Landscaping Companies Are Talking About These 4 Trends for Backyard Plans in Barrington and Portsmouth, RI
The backyard requires certain design decisions to make it the perfect place to relax, recreate, and entertain. Keeping your landscape updated means working to improve your family’s quality of life. If you’re considering a backyard renovation, here’s why landscaping companies are talking about these four trends for backyard plans in Barrington and Portsmouth, RI.
Shrinking the Lawn
The front yard is a space that’s primarily intended for aesthetic purposes and welcoming guests to your home. This is where a lawn works very well. The backyard, however, is an outdoor living space that should be used to its full potential. Here, the lawn may actually be taking away from the full use of your outdoor living space. If you don’t have kids or pets, chances are you don’t use your lawn at all yet spend incredible amounts of energy, time, and resources to maintain it. There’s a big trend toward shrinking the size of the backyard lawn and replacing it with other more useful landscape features, such as expanding the patio, installing a pool, or a larger edible garden.
Updating the Patio
Your patio is the hub of outdoor living, where great memories are created with family and friends. Upgrading your patio with a fresh design using patio pavers will not only make the space much more beautiful, but it will also improve the usability of the patio.
Modern pavers use several technologies to improve safety and the environment. Non-slip pavers use a refined surface that helps shoes and bare feet grip the paver to prevent slipping even when the surface is wet. Permeable paver technology is a great feature of any paver since it lets water seep between slightly larger paver joints into the ground to eliminate the collection of water on the surface, reduce damage from freeze-thaw cycles, and returns rainfall to the groundwater supply in a controlled way (instead of through runoff onto your landscaping).
Modern patio design incorporates a zoned approach where different activity levels have their own defined area. This could be done on the main patio by creating distinct zones delineated by physical obstacles such as raised bed planters or freestanding privacy screens; or, by different pavers in each zone. This could also be accomplished by designing a series of 2-3 separate mini-patios that are joined by stepping stone pathways. Or, you could design several separate yet adjacent mini-patios that are delineated by a step up or down in elevation along with different materials. Separate mini-patios recreate the feeling of outdoor rooms. It’s a more complex design, but can work beautifully in that each mini-patio is surrounded by greenery for a more naturalistic experience.
Adding Raised Bed Planters
More and more homeowners appreciate gardening that is more convenient and more contained, both for comfort and for a more elegant look. Masonry raised bed planters can be used on the patio to define activity zones. They can also be built on the perimeter of the patio to simplify gardening and give your patio a finished appearance.
Raised garden beds also provide the opportunity for the installation of an automatic drip irrigation system that will simplify watering. The exterior of these raised garden beds can also house lighting fixtures that help to improve the ambience and safety of your patio.
Updating Light and Sound
Both landscape lighting and outdoor sound systems now take a zoned approach, delivering the right amount of illumination or music to each activity zone. This way, nobody is annoyed by loud music or bright lights if they prefer something more soothing.