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Memorial Garden Ideas
Unique Memorial Garden Ideas to Honor Loved Ones
Creating a memorial garden in honor of a loved one can help provide closure and give you and others a quiet place to remember, grieve, or reminisce. You don’t have to be an avid gardener to create a peaceful, special area in your yard dedicated to the memory of a deceased family member or friend.
What is a Memorial Garden?
A memorial garden is simply a space designed to be a beautiful and meaningful area that has been created as a tribute to a lost loved one. Even if you’re limited to an apartment, there are still options for creating a physical space indoors or on a balcony. The act of creating and maintaining a memorial garden can be very therapeutic and allow you to deal with grief in a constructive way.
Need creative ideas for a memory garden? Here are some memorial garden ideas to help you kickstart the creation of your special space whether that’s in your backyard, a public park, an apartment balcony, or other location.
How to Make a Memorial Garden
- Select your space - Decide whether you want a private or publicly accessible location – are you forming a memorial garden to give yourself a quiet, private space to reflect, or do you want to create an area for others to visit and commemorate? Will the space be indoors or outdoors?
- Plan out your garden area – what size space do you have to work with? If you’re new to gardening, you’ll need to research what plants will grow in your region, what soil type you have, the amount of sunlight required, and how much soil preparation you will need.
- Form a plan – decide on a budget, features to include, edging, and accessories. You can add lanterns, lights, a bench, wind chimes, garden stones, bird feeders, and other fun elements. If you’re not interested in actually planting a garden, you can use garden sculptures and stones instead.
- Acquire materials – purchase your tools, plants, dirt, mulch, rocks, edging, and any other items needed to create your design.
- Invite family members and friends to help! If you’re creating an outdoor memorial garden designed for visitors, see if others would enjoy helping you. The process itself can be part of a larger memorial service.
Memorial Garden Ideas for Backyards
Create a flower garden – If you already have the beginnings of a garden in your yard, add some of the deceased’s favorite flowers (if they grow in your area) or choose lower-maintenance perennials that will bloom every year. You can coordinate plants based on color, what time of year they bloom, or add in flowers with your favorite scent. Here are some great options for a flower garden:
- Lilacs
- Roses
- Lavender
- Phlox
- Delphinium
- Red Petunia
- Tulips
- Lilies
- Daisies
Plant a tree – Whether your loved one chose cremation or burial, you can plant a tree in their honor or look into tree burial, where a biodegradable urn is buried along with a tree sapling. Choose your tree based on what grows well in your area, and check hardiness zones. You can even add a custom engraved stone at the base as a tribute to your loved one.
Make a water garden – The calming sound of water can provide a comfortable sense of peace. If you’d prefer an outdoor space that focuses on features instead of memory plants, you can create a small pond or water container that is home to water lilies, lotus, and other floating water plants, submerged plants, or edge plants. You can use as little as 20-30 gallons of water in a plastic tub, whiskey barrel, or recycled bathtub.
Build a kitchen or Victory Garden – Easy to grow crops include beets, cabbage, peas, kale, turnips, lettuce, garlic, carrots, and onions. If you don’t have room at home, you can look for local community gardens and start one in honor of a lost loved one that was involved in the community or was philanthropic.
Plant a rose garden – Roses offer a language of color, and they often are a symbol of love. Red roses represent love, pink roses stand for admiration and appreciation, yellow demonstrates friendship, and white symbolizes honor and respect.
Make a shade garden – If sunlight is scarce, you can use shade-friendly plants like hostas, foxgloves, primrose, astilbe, colorful grasses, sedum, ferns, and lamium, aka dead nettle. The good thing is that these low-maintenance outdoor memorial plants won’t need a ton of attention to thrive. Be warned, they may cover a lot of ground, so you’ll need to pay attention that they don’t spread beyond the borders of your garden.
Apartment-friendly Memory Garden Ideas
You don’t have to have access to a lot of outdoor space to create a memory garden and there are plenty of indoor plants that are easy to keep. Consider adding a few low-maintenance indoor plants in an area of your home where you can comfortably sit and reminisce about a lost loved one.
Easy memorial plants for indoor spaces
Adding houseplants like pothos, spider plants, alocasias, peace lily, zz plants, and English ivy offer various shapes and textures to create a diverse and beautiful natural space in a quiet corner of your home. These are great options for people that will be moving since you can easily transport house plants with you. Personalize your space by adding a picture frame with favorite photos of your loved one or accessorize with a tear bottle and mementos from shared trips or experiences. If you’re unsure where to place a cremation urn, consider adding it to your memory garden and surrounding it with beloved house plants that you nurture.
Planting a tree is a wonderful way to celebrate a life, but not everyone plans to remain in one area forever, so an alternative is planting a fruit tree in a container, or a bonsai tree. Bonsai trees are horticultural art with a long lifespan. Mastering the craft of shaping and caring for a bonsai can be a wonderful way to help find peace, and there are many beginner-friendly options to nurture and grow.
Regardless of experience, budget, or space, there are plenty of memorial garden ideas that can be created to commemorate and honor lost loved ones. You can also form one at any time, so don’t feel pressured to start one immediately after someone passes. You can begin at any time, or wait until a special date or anniversary. We hope our guide has provided some unique ideas for a memory garden that will bring you peace and wonderful
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