Glass Garden Walls

If you are looking for a distinctive custom hardscape element to put in your landscape design, consider glass garden walls from Exterior Worlds. These adaptable structures have been gaining in popularity due to their capacity for creating attention-grabbing focal points on your property that will encourage your family and friends to enjoy the outdoors in new and interesting ways.

Our glass garden walls are constructed most often of frosted, sandblasted, clear, customized etched, or architectural, also known as specialty, glass. Because it must withstand the rigors of our climate conditions while still letting in light, your choice of glass material must be approved for outdoor use.

Glass garden walls have several benefits: to act as a windbreak, to create suntraps and, depending on the glass style chosen, to provide privacy without shutting off the dimensions of the exterior space. Today’s glass, available in a range of design options, features different surface textures that distort images, which is useful when privacy is still desired, and cellular structures that control the amount of light transmitted.

Our clients value glass walls for their ability to create rooms within rooms. This facility allows you to define spaces within your luxury landscape design without isolating one area from another. Because of this unique quality, glass as a garden wall can be a useful tool for urban landscaping, which often must contend with unusually-shaped or small spaces.

Because they strike just the right balance between openness, light and privacy, glass walls really benefit another landscaping zone—your custom pool. Architectural glass possesses decorative dimensional elements that surprise and delight with its artistic possibilities, particularly around water features.

In general, glass can have a contemporary feel to it—depending on style and design, of course—therefore, glass is a natural for modern homes and gardens. Walls made of glass are perfect accessories for a modern home garden and are especially effective when paired with a modern water fountain.

If you’ve got a possible landscaping remodeling project in mind, please note that glass walls produce a big wow factor for the money invested. With just the right design, material choice and placement, it could be the singular, spectacular element that you’ve been looking for.

All garden walls must be built using correct engineering techniques. Many governing bodies place restrictions on walls built over a certain height—for instance, regulations may require that plans for walls of two-feet tall or more must be reviewed and approved by an engineer. Exterior Worlds is known for its expertise in this area.

Once we build your glass garden wall, you face several design-conscious decisions.
Your outdoor lighting can be used to play up the glass wall. Down-lighting, up-lighting and back-lighting are placement techniques that seriously up the ante on the dramatic effect of your wall at night.

To further enhance the appeal of the wall you can place interesting varieties of plants behind it. Bamboo, palm trees, river birch and Japanese maple are all good choices that make interesting movement and shadows behind the glass.

Visit www.exteriorworlds.com for all the high-end landscape design and services offered by Exterior Worlds. In Houston, 713-827-2255.

Houston Home and Garden

What is the greatest benefit offered by c elements?
Gardens support home architecture and link the home with the natural environment. It is very important to do this in order to generate a comfortable outdoor living environment for the homeowner. The absence of garden plantings will make a yard look sterile, dominated by the house and outdoor buildings and diminished in organic vitality.

The right style of garden, on the other hand, can merge the connection between home and nature. Most gardens are planted right up against the house, so that when you move outside, you immediately step into a world of greenery and color that sets the tone for the entire landscape.

How do you determine what Houston home garden design will work best for a particular residence?
More than anything else, we seek to discover what Houstonians plan to be doing in their gardens. We try to find out what the intent of space usage is. Outdoor spaces are developed in accordance with the activities that occur within them. Understanding the specifics of a given activity and how many people are expected to attend on the average helps us develop aesthetic and functional specifics.

What are some examples of outdoor spaces that you can enhance with garden elements?
Almost any outdoor structure or special space can play host to a garden of some kind. One of the advantages Houston offers is nice weather for 9 months out of the year. Spas, living rooms, pools, and canopy-covered patios can create environments that are pleasing to your guests. These places can be standing areas or seating areas, depending on your preference, where you can gather together for wine or coffee and enjoy weather.

Does Houston home garden design involve any outdoor architecture?
Yes. As a matter of fact, our style of gardening often relies upon the construction of advanced outdoor buildings such as outdoor living rooms and outdoor terraces. These are very sophisticated structures that introduce a very powerful inorganic presence into a yard. Planting gardens in front of these buildings and to either side of their walls helps soften the architecture and more harmoniously blend it into the landscape.

How can Houston home and garden design be used to develop the landscape of a large yard?
Larger yards can often exceed 3 acres in wealthier neighborhoods and have a great deal of open space in the middle and back of the property. These areas present a number of opportunities for us to build patios, construct lighted trails, construct ponds and fountains, and build outdoor rooms and buildings.

Gardens in these areas can be less formal and more freeform in design. As you move away from the home toward an outdoor fireplace, a quiet morning garden, or a canopy-covered patio in the back of the yard, the wilder elements of nature can function as an invitation to escape from the pressures of life represented by the more structured demands of indoor living and responsibilities.

Lawn Care Professionals

Before hiring any lawn care professional crew, including Exterior Worlds, to take over your landscaping duties, be sure you understand not only what they do, but how they do it.

Following is a brief listing of services we think you need to look for in lawn care professionals that are in addition to mowing and trimming of grass:

• Lawn aeration. Aeration involves the methodical removal of small soil plugs, also called cores, out of the turf—most often by machine. This practice benefits the grass by increasing water infiltration that improves drainage and by increasing the activity of microorganisms that promote de-thatching. It is the best way to break up heavily-used turf and to control the build-up of thatch. For most Houston lawns, we recommend aeration twice a year, but you really can’t aerate enough, so the more often the better.
• Specialty care for theme gardens. Many high-end homes have theme gardens, such as a natural landscape or a Southern garden, which require the care of specialists because of the intricacy of the overall design or due to the delicacy of the plants. Our lawn care professionals are well-versed in different horticulture techniques and pay close attention to your chosen landscape design.
• Houston tree lighting/ Houston tree planting. Trees are valuable assets on your property. They need special attention and care, whether they play a prominent part in your landscape lighting scheme or are newly planted. We are experts in these matters.
• Quality drainage. Because of Houston’s climate and soil quality, a drainage system positively impacts your entire property. It prevents standing water that can cause mosquito breeding grounds, slick surfaces, and water-logged landscaping. Additionally, it drains water from areas close to your house that could damage its foundation. As for the care of your lawn, proper yard drainage is essential because it quickly moves water off your property, thus encouraging healthy turf. We have the skilled professionals who can monitor your drainage system to ensure its optimal functionality.
• Landscape and pool services. Often homeowners find that having one full-service firm like Exterior Worlds is beneficial—money-wise and time-wise. In particular, it gives us the opportunity to take a holistic approach to the care of your entire property.

