Entries Tagged 'Hard Elements: Hardscape' ↓

Water features such as garden ponds and garden fountains are pleasing additions to a landscape design, because it provides a diversion from just plain plants scenes. Nothing can quite transform a landscape like a water feature. It relieves the monotony of the garden features and provides accent that makes the garden or landscape interesting.

Whether it’s a dramatic waterfall or a quiet pond, water works its magic on any garden, providing a focal point and an area that soothes the soul. Moving water provides delightful background music and masks traffic noise.  The soothing sound of water can mask unwanted noise, making even an urban patio a restful retreat.

Patio Lights

Patio lighting can provide the drama in your garden. Not only does it allow you to spend more time outside at night, but it also gives wonderful illumination for the best parts of your garden. Patio lighting can really create some wonderful effects and make your patio nighttime experience even more enjoyable. Just as importantly, patio lighting can make your patio and yard a safer place to be at night.

Lights can be placed in the following areas, choose from among the popular these days:

• Deck Lighting - Your deck lighting can be a great tool for highlighting and spotlighting any changes in elevations, drop-offs, or deck-edges. In doing so, you create not only a dramatic effect, but a safer deck, as well. You can conceal the light fixtures beneath railings, beneath benches, or on vertical posts.
• Step Lighting - This type of patio lighting will allow both you and guests to navigate up your steps and through your yard in safety. Place step lighting beneath railings, on vertical posts, or along the steps.
• Fountain Lighting - Fountain in the patio can still adorn your garden even during nighttime, thanks to modern lighting ideas. There are many great types of patio lighting that will make your fountain even more beautiful at night. You can have underwater lights that really give a dramatic appeal to your fountain. You can also consider colored lights for even more fun. It is also possible to create a mirrored effect on the surface of the water if you light the area behind the reflecting surface of the water.
• Shadow Lighting - Use this technique to highlight and interesting shapes that you may have in your garden, including branch structure, sculptures, etc. Place your light fixture in front of the item or plant that you want to shadow, and aim it so that the item will cast its shadow on a surface like the wall of your house. The closer the light is to the item you want to shadow, the larger the shadow will be.
• Silhouette Lighting - Silhouetting is a type of patio lighting that really highlights the shape of an object. To create the silhouette effect, place a light behind the subject, and shine it up against a vertical surface like the wall of your home.

These are just a few types of patio lighting you cam choose from, however in order to decide which type to use at your home, think of which particular subjects you want to spotlight. Think of which subjects will look best as a silhouette or as a shadow. Then consider also which areas need to be illuminated.

Wicker Furniture

After the last brick or stone has been installed in the new patio, suddenly you realized that it sorely needs some furniture. After looking around, there is one set you have fallen in love with, but wait - before taking the plunge and buying it, you must have a basic understanding of the kind of furniture that will be appropriate for your house and the climate. There are several types to choose from, it is advisable to study their advantages and disadvantages.

Aluminum - Does not rust. Cleans with soapy water and is pretty much indestructible year round. Consider its light weight an advantage over wrought iron unless you live in a terrible windy climate. Of course, any stone, tile, grout, and fabric elements will need care to last the years.

Wrought Iron - As stated, wrought iron is a weighty material. Great for sustaining high winds. Choose one that is powder coated and electro-statically painted. A chip in the paint and a little water can bring about rust, so keep some touch up paint handy. Don’t wash with any harsh chemicals, soap and water will do.

Wicker- Wicker has always been a welcoming material for outdoor furniture. However, it always fell short on longevity.

Woods - The real value of a wood is usually considered to be its hardness. Pine and cedar are both on the softer side and quite plentiful. This usually translates dollar savings when compared to harder woods like shorea and mahogany. Teak, though, is the toughest of the lot. Traditionally used on boat decks, teak is great for patio furniture. It looks great, lasts, and resists warping. Of course, its scarcity and coveted position among woods puts it on the pricier side.

Wrought Iron Furniture

A pergola is a garden feature forming a shaded walk or passageway of pillars that support cross beams and a sturdy open lattice, upon which woody vines are trained. It may also be part of a building, as protection for an open terrace. Pergolas may extend from a building’s door to an open garden feature such as an isolated terrace or pool, or may be entirely free-standing structures shading a length of walkway.

Pergola design and arbor design are very similar, but if we look at the subtleties, the following distinction can be drawn:

• Garden arbors are simple, relatively small structures; often, they are arched at the top.

