Minimalist Landscape Design

Isn’t minimalist landscape design the same thing as contemporary landscape design?
It can be because it follows the same aesthetic principle of “less is more,” but in actuality it is much more than that. Minimalism goes back all the way to ancient Greece and Rome and really is all about a controlled approach to plant life cultivation that emphasizes the imposition of human order and the concepts of symmetry and geometry over the wild random patterns of nature. As such, minimalist tendencies are found in all derivative cultural landscape forms that were either once occupied by Rome or influenced by Greco-Roman principles. Consequently, you can apply this approach to landscaping to your yard if you like regardless of the style of your home or the size of your lot.

Can I do this myself?
This is not a task for the do-it-yourselfer. Minimalist landscape design requires a very precise approach to designing each element with just enough detail as to focus attention and please the senses, but never overwhelm them. At the same time, the entire yard must look like an interrelated array of separate elements conjoined by pathways and lighted corridors of interest. This requires close attention to geometry, proportion, scale, and even the grade of the land itself to pull off effectively.

What does your company focus on when creating a minimalist landscape design?
We focus on the following four elements: gardens, architectural walls, custom patios, and water elements.

Gardens
Successful minimalist garden design hinges on doing just enough with plant material but never overdoing the colors or the number of the plants themselves. This is more practical from both an aesthetic perspective and from an outdoor living. The garden becomes more of an outdoor room that can be experienced than a thing to overwhelm the eye. The trick here is to carefully select plants that will stand out as individual elements that share a common theme of interconnectedness when viewed as a whole. Spacing and geometry are much more important here than crowding lots of different plants together like a miniature jungle of greenery and color.

Architectural Walls
Masonry is every important to minimalist landscape design, and is perhaps the one element other than hedges that has survived since ancient times. Stone has always been a mainstay in building architectural walls, but it can be a very costly one. Bricks can work just as well due to the variety of brick colors and types available to masonry specialists. When we build walls, we make sure that the size of the wall, the color of the walls, and the overall geometry of any outdoor room we build works to contain, focus, and direct the flow of organic energy in the cultivated areas of the garden and the yard.

Custom Patios
Custom patios can be constructed from stone, concrete, brick, even wood to create a solid surface that supports human transit. Most important minimalist landscape design, patios help space out the plant life by occupying areas that would otherwise be filled with too much greenery and color.

Water elements
Water elements are used to highlight points of interest and to center garden outdoor rooms in minimalist landscape design. Many people often forget that the swimming pool is a water element in its own right as well and make the mistake of hiring a swimming pool company to build or remodel their pool. This will always diminish, if not outright destroy, the minimalist nature of the landscape because the pool will not “fit” the geometry and layout of the other elements of the landscape master plan.

Swimming pools should be designed by the landscaping professional just like the fountains, natural points, reflecting ponds, and infinity pools that are often used to punctuate high-end properties. This will ensure that the specifications of the pool respect the home and surrounding property and will provide the pool contractor that we bring in with a better frame of reference to work with.

Minimalist Garden Design

What characterizes minimalist garden design?
It is an approach to gardening based upon the belief that less is more. Plant materials are carefully selected. Unusual materials are often integrated into the softscape in very innovative ways. Hardscapes are used to establish strong lines and stark geometry. There is also a heavy emphasis on symmetry.

What are some of the more unique elements used in this design?
It often draws upon industrial elements such as stainless steel and glass. These elements are deliberately placed in a way as to suggest human dominion over natural forces. Contemporary art is very common in landscapes where the home itself is characterized by a very avant garde design that warrants reflection and compliment throughout the landscape. Water is also used to establish a sense of peace and tranquility. This can be in the form of a custom fountain or a reflecting pool centered within the various elements.

How popular is this garden design?
Minimalist garden design has been around for centuries. Many cultures have found that a less-is-more approach to landscaping is a great way to express certain values and traditions in a clearly recognizable way that avoids overwhelming the senses. In recent times, this approach to gardening has exploded in popularity—partly due to the popularity of contemporary landscaping design.

Does minimalist garden design only work with contemporary landscapes?
No. As we have noted here and in previous blogs, minimalism goes all the way back to Greek and Roman times. Because of this, you can find traces of minimalism in every popular European garden design style, including French Formal, Parterre, English, Italian, and Mediterranean. You also see minimalism in Japanese gardens as well. Minimalism is a philosophy, remember, not a single style. Any landscaping style can benefit from the controlled, conservative aesthetic it represents.