One last thought: There is a general impression out there that anyone can take care of a lawn. It doesn’t help matters that anyone who can afford a sign on their pickup plus a lawn mower can call themselves a lawn care professional.

The truth is that it takes a lot of experience, technical ability and knowledge to make true landscaping professionals such as you’ll find at Exterior Worlds. We firmly believe that the lawn care business entails so much more than the weekly trimming of grass.

And then there is that something special. We’re talking about the nearly unquantifiable trait that is part enthusiasm, part intuition and part innate interest that sets the serious professionals apart from the wannabes. The best way you can flush out this quality is to ask about the art of landscape—and just sit back and see what kind of answer you get.

Call the professionals at Exterior Worlds for all your lawn care needs. Serving the greater Houston area. 713-827-2255

Houston Swimming Pool Contractors

Are you dreaming of new landscape plans, one that includes a swimming pool in your back yard? If so, Exterior Worlds is one of the best regarded Houston swimming pool contractors and we’d be happy to help with your project.

The process starts with the design. As longtime Houston swimming pool contractors, we are experts in the design aspect. Your choices range from lagoon pool designs to waterfall landscape designs to site-specific designs—and just about everything in-between.

Our swimming pool discussions always include safety. Areas for your consideration:

• Non-slippery surfaces in the immediate wet area.
• Depending on your lifestyle, a pool fence to safeguard who has access to the water, such as an ornamental iron fence.
• Night lighting. The lighting for your pool should be viewed as part of your overall residential landscape lighting plan with the intention of making it seamless with the whole.

If you are landscaping for entertainment, you might want to think about putting in additional water elements that elevate the design impact. Examples of these head-turners include pool water fountains and fire and water fountains.

For those of you considering landscaping remodeling, Exterior Worlds is a particularly smart choice as your Houston swimming pool contractor due to our willingness to go the extra mile in getting the job done right. While a swimming pool remodeling project certainly can be done and often is something that needs to be done, it is a complex job that requires the most from your swimming pool professionals. In other words—no time for a cookie-cutter frame of mind.

Once the design is nailed down, then as your Houston swimming pool contractor we will do the following:

• We schedule a pre-construction meeting to let you know what to expect, when and by whom.
• Simultaneously, we will begin the permitting process.
• Once the necessary approvals are in place, then comes the grading and excavating of the site.
• Rebar is then installed in the shell, as well as the plumbing and electrical work is completed.
• The pool will be sprayed with a concrete-like substance called gunite.
• After the gunite cures, comes the installation of the coping, specialty features such as outdoor fireplaces or retaining walls, and the pool deck.
• As the last step, the gunite is plastered, often using upgraded materials such as quartz finishes in a wide range of textures and colors.
• Then add water and the fun begins.

As you can tell, it is no small task to undertake the building or restoring of a swimming pool. Therefore, it may be in your best interest to hire us as general contractor, also known as a project designer. In this capacity, we bring two important assets to the table. The first advantage is that we can look at your entire landscape design to ensure that the pool integrates with the total picture and that all your landscaping zones flow together.
The second benefit is financial—we will schedule the different subcontractors, thus keeping the work progressing in a logical and timely manner, which, in the end, saves you money and aggravation.

Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has provided upscale landscape services, including project management for swimming pools construction and remodeling to the Houston area. Call 713-827-2255 for a consultation.

Houston Pool Remodeling

Of all the Houston landscaping ideas available, Exterior Worlds has found that luxury swimming pools are one of the most popular. Our clients want their landscapes to be uniquely their own, a touchstone of their aesthetics and sensibilities. In particular, with a swimming pool, they can make it a shimmering reflection of their lifestyle, an example of Houston outdoor living at its finest.

Pools have become an expected amenity for the upscale home, never more so than in these days of staycations and cocooning at home. With that in mind, many of our clients face a Houston pool remodeling project, being owners of older homes with pools built in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

A Houston pool remodeling project starts with the selection of your general contractor and swimming pool designer, such as the superlative landscaping services you will find at Exterior Worlds. We combine the talents of an expert and dramatic flair for design with listening intently to the customer and the skill to keep the complicated projects on track and on budget.

The complexity of your Houston pool remodeling job depends on many factors with the most elaborate ones being those in which everything is wrong—the wrong location, the wrong style and the wrong materials. In these cases, it’s not just the pool that needs to be retrofitted and updated; rather the entire backyard needs to be changed, added to and rearranged.

With some older pool remodels, in order to meet current regulatory requirements, we have to completely overhaul the plumbing and electrical systems. Whenever possible, we try to salvage the shell which means removing the concrete, redoing the plumbing and electrical, and then rebuilding the structure around the existing shell.

At the other end of the complexity spectrum, you have the situation in which the area can be updated by merely changing out the surrounding elements. In some cases, the pool area can be remodeled by replacing the pool deck, which is the material, usually a form of masonry, that encircles the pool. Such a pool deck remodel project allows you to coordinate its material choices with others in your master plan, restoring the tones and textures to a complementary balance. Examples of today’s material choices for pool decks include tinted and stamped concrete, brick or stone.

