In my hometown, we have an upscale fast-food sandwich maker that has incredible landscaping—the drive-though is like being carried away to an Italian grotto, complete with overhead arbor and flowering vines, lush native plants, high color and scent. No cookie-cutter evergreen shrubs and flats of annuals for this restaurant! While your town may not have this particular restaurant, it most certainly has other areas of public plantings that can serve as inspiration for your garden. The next time you’re driving to pick up the dry cleaning, pay attention to the landscapes along the way that you like—make note of what’s attractive so you can bring that same element into your outdoor space. Not sure how to start? Here’s a few I spotted on a recent trip to Chicago—we’ll start with the simple and move to the more intricate!

Pretty simple, right? A row of purple petunias hanging from a wall. This is what’s called a “monoculture,” or a single plant used en masse. A planting like this packs a powerful punch, and if you’d like to recreate it in your garden, pick one plant and one color. Annuals and flowering perennials lend themselves well to this type of treatment, as do ornamental grasses.

There’s so much right going on with this public street planter, and it’s so easy to duplicate! Start with a large container, add a tall center evergreen, then begin adding medium sized plants around the base. Finish off with colorful annuals in the similar hues and scrumptious trailing foliage. The trick is really packing a lot of plants into that container for maximum impact. Inexpensive? Not really, but the effect is stunning.

What can appear to be a mish-mash of plants works when you have a unifying theme—in this gorgeous example from Navy Pier, it’s the hot color scheme. They’ve used ornamental grasses, annuals and tropicals, but that reddish-orange color brings it all together. Feel free to experiment in your own garden; just make sure you create a workable scheme by repeating a plant mass, a color or a form.

Taking tips from places around your town is easy—restaurants, parks, libraries and shopping malls often have great examples of gardens that work. Just slow down and enjoy the view!