Landscaping Baltimore design is a complex form of art. It involves considering biological, cultural, and environmental aspects to produce a design that will be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Line plays a key role in defining the landscape. It can create a formal character and direct the eye towards a focal point, whether straight or curved.
Water Features
Water features are a beautiful addition to any landscape. Whether it’s a bubbling fountain, flowing waterfall or calm reflective pool, water is calming and adds movement to your outdoor space. They can be as grand as a large pond or as small as a simple garden fountain. Your landscape designer can help you discover the right water feature to fit your landscape design.
Backyard waterfalls and ponds are popular because of their soothing sounds and therapeutic effects. In fact, studies show that looking at water for short periods of time can reduce stress and improve circulation.
Adding a water feature to your backyard provides an opportunity for your family and guests to unwind together outside, creating an oasis from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Water features are also a great way to attract wildlife, such as birds and frogs, to your garden.
To keep your backyard pond or pool healthy and in balance with nature, choose moisture-loving plants to accompany the water. These include water lilies, water hyacinth (Ludwigia sedoides) and umbrella grass (Cyperus involucratus). For a striking touch to your landscaping, add a floating or hanging bubbler fountain to the edge of a pond or pool. Its bubbling action will create a dramatic focal point that will draw attention to the rest of the landscaping design.
A water feature can be a stunning accent to your home, or it can become the central element in your landscape design. Depending on the size of your yard, you may have room for a large pond or a smaller waterfall. If you don’t have a lot of room, a pondless water feature can provide texture, natural sound and visual interest without taking up much space. These water features recirculate the water instead of spilling over and can be safe for families with children.
Drought-Resistant Plants
Using drought-tolerant plants in your landscape design helps cut down on your water consumption and makes your yard more sustainable. This is especially important if you live in an area that has little to no rainfall, and it’s even more critical to use these strategies if your local municipality imposes water restrictions on its residents.
To help you find the best plants, consider your local climate and its average annual rainfall, as well as soil type. You may also want to factor in the amount of sunlight your yard receives, as full sun will make it hotter and cause water to evaporate more quickly.
Some types of plants are naturally more drought tolerant, like cacti and other desert species. These can withstand long periods of dry weather, but they do best when given moderate to regular water. Choosing native plants that grow in your hardiness zone will give you the best chance of finding drought-resistant options that thrive in your environment.
Once you’ve found the right plants, incorporate them into a design with other features to create curb appeal. Aim for a balanced look with softscape and hardscape elements. A combination of both will reduce your maintenance and water costs while boosting curb appeal.
For example, ground cover like creeping thyme or white clover can replace thirsty grass. Or, a stone-covered bed with drought-resistant perennials and shrubs can add interest to your garden. Other hardscape features, such as a sand-based lawn or rock pathways, can also help cut down on your irrigation needs by slowing the flow of water through your yard. You can further minimize your water usage with an efficient irrigation system that delivers water directly to the roots of the plants, reducing evaporation and overwatering non-drought-resistant areas.
Naturalistic Designs
The ‘naturalistic’ style of landscaping has become more popular than ever before. The technique, which was originally popularized by Beatrix Farrand in the early 20th century, is a gardening style that relies on layers of plants to create an organic-looking garden. Its key components include grasses and perennials that are freely mixed in single and groupings, creating a flowing landscape with varying textures and heights. It also uses natural materials for hardscaping, such as rocks, moss and wood.
The most important aspect of a naturalistic design is that the garden features native plants that are well-suited to your specific soil type, climatic conditions and other environmental factors. This means that you might have to sacrifice some of the beautiful exotics that are often used in American gardens, and instead focus on choosing local species.
Using native plants also reduces the need for fertilizers and other typical garden chemicals, and helps to support the native habitat of wildlife and insects. It also limits the amount of fossil fuels that are burned mowing large areas of lawn, and allows the use of alternative sources of water for irrigation.
Another way that the naturalistic design differs from other styles of landscaping is that it takes a more holistic approach to the landscape. The design must be well-integrated with the surrounding natural environment, so that it functions in a harmonious and productive manner. This is especially true in suburban settings, where the design needs to connect to existing natural features like streams and wetlands.
While the naturalistic ethos may sound like a big step backward for many Americans, it is actually quite forward-looking. The ‘greener’ landscaping designs of the future will be even more eco-friendly, because they will reduce the need for chemical inputs, while making a positive contribution to the surrounding ecosystem. They will also offer more visual interest for the homeowner, thanks to the contrasting colors of fading flower spikes and frost-covered fronds in winter.
Privacy
Privacy is an important factor in many landscape design plans. It can be achieved by using fences, walls, and plantings to create a natural barrier that blocks unwanted views and sounds. Water features like fountains and waterfalls can also be a great way to add privacy to your yard by providing white noise that blocks unwanted voices and sounds around the property.
If you do choose to plant trees for privacy, consider using tall evergreens like Leyland cypress and green giant arborvitae as well as shrubs with dense branch structures to quickly screen your yard. Then, layer in other low-growing ornamental plants to contrast with the height of your trees and shrubs. This will help your landscaping look intentional rather than haphazard.
For more traditional and formal privacy landscaping, a solid fence with lattice or slatted panels can be effective. For less solid fences, a mix of shrubs with differing heights and widths that form a sort of layered tapestry in front of the fence can provide privacy and visual interest.
The type of plants you use for privacy should be selected in the early stages of your landscaping plan to ensure they will have the appropriate size and shape when fully grown. In addition, you should think about how the privacy elements in your landscape will integrate with other features of the design. For instance, the juxtaposition of hardscape (like pavers and walls) with softscaping (plants and grasses) is essential for a cohesive landscape that works well together.
While barriers are a good way to increase privacy, they also have the potential to shrink a space by creating an unfriendly feeling in a garden. This is particularly true for front yards, where you want to minimize barriers in order to promote free-flowing space and a welcoming feel.
Outdoor Lighting
Lighting is an important part of landscape design that helps to illuminate unique or beautiful features and creates interesting shapes in light and shadow. There is a wide range of outdoor lighting available to suit any budget and purpose, from pathway lights that help make walking at night safer to deck and patio lights that create a warm ambiance in entertainment spaces.
When choosing your landscape lighting, consider the aesthetics you are looking for and how it fits into the overall layout of your property. It is also a good idea to prepare a budget before deciding on a specific lighting option, as this can help ensure that you don’t spend more than you need to. It is also helpful to think about the types of lighting you already have in your home, so that you can create a seamless transition from indoor to outdoor areas.
There are a number of different techniques that can be used in landscape lighting to achieve the desired effect, including uplighting, which is the use of lighting on taller structures such as trees and trellises. The technique is especially useful in highlighting the texture, shape and height differences of objects in plant beds. It can also be used to highlight stone features such as retaining walls, walkways and steps.
Downlighting is another popular landscaping design technique, which uses lights positioned high to cast light downwards, creating a moon-lit effect and adding ambient illumination. It is a great way to highlight trees, fountains, gazebos and other garden features while eliminating the feel of unnatural light.
When planning your lighting, it is best to work with a professional so that you can be sure that the plan meets all of your goals. They will be able to advise you on the right type of lighting for each area of your landscape, as well as helping to avoid voltage drop over long distances by using appropriate circuit planning and wire sizes.