In general, it is good to start any remodeling project with a clear eye. You may find that once embarked upon a Houston pool remodeling project, you uncover all kinds of problems inside the shell and beneath the pool deck that need to be fixed. Leaking plumbing and worn electrical systems are just two of the most common. Since no two projects will ever be alike, this prospect underscores the necessity of hiring an experienced contractor, such as Exterior Worlds, who are experts specifically in pool remodeling.

While undertaking a swimming pool restoration, you might want to consider adding other custom hardscapes to your overall design. Luxury landscape items such as waterfalls, garden structures, and outdoor fountains, for example, create pleasing visual and auditory environs—spaces that that you, your family and your friends will enjoy for years.

Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has provided comprehensive landscape and design services in the Houston area. Call us at 713-827-2255 for a private consultation.

Tranquil Fountains

The poets tell us that a tranquil fountain soothes the soul. It does so by enchanting the eye and ear. As with all water fountains, tranquil water fountains are wonderful additions to any home landscape design. Exterior Worlds designs tranquil fountains to work a special magic by drowning out the unwanted and annoying noises of modern life without overwhelming the space.

Design is paramount with tranquil fountains. In designing this type of water fountain, your chosen site needs to be conducive to a dripping, slow flow of water. You want the water action to relate to the scale of the space.

As for application, one location for a tranquil water fountain is to design it as an exterior wall fountain. Wall fountains, which come in many different shapes and sizes, are perfect for small or oddly-shaped sites. Our clients have put them in such places as on a brick garden wall, as part of a retaining wall or to enliven a blank fence.

Versatile elements within the landscaping lexicon, tranquil water fountains work well in a range of garden styles, from small garden designs to tropical landscaping. When landscaping for entertainment, a tranquil fountain will delight your guests. For traditional landscapes, a classic urn design works beautifully.

Tranquil water fountains have a place in commercial landscaping, too, such as in restaurants, courtyards, atriums and interior commercial spaces when you don’t want voluminous water sounds and movement to overpower your clientele. For open and airy sites, such as building entrances and golf courses, large-scale fountains are more appropriate.

It is good to keep in mind that there is no one way to design or build a water fountain. You can choose among the many different approaches that will achieve your desired outcome, tranquil or otherwise. Working with open-minded professionals as you will find at Exterior Worlds, who possess technical skills and creative flair, is one of your more important decisions when installing a water fountain.

You will also want to consider a related aspect for your fountain, which is proper exterior lighting. Landscape lighting extends a water fountain’s attraction into the nighttime hours. Depending on your preferences, Exterior Worlds can design it to play up its inherent dramatic effects or accentuate the peaceful ambiance of moving water. Lights also add a safety factor, which is crucial around any water feature.

Water elements, in general, create special focal points in your custom landscaping design by providing movement and creating delightful sounds. Ponds create texture, color and depth. Waterfalls have a mesmerizing quality that is uniquely their own. Moving water adds mysteriously pleasing background music.

It feels somehow right to acknowledge that humans and water are connected at our most basic level. There is just something powerful, helpful and healing about it. Some cultures have codified that feeling, such as several Southwestern Native American cultures where you will find the belief that you should be near moving water whenever you contemplate an important decision. Moving water calms the heart, steadies the breathing, and captivates the mind’s eye, which, when you think about it, is a powerful state of being in which to decide nearly anything.

Exterior Worlds provides upscale landscaping services, such as custom water fountain designs, installations and maintenance, to fine neighborhoods in the Houston area. Call 713-827-2255 for a private consultation.

Online Landscapers

What can your online landscapers do that local landscapers can’t?
Like our name suggests, Exterior Worlds specialize in much more than simple lawn and garden landscaping. Our online landscapers create entire realms of outdoor living and entertainment. Our intention is to transform your yard into a whole new center of lifestyle, replete with all the comforts and amenities of indoor living, but with the vastness and freedom of the outside world as the essential essence of that living experience.

What do you consider to be your greatest strength?
In terms of service, our greatest strength as an online landscaper is our ability to manage every level of design and every detail of the project as a general contractor. Many landscape elements and outdoor structures require the skills of specialists to construct. These teams must have enough freedom to exercise their own particular areas of expertise, but they also need supervision and guidance so the works they create fit into place with other elements of the landscape master plan.

What plants you are knowledgeable of?
In order to service clients from all over the country (or even out of the country, for that matter), our team of online landscapers have studied plants from all over the world. We know the soil mixtures they thrive in, the temperatures that are optimal for their health and growth, and the appropriate levels of water and sunlight necessary to their survival.

When it comes time to design a garden or a flower bed, this information is vital to the creation of sophisticated drainage and irrigation systems to ensure that even nonindigenous species feel at home in your yard, and thrive regardless of your geographic location. While we do not guarantee that EVERY plant from any part of the world will grow where you live, we can do a great deal to modify your personal property into an environment that would support a number of species that you would otherwise suspect are not able to live in your area.

What structures you can create?
We create outdoor rooms and outdoor buildings.

Outdoor rooms are open-aired structures that establish a sense of special space and point of view. The online landscaper pinpoints a prime location in your yard that offers a unique vantage point of your home and key landscape elements. Decorative walls and hedges are used to create boundaries around these areas, but they are built low enough to the ground to avoid obstruction of view. Flooring materials in these areas can be anything from stone to brick to tile, depending on the landscape theme and historical/cultural origins of the home architecture. Entry gardens, morning gardens, and courtyards are common examples of outdoor rooms.

Outdoor buildings are actually more like rooms inside your house. An outdoor building has at least three walls and a roof. Inside, the online landscaper can then create an interior design that mirrors any number of room types. Our most popular outdoor buildings are outdoor kitchens and outdoor living rooms.

Pool Deck Remodel

Is your swimming pool area looking dated or rundown—or has it even become unsafe? If so, call Exterior Worlds for a pool deck remodeling project.

Let’s begin with a quick primer on swimming pool construction terminology and the finishes involved. The interior shell of a pool is covered with plaster that hardens like concrete and seals the interior of your pool. Popular upgrades used today include quartz finishes in a wide variety of colors and textures.

