Features

Beautiful landscaping is always a good investment in your property. A properly designed landscape can transform your yard into an extension of your home. With defined areas for different activities, your landscape can create outdoor rooms that invite your family to enjoy spending time together.

Through a mix of hardscapes (retaining walls, pavers, rocks, and boulders) and softscapes (flowers, grasses, shrubs, trees, lighting, and ponds) your yard can become an enticing outdoor living space.

It all begins with a sketch of your space, maybe on the back of a napkin, or just in your mind.

Imagine the Possibilities…

• An outdoor dining room with a second kitchen on a patio.
• An area surrounded by flower gardens and shade trees makes up an outdoor living room.
• Overhanging trees or wood arbors with vines create ceilings.
• Fences, trellises, or retaining walls form walls. Sidewalks, paths, and stairs are hallways.
• Garden furniture where you can sit and read is an outdoor study.
• Lawn areas for volleyball, lawn darts, horseshoe, and other games create an outdoor recreation room.
• Outdoor spaces are carpeted with grass, ground cover, flowers, or pavers.
• An outdoor spiritual center is your own sanctuary, a place to collect yourself surrounded by nature and wildlife.

The current trend of turning backyards into retreats makes vacationing and relaxing close to home an attractive alternative. It’s a vacation you can take every day and every weekend.

Exterior Decorating

In the landscape you can choose size, color, style, function, and atmosphere for each room. Are you looking for a formal, natural, contemporary, colorful, or intimate landscape? Many of the items (flowers, shrubs, pavers, and retaining walls) can be changed, moved the next day, or the next year. Where else will something grow and cover up or enhance an area for you without any work on your part? Perennials can be planted to span the seasons and grasses create a flowing, open effect in the landscape. Choose low maintenance shrubs and evergreens for winter show and holiday lighting.

Paving the Way

Paths are used to direct traffic from one point to another, help maintain the garden, and provide a safe walking foundation through your new place. Paths can be constructed of concrete pavers, stepping stones, crushed stone or gravel, flagstone, stamped concrete, mulch, grass, and more.

Concrete pavers are the ideal product for patio construction in our freeze/thaw environment. The sand joints allow movement without cracking. Pavers are maintenance-free, long-lasting, and installation is easier. Circle patios created with pavers are one of the newest trends.

Pavers are used for walkways, patios, driveways, pool decks, and edging and can be personally engraved. They come in many sizes, shapes, colors, and textures, with an endless variety of patterns. In-ground paver lights help to illuminate the area and can be wired to turn on at dusk and off at a set time to help improve the security of your home.

Your Great Wall

Retaining walls are built to form physical and visual barriers, define a space, and channel water away from your home to keep your basement and its contents dry. Retaining wallscan be made of stackable concrete units whose design requires no mortar to keep them in place. Other alternatives are natural cut stone, boulders, or wood timbers. The concrete units are available in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures. The smaller units are more for decoration and are limited in their use. Walls over 3’ tall require larger units with special considerations. Check with a professional regarding this.

Concrete retaining walls are ideal for creating terraced or free standing walls, raised patios, steps, planters, egress windows, landscape edging, bench walls, and pillars. Creating level areas for flowers and shrubs will add color and contrast to your new outdoor place.

Steps created with retaining wall pieces can improve access to all parts of a yard, making it safer and easier to walk on sloped areas. If you have significant level changes, consider putting in steps rather than sloping the path too steeply. Should you need to put in steps, always plan on having at least two steps. Steps and paths direct the eyes and the feet, making the landscape unified, organized, and reachable.

Getting Your Feet Wet

Water features are becoming today’s hottest trend in landscaping. Ponds and other water features increase the value of your home while reconnecting you with nature. Ponds catch the eye and appeal to our sense of hearing by creating a feeling of tranquility. Ponds can be a showcase of different plants, fish, aquatic life, and even wildlife, such as ducks and other birds. Relax and experience the tranquility of water bubbling over boulders and cascading down into your new pond after a stressful day at work.

An important aspect of water gardening is choosing the right location. Most aquatic plants and fish need at least six hours of sun per day. Choose a site away from tall shrubs and trees for best light, and to prevent leaves from falling into the water. Level ground is best, providing accessibility for visitors, and ease of maintenance.

A water feature can be made up of a pond, waterfall, stream, dry creek bed, fountain, or a container with water and aquatic plants. Ponds can be pre-formed, or you can use your own imagination to create any size, or shape with a rubber liner, usually 45 mm thick. The average pond size is 11’ x 16’. An all inclusive pond kit is the best value, as everything in the kit is sized for your pond. Then all you need to add are fish, plants, and rock.

Water plants are part of the softscape, adding color, fragrance, and drama to your pond. Consult a nursery professional to choose varieties such as water lilies, water hyacinths, water lettuce, cattails, and more that will suit your particular pond.

Fish can be decorative and beneficial. They eat mosquito larvae, plant debris, and algae. The typical fish in a garden pond are Koi or Goldfish. Koi are more colorful and have varied markings while Goldfish are more common and more tolerant of water conditions. Both types of fish will multiply if you have patience, and will survive the winter in your pond with the addition of a bubbler that prevents total freeze-up. Proper planning for a healthy balance will develop an entire ecosystem that almost takes care of itself.

In addition to ponds, a sprinkler system can add beauty and value to your home while saving time and water. A sprinkler system monitors over watering or under watering and can be adjusted for the different needs of new grass, trees, shrubs, and perennials. Be sure your sprinkling system includes a rain sensor, which can be installed to automatically adjust to rain activity. Hiring a professional contractor with the experience and equipment will insure a quality system.

No Shadow of a Doubt

Ambiance is that special atmosphere or mood created by a particular environment. Strategically placed lighting illuminates the landscape after dark with lights and shadows that create a welcoming feeling.

Lighting can enhance a landscape and extend its beauty beyond daylight hours. Simple low-voltage lighting is affordable and easy to install and provides beauty, function, and safety. Homeowners can enjoy and appreciate aspects of their landscapes long after the sun goes down.

Night lighting can be seen and enjoyed year round accenting special areas like waterfalls, walking paths, garden plantings, trees, and unique features of your house.

Winter Dreaming

Use this winter to dream of your ideal outdoor space. Contact an experienced landscape professional to add color to your sketch, and help you bring your dreams to reality. When talking to professionals, bring a picture of your space, ideas from magazines, and your project measurements.

Dream on!