What are some specific benefits of minimalist garden design?
It is an ideal lifestyle compliment to young professionals who have just recently purchased their first home. It is low maintenance by nature, so the homeowner never has to worry about upkeep. Due to its cautious use of softscape elements, it also has a very clean appearance which adds attraction factor to home entertainment events. The reduced sense of clutter gives the yard a greater feeling of spaciousness that leaves plenty of room to develop other areas of interest throughout the property. Everything from swimming pool design, outdoor kitchen architecture, sports recreation areas, and courtyards can look good all year round when complimented by a garden that works more to compliment geometry, landscape design them, and activity than it does to draw attention exclusively to itself.

Are there any problems with minimalism I should be aware of?
If you are a do-it-yourselfer, minimalist garden design is definitely a problematic aesthetic that is best outsourced to a professional landscape designer. Do not be deceived into thinking minimal means easy. The phrase “less is more” is a literary oxymoron—something that appears to make no sense at face value. Many people who try to plant minimalist gardens themselves create something that looks barren or boring because they overdo the “less” part of the equation.

Such a tightrope of design can only be walked by a landscape designer who can implement minimalist garden design as one of many interrelated components of a landscape master plan. This master plan is intended to create an outdoor living space that compliments the architecture of your home and ties all of the surrounding landscape features together.

Landscape design tree placements

By employing the design principles of scale, line and balance in exemplary ways, high end landscapes in the Houston area make elegant use of trees. Well-placed trees connect the open space with the man-made architecture, yoking them together into a unified whole. At Exterior Worlds, landscape design tree placement within your Houston landscape is part science, part art. While the initial goal may be the practical consideration of creating shade, we have an opportunity with a landscape design tree project to unify the look of your property and give it long-lasting stylishness.
When you are talking about objects in the landscape that are not easily moved, such a trees, bush planting and foundation planting—research pays off. You don't want to invest a lot of time and money into them only to arrive at a displeasing outcome in a few years when the plants have matured. In general, tall trees planted at the corners of the house soften the edges and anchor it in the site. By creating the illusion of association, they can make a small house appear larger. Medium-size flowering trees, such as dogwood and crape myrtle, have a voluminous affect, perfectly suitable for a cottage-style home.

As an example of their use in an urban landscaping plan, a row of trees along a street might offer a sense of enclosure or noise barrier. At the same time, you also might want some well-placed openings that welcome viewers to enjoy the garden space from the street. We can help you achieve both goals.
Trees are also important elements in estates landscaping. They create necessary walls and boundaries by drawing lines in the expansive space. They complement your home’s architecture, such as the way narrow trees accentuate its height or a blank wall seemingly invites the placement of a tree. For traditional homes, the upright, columnar effect of species found in some oak, juniper, or cypress groups are easily handled. Spreading and weeping trees reinforce the horizontal lines of contemporary homes.

Trees can be important contributors to a landscape design for low maintenance. Colorful foliage can address year-round color needs; for instance, the fruit-bearing American holly is a good choice for southern gardens. However, beware of planting too much of the same species, because the landscape will have little to offer when these trees stop flowering. Instead, we encourage our clients to choose plants with staggered bloom cycle throughout the year.

One important aspect of your landscape design tree project is Houston tree lighting. Lighting, with the ensuing interplay of shadow, light and movement, turns trees into magical beings at dusk and dark. Also, lit trees give a property more depth and dimension. We are experts at developing the most appropriate lighting schematics while also ensuring the health of your trees.

For a successful landscape design tree project, an investment in a residential landscape designer such as Exterior Worlds is a smart use of resources. Our knowledge is invaluable when you take into account the long-term impact of trees. By determining what trees you need for balance, environmental reasons and overall visual effect, we help you assess the trees’ influence on your garden design.

Minimalist Design

Minimalism can be found in many different types of gardens and landscapes, including formal, French, Italian, Mediterranean, and small garden design. All of these cultures share Greeks and Roman origins. These classical societies were the first to use minimalist in the ancient world for civil engineering and landscaping. Minimalism, to them, was the embodiment of their values of moderation and order.

Minimalist design in architecture and landscaping actually help the Romans condition subject peoples into liking their new lives in the empire. The linear plantings of boxwoods and poplars replaced the wild, chaotic underbrush of jungles and swamps. Topiaries shaped like predatory animals replaced the actual animals that disputed the human position at the top of the food chain.