Next comes the pool coping, which is the area that immediately surrounds the pool. The coping locks in the pool plaster on one side and seals the deck on the other. Because you want to ensure a non-slippery surface in the immediate wet area, preferable choices are tile, stone or brick.

Then—the pool decking that encircles your luxury swimming pool. It is usually made of some kind of masonry and connects the pool to the rest of the spaces. It becomes a special dimension within your landscape design, creating usable, safe spaces that are visually pleasing.

Before you make a decision about your decking material, consider your total landscape design. You can integrate your swimming pool design into its surroundings by creating smooth transitions between the pool, yard and general background. A swimming pool adds texture to an otherwise blank and flat yard, so be creative. If you have small yard, a pool turns it into an oasis. For wood decks or flagstone patios attached to the house, you can use your pool decking choices to coordinate or contrast with them. In general, you don’t want a very dark color for your pool deck because it will absorb heat. Likewise, you don’t want it too light because of the higher maintenance.

You have a marvelous range of materials to choose from with a pool deck remodeling project. A pool deck remodel project gives you the opportunity to coordinate material choices in your landscape, something that can get out of balance in older homes that have undergone many home projects. Keep in mind that you want the tones used in the house and landscape to be complementary. Our clients’ choices include tinted and stamped concrete, brick and stone. One example of a design conscious choice would be to use a darker stone with a light grout or rich dark grout with a lighter stone color.

In discussing a pool remodeling project, all decisions should factor in safety. Now may be a good time to think about installing a fence around your swimming pool. Exterior Worlds will be happy to discuss different options. For example, you may want to highlight the fence by using custom ornamental iron fencing or, conversely, you may prefer to make it unobtrusive by having us weave bushes around its perimeter.

Some of our clients find that once they start a pool renovation project, such as pool deck remodeling, they uncover additional problems beneath the deck that need to be updated, such as the plumbing, the pool lighting and the general electrical system. Once the decking is ripped out, you have an opportunity to address those issues, too, a decision that usually saves money in the long run.

Online Exterior Design

What is an online exterior design plan?
It is a detailed document, drawn-to-scale, that represents your entire property. It includes a diagram, drawn to scale, of your home and all landscape elements.

What are some of these landscape elements?
Common examples include elements such as gardens, swimming pools, outdoor kitchens, and decorative stone walls. You may also have things like custom patios, outdoor fireplaces, and custom fountains. The distances between these elements are always clearly defined so your landscape contractor will exactly where they are to be built.

How do I obtain an online exterior design?
Online exterior design starts with a consultation. The professional landscaper will ask you a series of questions to determine where your thoughts, values, and personal preferences lie. Your favorite activities are also very important, because they provide key insights into how to develop your yard into a true outdoor living environment.

The structures on your landscape will ultimately be built according to the activity needs of the client. They are deliberately intended to respect and complement the aesthetic of your home’s architecture. Garden design is partly based upon an intention to respect home architecture, and partly on an expression of your personal likes and dislikes in flowers and plants.

The outdoor environments and hardscapes we build for you are intended to further extend living space into organic space. This is why we call our company Exterior Worlds, because what you ultimately end in with in your yard are multiple, interrelated environments that synthesize mindset, action, and complimentary organic and inorganic relationships.

Do I need to email you pictures?
Yes. Online exterior design specialists need to see pictures of your house and both the front and back yards. Try to send your designer as many as 10-15 photographs of the home from all possible angles.

These photographs should include close-ups of your home and pictures of your home as an entirety, taken from all four sides. Be sure to include pictures of architectural elements like doorways, windows, gables, porches, and upstairs balconies. Some pictures should also show the house as an entirely from each of its four sides.

Do you need anything else from me?
We will need a lot survey and a topographical map of your property so we can clearly see the boundaries of the property and grade elevation changes. We need to know where trees and utilities are located on so we can devise workarounds that preserve utility connections and tree roots from construction work that is called for in the plan.

Is online exterior design as good as what I would get from a local landscape professional?
Yes. In fact, it is often better, depending on where you live. We have been in business since 1987 and have perfected skills in every aspect of residential landscape design. Paying for a plan that is developed by an expert team can save you quite a bit of money in the long run. Whoever you choose to actually install the plan will have a clear, working picture of what needs to be done. This will reduce labor costs and prevent costly mistakes that would otherwise have to be redone at your expense.

Will you travel to my home?
Yes, for a fee. Call us to discuss this if you feel it is necessary.

Online Landscaping Ideas FAQ'a

What websites can I go to in order to get online landscaping ideas?
Walk outside and think about what you would like to see in your yard. Ask yourself honest questions and give yourself permission to be free with your imagination.

• Do you want a patio just for the two of you?
• Would you like a pool?
• What kinds of plants do you like?
• What kinds of outdoor buildings could you use for evenings outdoors?

Once you have some things in mind, simply enter your answers into the search engines. Some examples of what you might want to look for are:

• masonry
• summer kitchens
• outdoor fireplaces
• entry gardens
• garden design
• stone walkways

Bookmark links with these pictures and take some time to visualize how what you are looking at would look in your yard.

Can you take links and videos I send them and develop them further?
Yes. As a matter of fact, we encourage you to send as many online landscaping ideas as you have time to send us. Try to consolidate all links containing online landscaping ideas into a single email.

Can online landscaping ideas be based on pictures of my yard?
Absolutely. Pictures gives us a global picture of your property and help us develop the scale and scope of your landscape master plan.

Take pictures of your trees, existing landscape architecture, and existing gardens. Take pictures from all angles and include all of your trees so we can know where they are. Such perspective is the fuel for ideas that we can turn into innovative gardens, patios, and decorative architectural structures such as retaining walls, planters, fountains, and statuary.