• Pergolas, on the other hand are larger and usually more substantial than arbors and can be used to cover a large patio or deck. Posts are located in the corners and at regular intervals to support the roof. The roof is usually parallel beams or lattice structure sitting on perpendicular beams. Unlike an arbor, pergola doesn’t have lattice sides and the plant or vines are trained up the side of the posts and then grow along the top to provide privacy and shade.

But to afford complete shade, plus protection from rain, pergolas must be covered.  Fiberglass is sometimes used as a covering for pergolas.  But just like arbors and trellises, pergolas can also be used as support structures for vines. The vines form a canopy over the pergola, affording shade in summer.

Wooden garden arbors (arbours) are open frameworks designed to offer shady resting places in a garden or park. Arbors are often made of rustic work or latticework which serves as a trellis on which climbers may grow or on which creepers may be trained.

For instance, there are the classic grape arbors, in which case the wooden structure serves a horticultural function: namely, providing support for a crop.

Other functions:

• But these vine-covered wooden structures can also serve as privacy screens.
• They can also provide shade on decks and patios.
• More often, they have primarily an aesthetic purpose by forming entrancing archways to garden entrances. They can also function as entry gates for properties surrounded by fencing.

Trellises are usually latticework structures that are mounted on walls or posts that support your climbers as they grow. Like arbors and pergolas they provide more room for your vines to grow. They can also be mounted between posts to provide a screen. This is a nice accent to provide privacy and shade.

A patio (from the Spanish: patio meaning ‘back garden’ or ‘backyard) is an outdoor space generally used for dining or recreation that often adjoins a residence and is typically paved. It may refer to a roofless inner courtyard of a house or a paved area between a residence and the garden. Homeowners who want a low-maintenance landscape, an interesting alternative to lawns is the extended patio, which is simply an enlarged patio that takes up space where lawn grass would otherwise be planted.

Helpful tips regarding types of materials used for patios:

• Bricks are perceived to be the most economical and sophisticated to use.
• Patio pavers are also seen practical to utilize since they come up with a wide range of options – different colors, sizes, shapes and styles. They are very austere and inexpensive, too.
• Stylish and attractive stones are seen beautiful and so flexible for landscaping and the likes.
• Concrete patios are known to be the most durable, versatile and affordable among them because these cannot be destroyed or broken by some sudden changes in the climate and weather.

Having a patio has no bearing on the size of your home since because it doesn’t technically contribute to the total area of your home. But its advantage is, patios can create an expansive entertainment and recreational area for your home that you’ll enjoy for years to come. Outdoor patios especially make excellent places to entertain family and friends, or simply have a quiet place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world. They can be enclosed with windows, screens, vines, or plants too, creating a general private outdoor room space addition on your home.

A landscape is never complete if its soft elements are not rightfully complemented by its hardscape. Hardscape or “hardscaping” consists of the inanimate elements of landscaping, especially any masonry work or woodwork. For instance, stone walls, concrete or brick patios, tile paths, wooden decks and wooden arbors would all be considered part of the hardscape. But hardscape goes beyond large-scale projects such as these. Any non-living ornamentation in your landscaping is, technically, part of the hardscape. Without the skillful arrangement of stone and other hardscape components, the most artistic of landscapes would lack a frame to set it off the plants tastefully and beautifully. When designing your garden, always begin with the permanent structures. Let the physical area and surroundings dictate the shape and form of your design.

Wooden structures can be used in the garden to provide support for plant material and to define the elements of “outdoor rooms;” the trellis becomes a wall, the arbor a door, the pergola a roof - a gazebo combines all of these. The design of these features should take into account probable weight loads from plants, natural forces of wind, moisture and sun and the properties of the wood itself. Including wooden structures in the landscape offers us the opportunity to recycle material from “nature’s garden” to our own.

Hardscape materials are as varied as your imagination. But for weight-bearing construction, you are safest with tried and true materials like stone, wood, cement and the like. Most folks like patios and shade structures. But even these can be built with creativity, forming them to original designs and choosing imaginative materials. Cement can be colored, stamped or imbedded. Mosaics, pavers, tiles, brick, colored gravel, crushed glass, etc. or a combination of materials can make flat surfaces swirl with interest. Consider adding structures for both usage and beauty.

Sample 1: Pergola

Sample 2: Pathway