Of course, the reasons for minimalist design changed greatly after the fall of Rome. It was no longer needed for civil and social conditioning and engineering. However, European aristocracy never lost its fascination for posterity, and sometimes out a megalomaniac desire to rebuild the Roman Empire led to a renewed passion in all things classical. While such Humpty Dumpty maneuverings never made any real political progress, but they did make way for a diversification of classical garden and landscape designs into all of the many cultural forms we are familiar with today.

Again, while none of these landscape designs have to be minimalist by nature, all of share common classical roots and can be customized to Houston landscapes with similar intentions to those of classical landowners. While we may not be fear Nature like our ancestors did, we still want to control it.

Ours obsession with controlling Nature has always been present with humanity since we made a conscious, collective decision not to stop being eaten by other animals. However, since the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th Century, we have become obsessed with controlling almost every aspect of Nature. We are no longer looking to simply control wildlife and ecosystems, but to manipulate the very laws of Nature itself. As a result, the mathematical, the scientific, and the abstract have now replaced the organic and the symbolic elements of art and spirituality.

Geometry is now even more important to minimalist design because it serves as the one link between what remains of the organic world, the architecture of the home, and the abstract realms of human thought. Unlike their classical equivalents, contemporary and modern minimalist gardens and yards do more than try to control and limit natural growth. They actively seek to replace natural elements with inorganic features like hardscapes, rocks, gravel, statuary, and outdoor art. This challenges your sense of order and reality, and it forces you to draw conclusions on an exclusively subjective basis.

Garden Designers

Garden designers possess high levels of knowledge and discernment when it comes to design principles, plants and ecological systems. Working in Houston landscapes, Exterior Worlds’ ultimate goal is to develop a yard landscape design that will meet the needs and goals of our clients—and in the process, create a thing of beauty.

As specialists known as one of the top landscaping firms in the region, Exterior Worlds displays dexterity in working in the two basic systems of garden designs: formal and natural designs. We also pay attention to the long-term character of these projects, including their maintenance requirements.

Do you have a remodeling project on the horizon such as a backyard remodeling job? As garden designers, we can help you work through the myriad decisions about what to keep, what to take out, and what to re-do. Our clients have found that, in the long run, it saves them money since we bring a fresh eye and energy to the looks of your property—something that you thought there was no hope for might only need a touch of restoration.

For projects that are particularly comprehensive, we can discuss the possibility of landscape phasing. In this process, the design is implemented over time using incremental steps, giving you the opportunity to space out your cash outlay but still follow a logical plan. An example of such a plan for softscapes:

• In phase one, we concentrate on the plantings by the house
• In the second phase, we design the beds in the side yard.
• In the third step, we concentrate on specialty plantings, such as a rose garden.

A garden designer focuses on more than plants and their placement, however. We also apply our expertise to the hardscapes of your landscape design. For example, if softscapes are not factored in, a swimming pool landscape design can quickly become hard-edged and unforgiving, something we always avoid.

Likewise, landscapers don’t simply rely on the big, flashy elements. In fact, we have found that the really pleasing affects are often small touches. An antique ornamental iron element may add character and uniqueness to the overall design. Or perhaps a custom iron wall planter—or series of them—in just the right place can quietly complete the ambiance. Expertise in both big and small choices exemplifies the very best landscape designers.

As garden designers with an abundance of education, enthusiasm and experience, we provide a wealth of knowledge to clients who want a special theme for their garden. French gardens, a garden theme that works well in the flat topography of the Gulf Coast, are popular here. Like some parts of France, our coastal plains naturally invite the formal garden beds used in knot gardens and parterre gardens, which are integral to French gardens. As another example, Zen gardens, which have their origins in the desire to represent complex and universal truths in simple forms, use sand and stone to create meditative spaces. In keeping with our basic business philosophy, Exterior Worlds will work with you on what works best for your specific site while still meeting your wants and preferences.

Contemporary Patio

What are the advantages of a contemporary patio?
You may not have read this before, but a patio is actually less expensive than a deck. This is especially true if standard cost materials are used and no masonry walls are built around its surface.

