training vines up and across the pergola. Next, add a pathway leading to the pergola and add plantings along it. In this way, your landscape design builds on itself, outward from the edges.
Edges are where interesting things happen in nature. Think of shorelines, forest edges, and even roadsides. A pergola provides a whole new set of edges to work with. The edge between shadow and light, earth and sky, and inside and out.
6. Create a Children’s Space
A pergola can create a wonderful space for children to play and enjoy the outdoors. Consider hanging a hammock or swing from the pergola beams or rafters (just make sure you’ve designed the pergola to be strong enough to support the extra weight) to create a fun and relaxing spot for kids to hang out and play.
Additionally, the shaded area beneath the pergola provides a perfect space for a sandbox or kiddy pool, offering protection from the sun while allowing children to have fun outdoors. Or get creative and integrate a play structure into your pergola design. Add a plywood side with climbing holds to create a climbing wall, or attach ladder rungs, a lower platform, and a slide. Just make sure to keep safety in mind.
7. Passive Solar Control for Home
When a pergola is strategically built on the sunny side of your home, it offers passive solar control, regulating the temperature and reducing cooling costs. During the summer, the pergola’s dense foliage provides ample shade, shielding your home and outdoor space from the intense sun. The high angle of the sun during summer ensures that the pergola’s thick foliage creates a cool and comfortable environment beneath.
In the winter, the leaves of the vining plants on the pergola fall, allowing the desirable winter sun to shine through. The lower angle of the winter sun allows its rays to penetrate beneath the pergola, warming the space and providing natural heating.
Work with seasonal differences, sun angles, and passive solar design strategies to get the most out of your pergola. Create a shaded retreat during the summer months and harness passive solar energy in winter. Both strategies will enhance the comfort and energy efficiency of your home.
8. Improved Privacy
By incorporating vining plants and lattice into your pergola design, you can create an effective and visually appealing privacy screen. As the vining plants grow and intertwine with the lattice, they form a natural barrier that shields your yard providing a sense of seclusion.
A pergola, if placed next to or built onto the side of a house creates a transition zone between private indoor space and public outdoor space. This is even more pronounced on the front of the house, where the house blends into a porch or pergola, to the front yard, and finally the street. This layering of spaces enhances the feeling of privacy within your home, as opposed to a front door that opens up directly onto the street.
9. Fostering Community
Funnily enough, the added privacy created by a strategically placed pergola also helps to strengthen community connections on your street or between neighbors. This is because having that privacy makes the space beneath the pergola more comfortable to be in than a fully open and exposed front yard. And when you spend time in that intermediate space (between public and private) created by the pergola, you open yourself up to opportunities to see and interact with people walking by or neighbors across the fence.
And of course, a backyard pergola can be an inviting space to entertain friends and family as well. In this way, a pergola fosters community by creating a welcoming space for outdoor get-togethers. It serves as an open yet protected gathering spot where people can come together, share meals, and strengthen relationships.
Building a Pergola
If you’re going to build a pergola, you have a few options for how to go about it, which I’ll talk about below. The first thing to do though, is to decide on its location.
Deciding on Your Pergola Location
Selecting the right location for your pergola is essential, and can even make or break its success. Consider factors such as the orientation of your home, the path of the sun throughout the day and seasons, and the desired purpose of the pergola.
Building a pergola on the sunny side of your home allows you to maximize its passive solar control benefits. Building it away from your home creates a garden retreat separate from your home. Additionally, think about the views you want to capture or block, the proximity to existing structures or plants, and the accessibility from your home.
Once you’ve determined the optimal placement for your pergola, it’s time to design it.
Designing Your Pergola
Your pergola design will be more or less detailed depending on how you plan to build it. If this is a DIY project, you’ll need to create a detailed plan for yourself. There are plans available online to help you along. Construction101.com has some sample DIY pergola plans you might find helpful. Make sure that your pergola design meets building codes and is structurally sound.
If you’re planning on having a professional install your pergola, the design process is less about the structure and more about choosing a size, style, and materials that align with your preferences and the overall aesthetic of your outdoor space. Consider incorporating features like lattice panels, integrated seating, or decorative elements to enhance the functionality and visual appeal of your pergola.
Building Your Pergola
When building your pergola, you have several options to consider based on your skill level and preferences.
Build a Pergola Yourself (DIY)
Building a pergola yourself gives you complete control over the design and construction process. It requires some basic carpentry skills, tools, and materials. You can create a customized pergola that meets your specific requirements with careful planning and following detailed instructions or plans.
Buy a Pergola Kit
If you want a simpler route, consider checking out pergola kits. They’re available in a variety of sizes and styles and include pre-cut materials along with detailed assembly instructions, making it easy to have a professionally designed pergola at a lower price point. Pergola kits save time, effort, and even money, while still allowing you to customize specific aspects of your pergola design. It’s a hassle-free option that ensures you can create the perfect pergola for your backyard without the added stress of designing from scratch or shelling out a lot of money to a contractor.
One option is the pergola kits from FifthRoom.com. If you choose to purchase from Fifthroom.com through my affiliate link I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. In full transparency, I haven’t used Fifthroom personally, so cannot personally endorse them, since we decided to go the DIY route with our pergola. I did research the company and am confident that they are a reputable company and a good resource for pergola kits if that’s the route you wish to take. But do your due diligence to make sure they are a good fit for you before moving forward.
Hire a Professional Builder
If you prefer a hassle-free experience or have complex design requirements, you may prefer to hire a professional builder. Experienced builders can bring expertise in design, material selection, and construction. They’ll also ensure that the pergola is structurally sound, meets local building codes, and is built to your specifications.
When deciding which option is the best fit for your pergola project, consider your skills, available time, and budget.
Conclusion
If you want to add beauty and functionality to your backyard, consider adding a pergola. Pergolas are versatile structures that can provide multiple functions in one, from support for vining plants and creating a microclimate to reducing energy use and passively cooling your home to extending your living space outdoors and fostering community in your own front or backyard.
If you are looking to build a pergola, make sure to check out the free DIY pergola plans from Construction101.com and the pergola kits from fifthroom.com for ideas.
Happy pergola planning!
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