Gorgeous Spring Gardens

From sprawling paths to simple patios, find the best look for your backyard with these gorgeous garden designs.

 A wicker enclosure protects sage and lavender from rabbits

Bushes and blooms immediately improve any outdoor space. At this Corona del Mar house, landscape designer Margaret Carole McElwee created a garden lush with boxwood hedges, lavender, ficus, and cypress.

 The cutting garden of a New York house overflows with echinacea, coneflowers, and false sunflowers — all of which do just fine with a once-a-week watering.

In the Cloister Garden of a 16th-century French countryside estate, the classic rose Katharina Zeimet stands out among the formal hedges.

Designers Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber entertain at their cozy Vermont cottage between raised vegetable and flower beds made out of red cedar.

Talk about an incredible view. From their bedroom balcony, the homeowners of a Spanish Colonial Revival look out onto stunning boxwood parterres attributed to the late Richmond garden designer Charles Gillette.

A stucco garden wall fringed with climbing roses opens onto a Virginia home's pool.

For a garden outside of her Hamptons cottage, designer Podge Bune chose roses for their scent and didn't worry about color. "I thought, 'Well, let's just have a riot.' I'm so bored with all white. But be warned. Roses are persnickety. I have to do a little nip and tuck every day."

The front door of this oceanfront Los Angeles house opens to a surprising open-air courtyard. Designer Chris Barrett clustered plants in antique pots on a concrete table.

Designer Ellen O'Neill planted a garden by the shed of her Bridgehampton home. It's the perfect accompaniment to her worn and weathered cottage.