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.
A small bridge over the stream, made of artificial stone and decorated with wrought iron railings, looks quite natural surrounded by greenery
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.
Wooden bridges are traditionally decorated with carvings: they give the balusters an original shape, cut a pattern on the supporting beams, cover the railings with ornament
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.
When building a stone structure - natural and artificial - you should select elements that are similar in shape and color and in harmony with the surrounding objects
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.
A forged bridge will be cheaper if you order only a metal base, and do-it-yourself wooden elements (flooring, railings)
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.
It’s hard to guess that this original bridge is made of architectural concrete: its surface is stylized as stone and painted with acrylics
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.
A wooden bridge is part of a personalized composition. Stylistically, it combines with a garden gazebo built from the same material.
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.
A miniature bridge of the simplest construction, thrown over a dry stream, favorably revives the monotonous composition of stones, greenery and flowers
This bridge is an example of how various materials can organically combine: paving slabs, natural stone, wood, mosaic tiles
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:
When constructing direct bridges from any material, it is necessary to consider a drain for rainwater; in this case, these are the gaps between the floorboards
The ideal material for the construction of a zigzag bridge is wood - both piles and flooring are made of wooden elements treated with impregnation and antiseptic
The “humpbacked" shape of the arched structure is achieved in various ways. One of the most common is to give the supporting beams a certain curved shape
To create a step-by-step bridge, large flat stones are best suited. The distance between them should be comfortable for stepping over
A stepped design can become a kind of observation point: from the upper platform it is convenient to view the surrounding landscape, admire the sunset
If you decide to choose a suspension bridge, then it is better to stay on a small structure, firmly fixed on piles driven into the ground
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.
By installing a wooden bridge over the reservoir, it is necessary to carefully strengthen the parts of the shores that serve as supports. For strengthening use natural stone and concrete
According to the installation method, garden bridges are divided into several types: I - on concrete supports; II - on concrete supports and piles; III - on stilts
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.
Having drawn up a bridge drawing indicating the required dimensions, you can greatly facilitate your work. The length of the structure depends on the size of the object over which it will be
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.
When drawing up a drawing, it is necessary to take into account every trifle, for example, consider fixing in the joints of balusters with beams or railings with balusters
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.
Decorated railing is a way to diversify the simple design of the bridge. It was worth adding rounded elements on the racks - and the bridge took on a more decorative look
A simple decorative garden bridge, without decorations and frills, can complement the park area, stylized as a wild forest.
A few raw boards, a railing of crooked poles on one side - and we get an original stylized bridge, as if hastily put together
The video shows an example of landscape design, where almost all the structures are made by the owners of suburban estates.