Do you also need pictures of my home?
Yes. We actually need more pictures of your house than you probably would assume. This is because our particular method of landscape development is based on transforming your front yard and back yard into organic living environments that mirror the beauty of your home architecture.

What other resources do you recommend I turn to for ideas?
Call your title company and get a copy of the survey and topographical map of your property. We must see where property lines are and where the grade elevation changes in your yard so we can design irrigation and drainage systems.

How can I get my ideas to you?
Email is the quickest way for both of us to work. You can snail mail them if that works better for you. Fax does not work because it diminishes detail and is only black and white.

What online landscaping ideas can your team contribute to developing my landscape?
You can review our portfolio to see the details of some of our more renowned works of the past.

Houston Landscaping Design

Respect home architecture
Our particular style of Houston landscaping design devotes a tremendous amount of attention to the home itself. This is because the ultimate goal of residential landscape design is to create an outdoor living environment that rivals that of the home interior. As such, it has to mirror, to a certain extent, the living environment of the home itself.

Some homes, such as French, Mediterranean, and Colonial style homes, have historical and cultural significance. Other homes, such as modern, traditional, and contemporary, take a much more stylistic approach to architecture.

It is the professional landscaper’s duty to identify the most relevant architectural keynotes of a house and to develop landscape elements that appropriately reflect their significance.

Garden design
Garden design can be done from either a cultural/historical point of view or with a strong bent toward customization. It really depends upon the yard. Some Houston landscaping designs, much like home architecture, have very powerful cultural and historical roots. We see this a lot with French landscapes and Mediterranean forms. Others, again like the homes they compliment, may be deliberately contemporary or modernesque in design.

For every discernable style of landscaping there is a discernable style of garden design to support and enhance it. Some examples include French, English, Parterre, Japanese, Zen, contemporary, and modern.

Hardscape design
In any given Houston landscaping project, regardless of what style of architecture or garden design we find, anywhere from 60%-80% of the landscape master plan is going to consist of hardscapes or man-made structures. When we think of hardscapes, we immediately visualize patios and driveways—ie: horizontal surfaces that are level with the surface of the ground.

These forms are indeed hardscapes, but not the only ones that can be built. Technically, a hardscape is any inorganic structure that is built in a yard. Masonry, walkways, and retaining walls are some examples of vertical hardscapes.

Outdoor rooms
Outdoor rooms do not have walls the way rooms inside a house have walls—that is, walls that completely enclose you. Outdoor rooms are open to the surrounding air so Some may have hedges or small masonry walls that define their boundaries, but otherwise, they are open air structures that allow you to see the full expanse of your yard beyond.

Outdoor buildings
Outdoor buildings are another matter. Outdoor buildings always have at least three walls and some sort of ceiling. This is because they are designed to provide comfortable environments within which to entertain guests and host events. Common examples are outdoor living rooms and outdoor kitchens.

Custom swimming pools
Swimming pool renovation, remodeling, and construction are very important elements of Houston landscaping design. This is because a pool must look proportional to the home and to the yard, and because its geometry and depth must mirror the aesthetics of the surrounding garden design, tree growth, hedges, and hardscapes.

Small Garden Walls

Size does matter, so the saying goes. Yet Exterior Worlds has found that small garden walls can carry a big wallop, so don’t let the use of the word “small” here mislead you.

A classic concept within the landscaping lexicon, the small garden wall—so called due to its short height—lends its strong, clean lines to bring order and structure to a garden landscape. Short walls create zones. They direct traffic from one area to another. They divide a space. We prize the short wall in our landscape design work, particularly in the way they can bring interest to otherwise flat and uninspired terrain.

Some of ways we have used short walls for our clients:

• We have built small garden walls in entertainment areas to provide de facto seating or table space.
• They have been used as lines of demarcation, specifying areas to be highlighted—a custom swimming pool, rose garden or outdoor room.
• When built to enclose flower beds, these walls can protect the plants from wind and other elements.
• They can serve as retaining walls when constructed with proper engineering.
• With a subtle but sophisticated touch, a small wall can delineate a property line to give it clear distinction. A small wall used in this way is particularly apt for a front yard, since it creates a visual barrier rather than an actual one, thus preserving a welcoming look for your home.
• Conversely, we have used a small wall in combination with a wrought iron fence. The results—a finely crafted fence that is built for durability, longevity and beauty. These combination fences convey an open ambiance and elegance while also providing protection.

If you are working within a particular theme for your landscape design—maybe a French garden or a Southern garden—small garden walls can further underscore that choice. With a classic theme like a French garden, all you need to do is visualize the structured gardens of Versailles to understand the impact of short walls. For romantic designs like a Southern garden, a small wall builds on the sense of intimacy and enclosure.

In general, walls are versatile tools for any custom landscaping project done by Exterior Worlds. For instance, living garden walls—in which we sculpt tall plants such as a lantana, cherry laurel (both of which are drought-resistant and have the added benefit of flowering), or reedy bamboo and turn them into green and living walls—add form, interest and texture to your yard. A glass garden wall that uses architectural glass within a sturdy framework provides both definition and privacy. You even get a hint of mystery when the sun shines through it and back-lights the plants on the other side.

Whether small, glass, brick, stone, or living, exterior walls allow you to take advantage of the strength inherent in geometric lines. Your garden will bloom, grow and flourish by putting this concept to work in your landscape design. It is such design consciousness that brings distinction to a landscape, so let Exterior Worlds seamlessly integrate walls into your landscape plan.

Call Exterior Worlds at 713-827-2255 or visit www.exteriorworlds.com for more information on this topic. Providing the greater Houston area with high-end landscaping design and services since 1987.

French Courtyard on the Far Edge of the Greater Houston Landscape

There was a man with an Arabian horse farm located in New Ulm, Texas—a town not too far from the outskirts of Houston. This man is known throughout the world, and clients often visit his estate to buy the horses he breeds. He asked us to build a French courtyard from which he and his clients could overlook the horses grazing in the prairie on the south side of the hill, and offer a magnificent view of the Greater Houston landscape from the east side of the hill.