In addition to being a money saver, a contemporary patio can be built with maintenance free materials. You can expect to get decades—not years—of perpetual enjoyment out of your new hardscapes. Another advantage is that you can have it build in any geometric shape and any size that complements your home architecture and ties it into the theme of your modern landscape. Many are actually curved with radial arcs to break up the linearity that repeats throughout a contemporary landscape.

Advantages of Patios

What about furniture for my contemporary patio?
New developments have allowed manufactures to duplicate the types of furniture that have always been used indoors. You can get everything from ottomans to chairs and dining room tables that are weather resistant. The trick is to make sure that you match the design and color of your furniture to something that will work with you home and your landscape. Ask our team for advice on this, because we know several places where you can find furnishings that will work for you on this level.

What kind of plants go well with a contemporary patio?
We prefer to use plants that are darker in color because of how they compliment the minimalism of the typical modern landscape. You see, vegetation is not the primary material that makes a contemporary yard actually work. Geometry and repetition are more important. Contemporary landscaping is all about the mind and its constant tendency to segment and create relationships out of abstract elements. Vegetation is tightly controlled and used as adjunct support to geometry and form. Around the edges of the patio, we normally plant low-level cover that would form a border of emphasis. For vertical impact, we often plant bamboo around the edges—particularly an edge that intersects with a wall. If you want vertical impact inside the patio surface itself, another thing we can do is to remove a portion of the hardscape and turn it into a planter for tall plants or even small trees.

What type of materials do you build contemporary patios with?

Real Stone
When stone is finished and polished, it is the very best material to use for building a contemporary patio. The costs are significant, however, because it is expensive to cut and finish the stone to this level of refinement. You also have to pay for higher labor rates because stone must be hand laid with careful, methodical, and deliberate attention.

Stone has the most natural outlook, most durable but also the most expensive type of patio materials. It require good skills to install because each stone greatly varies in shape and size. Additionally, mortar compound is used to adjoin these stones and settle as they dry. It is designed to wear well in high-traffic, need little maintenance and could last for decades.

Cultured Stone
Stone veneer is lighter and less expensive than real stone. It is a manufactured material that imitates real stone, but it does not have to be quarried and polished. Veneer can be cut with saws and laid out in blocks on the ground like bricks. Simple mortar is all you normally need to hold veneers together.

Concrete
Plain concrete works very well with any contemporary landscape. It suggests a sense of very stark absolutes that go hand-in-hand with the rugged Mentalism of modern outdoor landscaping.

Of course, you may want your patio to look a bit more decorative if it is right next to your house. In that case, we can either stamp or stain the color to make it appear more like finished stone.

Brick
Brick is good for smaller patios and for building hardscapes that are circular in design. There are many patterns we can create with bricks that generate radii and linear expansions of movement.

Garden landscaping design

What is the purpose of garden landscaping design?
The intent of garden design is to provide peace of mind and aesthetic unity between the landscape and the architecture of the home. Gardens tie all things together, from hardscapes, trees, outdoor water features, and swimming pool design.

How should garden landscaping design make a person feel?
The most important thing is to make you and those you invite over feel a sense of warmth and invitation. Because vegetation is alive, it carries with it the very warmth of life itself. Sculpting vegetation into forms and patterns that magnify this warmth is the heart and soul of all garden landscaping design. Objects placed within the vegetation should add vertical impact and provide focal points so people will focus their attention on the rich sensory experience the garden has to offer.

Are focal points important to garden landscaping design?
Yes, because they give the eye something to rest on. This allows you to slow down and explore the rest of the garden. When you have company over, this is vital to the creation of a sublime and beautiful moment when your guests see your garden for the first time. The size, shape, or color of the focal point can attract their attention or help them navigate to other points of interest.

In the case of navigation, garden entryways are extremely important because they establish the mood of the entire garden experience. An entry can be something as simple as a wrought iron fence, or it can be much more complex, such as a masonry wall with an arched entrance. Sometimes pergolas and arbors are also used as entryways to very large and formal gardens to create a sense of drama and scale.

Is it true that a garden should have many different kinds of plants and flowers?
Generally speaking, Houston gardens do better when they consist of carefully selected plant materials that are arranged with appropriate designs. Too many different plants and colors of flowers hits the mind with more of a patchwork explosion of sense rather than a controlled, deliberate, unified field of aesthetic. This is the mistake most commonly made by do-it-yourselfers and cheap garden and lawn companies. They think more is better, and the more the merrier and better.

