If you’re planning a landscape renovation this season, you’ll want to know what’s driving landscape design. Here are 4 unique landscape design trends to add to your Westchester County, NY backyard to make it exactly the space you want to spend your time in. Whether you choose one or several of these trends, you will love the results.
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Reduce the Lawn and Expand Your Living Space
Although a lawn is beautiful, it is a very time-consuming part of a landscape. There are other ways to add greenery that are more eco-friendly, low-maintenance, and much more beautiful - which makes it a very attractive proposition to expand the size of your outdoor living space. It’s not that “bigger is better” when it comes to patios - it’s that the best results come from having distinct activity zones so that everyone can enjoy the backyard in the way they want, whether it’s napping in a hammock or mixing drinks for friends.
A beautiful solution is to create a central hub that houses the outdoor kitchen (just like the home, this is where all the action is!) and to create smaller attached or even detached patios that house a dining area, as well as a hot tub area and a seating area. In other words, creating a series of outdoor rooms. These “rooms” can be separated physically with raised masonry planters, or they can be on multiple levels.
Sheltering at least one zone with a pergola or pavilion will make your space cozier and more usable, especially with the addition of an outdoor fireplace for the ultimate living room feel.
Multi-level outdoor living can make even the most pancake-flat backyard more appealing. Just one step up or down gives each zone its own character; and it’s an opportunity to use varied materials, for example, teak decking on the upper level and patio pavers on the lower level.
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Smart irrigation that ensures each zone of your landscape receives the perfect amount of water; updated landscape lighting (again, favoring a zoned approach); and outdoor entertainment systems will reduce your workload, create an amazing ambiance after dark, and blur the line between indoor and outdoor living.
Permeable Surfaces
To reduce water runoff or pooling on hard surfaces, consider updating your driveway, patio, and walkway to permeable pavers. The pavers have larger joints between them, to allow water to seep into the ground and disperse naturally. Your paver surfaces will be drier after a rain, and you won’t have sheets of water cascading down a sloped driveway only to end up in the storm drain system.
Eco-Friendly Softscapes
Not all landscapes are eco-friendly: for example, a thirsty, chemical-intensive lawn is easy on the eyes, but not on the environment. Eco-friendly landscape design is a hot trend as homeowners become aware of their impact on the environment. Reducing the lawn and replacing it with native vegetation is a great start. You can find dozens of wonderful native plants that are perfectly adapted to the area and will reward you with their aromas, blossoms, and fall foliage. You could keep the same style of design as you have now, and just replace exotics with natives. Or, you could dedicate a portion of your landscape to a “wildscape” that contrasts beautifully with more structured areas. Native plants rarely require supplemental watering and fertilizer, which means a lot less work for you - and a lower water bill.
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