The genius of this French courtyard is that it is actually two courtyards in one. The courtyards are slightly separated from one another and connected by a limestone pathway that bisects the center of both sections and runs back to the house. A formal vegetable grows along one section, and on the side of the other section, the hill drops down to the valley below where the horses graze. The first section offers a seating area near a fountain built into a wall. The second section is actually the part of the courtyard that offers the view of the valley of horses from one angle, and the distant Houston landscape from the other.

This section is built with conversation and comfort. The sale of horses is the nature of the homeowner’s business, so the most magnificent view of the herd—and the opportunity to discuss their magnificence—is a very subtle, and also very powerful, tool of business.

The design of this seating area is deliberately austere. Although the property is technically part of the geographic outskirts of the greater Houston landscape, we did NOT want to generate the energy of a hard-driven business deal like parts of the city itself are known for.

Instead, we wanted the 18th Century look and feel of limestone chip walkways and an antique table and chair set in the center of an outdoor patio. We further expanded this historical theme by decorating the patio with an antique table and chair set that established a very strong Old World feeling more apropos to discussing the finer things in life.

Among the more notable features in this French courtyard are its skillful blend of contrasting shades of light and dark colors, and the view it offers visitors of the Greater Houston landscape and the beginnings of the Texas Post Oak Belt.

This creates a very strong feeling of order, symmetry, and vast convergence that balances all of the many organic and inorganic elements of the surrounding garden. It provides an ideal aesthetic environment to host either a formal – yet simultaneously relaxed business dinner. The owner can also use the courtyard to close friends and relatives who drop by to chat for a few hours in the beauty of the garden.

Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has specialized in developing custom projects such as this one many of the finest properties found throughout the Greater Houston area and landscape.

Houston Landscape Design with French Elements

A couple by the name of Claire and Dan Boyles commissioned Exterior Worlds to create a Houston landscape design based upon French themes and forms. The Boyles home was built in Colonial French style, with Claire having been very involved in the planning and development of its architecture. She wanted to make the surrounding property appear as those a portion of France had been lifted out of Europe and integrated into the indigenous forms and vegetation of the Houston landscape.

This design was not technically a formal French country garden. Instead, it used the essential elements of this style to transform the immediate Houston landscape around the home into the symmetry, color, and sense of formality associated with this French aesthetics. One of the more notable features we used to accomplish this was a custom swimming pool, fashioned according to the principles of linearity, complimentary right angles, and a luxury spa and pool fountain. We also added French pottery in various locations around the patio to balance the stonework against the look and structure of the home.

We then planted a formal garden parallel to the linear movement pool to reflect its. Similar to larger French country gardens, this garden is bordered by sheered bushes and emphasizes straight lines, angles, and symmetry. Its most distinguishing feature is that it consists entirely of various shades of green, which supports the feeling of a French estate embedded in an exclusive and private portion of the HOUSTON LANDSCAPE.

Just around the corner from the home’s back entrance stand a double-door entrance to the master bedroom. It is here that we built the Boyles a small patio to use as a private seating area. We deviated slightly from the strict linearity and symmetry of adjoining elements by adding pavers that ran out like steps from the patio into the grass. We planted boxwood hedges around the patio, which are common to French country garden design and further contribute to the sense of an Old World morning garden setting.

To further accentuate the patio, we added pavers that ran like steps from the seating area into the grass. We also planted rosemary and mondo as ground cover in the spaces between the patio, the corner of the house, and the back wall that borders this portion of the yard.

We then landscaped the front of the home with a grand sense of entrance by building a stone walkway that ran from the sidewalk to the front of the house, and then diverged in right angles to run parallel to the covered front porch. We also added a small parterre garden to the left side of the porch to mirror the home’s French colonial design

French country garden design is traditionally viewed as a very formal style intended to completely fill the entirety of a vast estate. The genius of the Boyles project lay not in strict adherence to tradition, but rather in adapting its basic principles to the architecture of the home and the local topography of the surrounding HOUSTON LANDSCAPE.

For more the 20 years Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston's fine neighborhoods.

Landscape Designer Online

How does a landscape designer work online?
He or she begins the project by getting a clear picture of what your home and property look like. This involves more than simply knowing what things look like. It requires a visualization of the entire scope and scale of your residence and the interrelatedness of the many elements of your landscape that collectively create an environmental experience.

If developing a landscape master plan is that comprehensive, wouldn’t I be better off simply working with someone locally who can come and stand on my property in person?
Not necessarily. The ability to see relationships between landscape elements and to direct those relationships into new directions is an inner faculty of the mind’s eye, not the physical eyes. This takes years of training and experience to develop, because the landscape designer online is working on more than simply planting gardens and building patios. He or she is actually building a new outdoor living experience that canvases the full spectrum of botanical science and complex architectural design.

I take it that you need pictures of my yard to get started?
Yes. Take several pictures of every significant landscape form on your property. Focus on things of interest like the swimming pool (if you have one), trees, and patios. We also need pictures of functional utilities like gas meters, water spickets, and any markers indicating buried cable. We need to know where these things are so we can work around them.

How many pictures will I need?
That depends on the size of your yard. Some people send in as few as 10 pictures because they have very small backyards. Others send 20-50 pictures for both the front and back yards. If you use a digital camera and email us the pictures, it is better to send us more than too few.

Do you only need pictures of the front and back of the house?
No. The landscape designer working online must build everything around the architectural aesthetic of your house. It is extremely important that we see every detail of your home from every possible angle. We need pictures of the whole house and zoomed pictures on unique elements like gables, unique roof architecture, and second or third story balconies.

We also need pictures of columns, windows, shutters, fireplaces, doorways, and brick details.

Is there anything else I should send you?
We strongly recommend you get a land survey and topographical map of your property from your title company. These documents give us statistical data about the dimensions of your property and grade elevation changes that we the landscape designers online must use to design your drainage and irrigation systems.