In reality, repetition of key elements is the secret to professional garden landscaping design. Just a few plant species interspersed with the right hardscape materials can them be used to generate repeating themes that reflect and compliment the architecture of the home and blend the garden with other features on the landscape.

Is repetition really all that importation in garden landscaping design?
Yes. It is extremely important. You see repetition in Nature itself, everywhere you look. Go to any valley, beach, mountain, forest, or desert, and you will see repeating shrubs, flowers, and tree growth with a symmetry that looks as though it has arranged itself. Nature’s beauty has been attributed by many to a simplicity that seems wise beyond human logic. In landscape design, we work to duplicate this simplicity by emphasizing geometry, pattern, and style with a less-is-more approach that is more subtle and suggesting than it is strong and overpowering.

Houston Outdoor Water Features

What are outdoor water features?
Water features are decorative landscape features that use water as their main element. . The use of water to decorate landscapes goes back thousands of years in Western, Middle Eastern, and Eastern Society. Water is a universal symbol of spirit and life, and as such connotes tranquility and peace to the deepest level of the unconscious mind.

What are some of outdoor water features used today?
Just a few include reflecting ponds, waterfalls, custom fountains, and natural ponds. They are most commonly built as the center pieces of gardens. Here, they ground the essence of water as a symbol as something that is also vital to sustaining the very life of vegetation.

There are exceptions to this, however. You may, for example, have a contemporary home that is surrounded by a landscape with very little greenery. The Mentalist nature of such a yard would require us to use outdoor water features to create a sense of fluid linkage between lines, angles, and radii that punctuate the landscape.

Custom fountains play a very important role in contemporary landscaping because they are often used to replace tall-growth vegetation as a means toward achieving vertical impact. They can also be built into very unique places, such as beds of gravel, Zen-like gardens, or even the middle of a patio.

Can’t I just buy a fountain and install it myself?
Creating order, system, and spectacle all in a singular focal point, however, is not something easy for the do-it-yourselfer or the amateur garden services company to do. Forget about buying pre-fabricated wall fountains or fountain basins from cutesy little garden depots on the side of the road. These elements will not compliment a truly professional landscaping master plan, nor will they work with the specifics of your home architecture when you drag them home and attempt to make them work with their new environment.

Design expertise and professional masonry are what you need to achieve the outcome you truly seek in an outdoor water feature.

Why should I consider spending money on custom outdoor water features?
You should consider the money you spend on any professionally developed water element as an upgrade of your yard that will add curb appeal to your home and property. As we already mentioned, water’s universality as a symbol guarantees its popularity to the viewer, provided it is properly design and constructed.

Are lighting and outdoor water features compatible?
They are not only compatible, but highly recommended as partner elements. Many different types of lights can be installed in and around water elements. The most effective lights are those that go underwater and illuminate the surface from within. This adds the equivalent of a fourth dimension to the vertical element of a fountain or waterfall, and it creates the illusion of greater depth in ponds and pools.

Landscape Design Firms

With landscape design firms like Exterior Worlds, our palette and canvas is the Houston landscape. We are professionals trained in principles of design who are skilled in horticulture and construction techniques. For example, our expert design teams have adroit use of color, as shown by the use of primary, secondary, tertiary and complementary colors in design plans. Adding color to a landscape design communicates interest, depth and texture. Care is taken not to overuse color, however, since it can result in a garish, overly busy plan that could even detract from the design. We further demonstrate our color expertise not only with plant choices but in material choices as well, ones that properly accentuate your home.

Another example of the tools that we have at our disposal is the design principle of line. Within a landscape design, lines dictate space and style. Biomorphic lines, with their organic shapes that mimic natural environments, offer possibility, exploration and discovery. When circles and ellipses overlap and yield to each other, the sharing of space is conveyed. Arcs, either circular or elliptical, provide an occasion to pause or gather in a particular spot. Straight lines communicate movement while curves enhance the overall flow within the space.

Similar to other landscape design firms, we use both hardscapes and softscapes to create these lines. Perhaps we’ll do it with the hard edge of a deck, patio, retaining garden wall, pathway or Houston driveway. Equally valid, we may draw lines in space with landscape design tree placement or foundation planting. The line form chosen—be it straight, curved, circular or elliptical—defines the space and demonstrates a certain landscape style. Their proper usage results in your desired experience.

One important skill that Exterior Worlds provides our clients is our expertise in the infrastructure of landscape architecture. Even though the design elements like line and color, scale and placement, are attention-grabbers and get all the accolades, very often it is the unseen work of our design team that feeds the consistency of your pleasure in it.
Here we’re talking about such non-sexy topics as irrigation systems and yard drainage, which, when done right, reside beneath the surface and keeps your plant materials healthy and your ongoing maintenance at a minimum.

Landscape design firms in Houston, including Exterior Worlds, give swimming pool landscape design a lot of attention. Since our climate welcomes a luxury pool, it usually becomes the center of outdoor living. We have specialists who focus just on the swimming pool environment and cater to every aspect of the pool to come up with a plan specifically for your wants, needs and site capacity.

One last tip for those homeowners who are in the process of hiring the best landscape design firm for your exterior design: we highly recommend that you ascertain their skill at maneuvering through the permitting process for standard items such as drain and irrigation systems, fencing and tree preservation. Exterior Worlds has turned it into a fine art and our proficiency in this area can save you money, time and aggravation during the installation phase.

Decorative Masonry

What is decorative masonry?
Decorative masonry is a special form of hardscape that adds beauty and dimension to a landscape.

Does it cost a lot of money?
Although its purpose is deliberately aesthetic, it can be used to build function into décor as much as it can build décor into the property. Its cost is relative to the size and nature of the form it produces. Material costs vary, and labor rates are defined by the length of time it takes to build a certain feature.

Don’t think about decorative masonry as something that you have to invest a lot of money in per se. Think of it as something that is included as a significant aspect of your landscape master plan.

What are some common materials used in decorative masonry?
You may assume at first that decorative masonry is primarily brickwork. After all, the image of the mason we have in our minds often depicts a workman laying bricks. However, concrete is just as common as brick on many properties, and on some, even more common than brick.

Concrete can be used to build beautiful and memorable hardscapes that add interest and drama to the landscape.

How can concrete possibly be decorative?
It becomes decorative through the addition of color and texture. Coloration can be done by adding pigments to the mix, or it can be added through a sophisticated staining process after the concrete hardens. Textures can be stamped or even brushed into the surface while the concrete is still wet. Brooms, trowels, rock salt, and even sponges can create decorative masonry patterns in what would have otherwise been a simple slab of hardscape staring up at the sky.

Keep in mind, too, that for certain styles of landscaping, such as contemporary and modern, white cement is perfect for creating stark contrasts, points of drama, and glaring sentiments of Mentalism. So in this context, even something non-decorative can be decorative in a setting that by nature defies convention.

Is decorative masonry only limited to hardscape?
You may be using the term hardscape as a synonym for a flat surface such as a driveway, a patio, or a sports court. The actual definition of hardscape is much broader than this. The term actually refers to any inorganic structure that is built in either the front or back yard.

Viewed from this perspective, you can immediately see how many forms you are already familiar with can be created in your yard to add vertical impact to the scenery. This is critical when you consider how flat the Houston landscape is and how important a sense of three dimensions is to generating curb appeal.

What are some of these structures?
Walls of all types constitute a significant percentage of the decorative masonry built in residential landscape design. Courtyard walls create seclusion and backdrops for up lighting. Architectural walls can subdivide a large property into smaller zones of special interest. Planter walls can combine the inorganic with the organic by creating and artificial base out of which springs life. Custom fountains create movement and a sense of the essence of light—especially when illuminated with special underwater lights. Outdoor fireplaces provide warmth in the winter and the illusion of fire in the summer thanks to hidden, special lights that cause the flu to glow even though nothing is actually burning inside.

What materials do you use to build these structures?
Stone is a preferred material for patio design when the homeowner is willing to cover the cost of its purchase, finishing, and installation. It can also be used to build any number of wall structures. Concrete pavers can be used to mimic stone at a much lower cost. Brick is another masonry mainstay that is reliable enough to use as a building material for housing, and certainly reliable enough to use for any outdoor architecture as well.

Houston Masonry Specialist

If you need a masonry specialist to upgrade or build hardscape elements in your yard, let Exterior Worlds find you one and manage the invoice from a design-build perspective. It will serve your long-term interests better if let one of our designers draft a landscape master plan first. Once that is in place, masonry specialists can be brought to handle certain aspects of construction work.