Does this take a lot of time over the phone?
That depends on you. Once we send you the initial master plan, you can request changes and we will revise it according to your desires. Once it is approved, you can then find a local company to install the vegetation and architectural elements we design for you.

Does this cost extra money?
Yes. Once the initial consultation is complete and the landscape designer begins working online or over the phone with you, fees apply.

Will you act as a supervisory consultant to the installation?
Yes, for a fee. We will even travel onsite if the client is willing to cover the cost.
Whatever is necessary and cost-effective for all parties concerned will be done to make the online landscape design plan a successful reality.

Online Landscape Design

How exactly will you develop an online landscape design without visiting my yard?
We have worked in this business since 1987 and have as many years of experience under our belts. We have worked with vegetation from all over the world and have extensive understanding of what goes on in any landscape.

The pictures and documents you send us provide us with a working guide. There are, of course, always minor things that are unforeseen, such as climate changes, possibly breezy environments, and rainy conditions unique to your part of the country.

This is why we offer fee-based, remote consultation services that ensure that the process is done correctly. If a site visit is warranted and affordable to client we will consider it.

How does online landscape design work?
Online landscape design begins with us getting as clear a picture of your yard as humanly possible. Photographs of your home and yard are needed so we can study your home architecture, your existing vegetation, and any structures that already exist on your yard.

How many pictures do I need to send you?
Try to get us 10-15 pictures of your house, taken from all possible angles. Then, take at least that many of your front yard, then of your back yard. It works best for everyone if you use a digital camera and simply email the pictures to our online landscape design team.

What do I need to send you in terms of pictures, emails?
Take a full 360 degrees of both the front and the back yard. Photograph trees and existing elements like water spickets, and gas meters. Be sure to include pictures of the side of the house, along with columns, brick details, arches, and windows. Include architectural details---roofline, fireplaces, and doorways.

The whole point is to give our team enough of a visual to mirror the architecture in the unfolding master plan.

What else do I need to send you?
One of the most important documents we need is a lot survey. Most homeowners receive one when they purchase their house. However, if it has been several years since you bought the house you may not have it readily available. In this case, call your title company and ask for another copy to be mailed to you.

Also, ask them to check to see if a topographical map of your property can be sent to you. This map will show us what elevation changes occur throughout your home. We need this to design your irrigation and drainage systems.

We also need to do what is called a “tree survey.” This lets us know where the trees in your yard are located so we can design a plan with tree preservation and future growth in mind.

How can I find someone locally who will actually implement your online landscape design?
The best resource is the Internet. The second best resource is referrals from neighbors who have already worked with local landscape professionals. When you find a company, check out their portfolio. Call at least three references people, interview them, and then decide which one best fits with you

Do-it-yourself landscaping

Can I pay you for remote consulting services to advise me on do-it-yourself landscaping?
Yes. That is the whole point of working with an online landscape designer. Do-it-yourself landscaping is never as easy as it looks on a website or in a magazine. There are many variables at the unseen level that require your attention that you will probably be perplexed by when you first encounter them.

What are these variables?
Things like drainage, irrigation, elevation changes, tree root protection, and basic outdoor architecture will need some personal, expert guidance at times. We can provide you with these services for a reasonable fee, guiding you through the process from start to finish.
What plants shrubs and trees are good for a do-it-yourselfer to work with?
You can work with any plants, shrubs, and smaller trees. We do not recommend large trees for do-it-yourself landscaping projects because very large trees require trucks and special digging equipment to install. Stick with smaller species like Japanese yew that you can install with hand tools and a reasonable amount of digging.

You can also handle any garden plant or flower that can grow in your area if you are unsure if a particular species will grow in your part of the country, call us. Our team of experts has over 20 years of experience in botanical science and can recommend the best plants to place in your garden.

For outdoor architecture, avoid attempting complex construction projects. Stay with basic gravel, stone walkways, and basic brick and stone masonry. Most decorative outdoor architecture can be done yourself with a few basic tools. Things like outdoor buildings need professional design and construction teams.
How can I maintain my trees and shrubs?
Hire a landscaping company for tree and shrub maintenance.

What types of outdoor masonry can I build on my own?
That depends on your do-it-yourself landscaping skills and the tools you have available. Call a member of our team before you begin and get some professional guidance on planning out your work before you begin.

Never start building anything without some kind of drawing or schematic to work with. Work only with materials you are comfortable handling.

If you are absolutely sure that you can tackle a project on your own, you may need to hire a specialist.

Can you sell me raw materials and plants?
Theoretically we could, but that would not be cost effective for you. Everything you need for do-it-yourself landscaping can be bought either locally in your area or ordered over the Internet.

Can you direct me to the best online resources?
Yes.

If I run into trouble, can you come here or find someone in my area to lend an extra pair of hands?
Yes. We will travel if the client can cover the cost of travel and onsite consulting fees. Call us if this is something you are interested in.

Online Landscape

Why seek out landscape designer work with you online?
You may not be able to find someone in your community that has extensive training and experience in landscape design. An online landscape expert can help you in this respect. The consultation and design fees are quite affordable when you consider that you are getting the basic master plan developed by an expert which you can then hire a local company to implement. This gives you the ability to control your own expenditures to a certain extent.

A professional that knows how to develop an online landscape master plan can help you design gardens, pools, patios, and outdoor buildings—all remotely. A member of our team can consult with your local contractor(s) during installation for a fee.

How can you design a plan that someone else is able to implement?
We send you a survey that will allow us to develop your online landscape plan according to your personal desires and lifestyle. Do you have any children? Do you want a swimming pool, and if so, what style? Do you have pets?

We also want to know what plants you like and do not like.

Once we receive the survey, our online landscape design specialist will call you for an in depth interview to gather greater detail on your answers and develop a thematic conceptual for your master plan.

What types of reference materials will I need to send you?
For online landscape design, we need as much of a visual on your home and both yards as possible. First, photography your home and entire property in as much detail as possible. The average online landscape client will use a digital camera to take anywhere from 10-15 pictures of the house and at least that many of both the front and back yards respectively.

We will also need a survey of the lot. Normally, you receive this survey at the time of your home purchase. If you did not receive it, or if you have misplaced it, you can obtain a new one from the title company.

One very important document that our team will also need is a topographical map of your property. This shows the elevation changes of your yard so we can design appropriate grades and drains into your landscape master plan.

Finally, we will need a tree survey of your yard so we can develop your yard’s new look and feel with tree preservation and maintenance in mind. Send these documents by email when you have them along with a copy of the survey.

What happens after you have reviewed all my information?
We build a preliminary concept and email it to you for review. Then we have another phone interview to modify if necessary. Once approved, the final plans are drawn up and sent to you.

How do I find people to install it?
We recommend looking on the Internet for landscapers in your area. For outdoor architecture and construction, you may need to hire specialists. We can provide you with a list of the types of specialists you should look for.

Do you supervise these specialists as a general contractor?
To a certain extent, we can work with them remotely for a fee. We can review bids, coordinate team initiatives, or even talk to your contractors.. If you need us to fly out and work onsite for a general contractor, we can do it if scale or economics warrant it.

What is curb appeal?

How do you define curb appeal?
It is the perspective that you gain just as you approach the home from the front curb. Curb appeal is directly tied to the value of the home and is vital to those looking to upgrade the appearance of the property prior to listing the home on the market.

What is its purpose?
To create and direct the emotion created by the Houston landscape. Adding curb appeal distinguishes a home as preeminent among other dwellings on the block and adds attraction factor to the innate worth of the dwelling.

Curb appeal is critical because it is the first impression one gets of a home owner’s personality, and a first impression is worth a thousand words.

What hardscapes enhance curb appeal?
The most effective hardscapes are those that tie architecture in with the natural elements of the Houston landscape. This always lends appeal to a home because it suggests closeness to Nature and outdoor living that add a sense of warmth and invitation even to inorganic elements and architectural structures.

What are some examples of superb work in hardscaping that you have done?
One in particular that stands out was a Tanglewood home with a driveway that was nothing more than a concrete slab surrounded by San Augustine grass. During the hotter months of the year the grass would die in places, leaving brown patches that added unsightliness to an already drab front yard.

We completely transformed this yard by replacing the circle drive with a brick walkway framed by boxwoods and dwarf monkey grass. This new combination of design and color had the effect of drawing the eye away from the surrounding Houston landscape and focusing it on the center of the home.

How can garden design contribute to curb appeal?
It is very important. In fact, many regard it as the basis of creating great curb appeal. A lack of garden design can make a yard appear disordered. If the home is located in a part of the Houston landscape that lacks little aesthetic in its own right, the absence of garden design can actually create a sense of chaos.

What role do trees play in curb appeal?
Trees add scale and control the perspective of houses. In some neighborhoods they screen the home from surrounding residences.

What other plant materials are crucial to this process?
Flowers are very important here because they add color to the Houston landscape. They decorate the yard with vibrancy and color, which in turn accentuates the home with an added dimension of outdoor décor.

What outdoor architecture can be added to front yard landscaping?
Many architectural elements stereotypically conceived as back yard structures only can actually be used to beautify a front yard. These elements include fountains and small patios. More complex structures can also be added such as walls, steps, and pedestals. The latter are very important anytime it is necessary to create a sense of grand entryway.

Centering your Houston Landscape Design around Your Garden

What do you mean as a designer by “centering”? Does that mean the center of the yard?
No, in terms of organization, it means centering the garden on the main access to the house. Typically there is a centerpoint to a home and a corridor that runs through the property to it.

A garden can often be centered on this. If this is not possible, there are rooms that setup view corridors to the Houston landscape. The garden(s) can be centered on these corridors. In effect, we are always working off a central axis of the home somewhere, somehow.

What is a view corridor, and where are they found?
Anything that gives you a view of the Houston landscape is a view corridor. From the perspective of the house proper, such corridors would include windows, doorways, and walkways of ingress (going into the home) and egress (going out of the home.)

Does the garden have to be a certain size?
A garden never is limited by size. The issue here is scope and scale. You want your garden to be proportional to the house and yard.

A master landscape design plan for a townhouse may call for a garden that is only six feet wide. On the other hand, a three acre estate may have a 200 foot garden in the back yard. The whole point is to make the garden proportional to the central access corridor inside the home.

Does every landscape master plan have this attribute?
No, but it is a driving principle of professional landscape design. Some plans in certain unique instances do not involve the planting of gardens. However, almost every other Houston landscape project we do will involve at least one garden, and the principle of centering it applies according to the guidelines discussed here.

When are their exceptions to this rule?
Sometimes gardens are planted to the side of the house and off the axis of the main transit points. They can also be planted alongside of curved, linear, and natural walkways that lead away from architecture to remote or private destinations in the back of a yard.

Gardens planted along these walkway are not intended to support the form of a building, but rather communicate the idea of moving into a highly differentiated and unique portion of the Houston landscape set aside for special interests and activities.

Do you normally integrate inorganic into a garden?
Yes, we frequently integrate elements such as fountains, gravel, masonry walls, linear planters, mirrors, glass, steel beams, and trellises.

Do every plant gardens inside of hardscapes?
No, but we will leave areas open to plant flowers, grass, small trees. We can plant herbs and dwarf grasses to make it look older. Sometimes we can build a natural retaining wall with ferns growing out of it. This could be seen as gardens in a sense because they integrate greenery into stonework and concrete.

This is done in both the front yard and back yard?
Yes. We plant gardens in both, but the back yard almost always provides more design opportunities. Front yard gardens are limited by the perspective of front ingress and the front door.