A few examples include:

Patios
These custom hardscapes are built to the size and scale needed for the specific activities they are intended to host. They are also built to be as aesthetic as possible in relation to the home, garden design, and surrounding outdoor architecture.

Entry Gardens
Masonry specialists often help build the architectural and decorative walls around these special garden gateways that transition front yard space to back yard space. They also work on custom patio construction using any number of materials that range from stone to brick to decorative concrete. These architectural walls can be built at virtually any desired height. Taller walls create privacy and enclosure. Shorter walls help frame the view of your front and back yards.

Retaining Walls
These remarkable structures that hold back the grade of the otherwise flat Houston landscape that is so very vulnerable to flooding. Such a structure is always built to look as good as it works. This is why it is so important to have it designed properly by those who understand drainage and irrigation, and then to have it built by masonry specialists who have the expertise needed to build the structure as a prominent and highly decorative point of interest in the yard.

Walkways
Walkways are key to making smaller yards look yard and larger yards look less overwhelming. When created in a small yard, they tend to magnify the perceived acreage of the lot. In larger yards, they divide portions of the lot into special areas of interest.

Think beyond the sidewalk when you think about walkways and paths. Contractors can build them out of all sorts of materials such as brick, pavers, stones, and decorative concrete. The transition they give to you and your guest contributes a superb sense of completion to a residential landscape design.

Masonry expertise is usually needed when constructing these forms due to the complexity of laying out stones, bricks, or pavers in such a way as to make them safe for transit and durable for long-term usage.

If you know of a masonry company they has already worked for you in the past, or if your homebuilder referred you to one, feel free to ask this company to talk with our team about a subcontract relationship. Provided that all parties agree to follow the specifics of the landscape master plan, you can expect the outcome to be better than anything you have experienced before.

Houston Landscape Designers

Landscape designers take primary elements—open space, plants, hardscapes and naturally-occurring elements—and arrange them into interesting compositions, thereby turning a mere yard into a landscape. Your Houston landscape becomes soothing or naturalistic or out of the ordinary. Or whatever your intention was in working with a landscape designer in the first place.

At Exterior Worlds, our team of landscape designers begins with a frank and open conversation to ascertain your needs and wants, your lifestyle, limitations and preferences. Based on our expertise in the Gulf Coast region, we stay attuned to the inherent differences in the many upscale neighborhoods in our area. Something that works in Bellaire landscaping may not necessarily work in Piney Point landscaping due to varying terrain, vegetation, soil, or regulatory and permitting constraints. Our ability to deal with these difficult, time-consuming and sometimes conflicting demands is where we prove our value to you.

From these discussions, our landscape designers develop landscape master plans, which address issues such as:

• The purpose of your landscape. Perhaps landscaping for entertainment is important. Or maybe you want a tropical landscaping or butterfly garden design, both highly compatible with our climate. The exploratory discussion brings these concepts to the forefront.
• Hardscapes, the non-plant features in your yard. This category includes the various and marvelous accoutrements that define luxury landscapes, such as wrought iron fencing and driveway gates, patios, custom swimming pools and outdoor fireplaces.
• The infrastructure of the yard. This necessary segment covers drainage, erosion and irrigation matters. Just to highlight one of them: Houston property owners regularly deal with the double-edged problem of torrential rains falling on flat topography. Since all that water has to go somewhere, the question is—where? Exterior Worlds has years of expertise in all these critical concerns.

We always incorporate solid design principles in our landscape plans. Let’s take line theory as an example. Lines, whether tangible or intangible, indicate movement and flow from one zone to another. They also help define a raw space and guide the placement of hardscapes. You could even say that lines have a style of their own since there are many types of lines and each impacts the space in different ways. As an example, curvilinear lines naturally flow and reflect the shapes found in nature. With this line type, we work to reveal the designer’s hand instead creating an ungoverned and wild messiness. At the opposite end of the spectrum are rectilinear lines that imply a grid and convey a very formal style. Here, the space is kept carefully in balance and symmetrical, which can sometimes veer into rigidity and coldness, something our designers work to avoid.

In the end, you want a designer who is creative while staying attuned to your wants and needs. Additionally, this professional must possesses material know-how, including the suitability and durability of materials specifically for our climate, and has to know local construction standards—a combination of skill and talent that you will find at Exterior Worlds, with your Houston home and garden being the ultimate beneficiary.

Custom Patio

Is professional landscaping important to the design of my custom patio?
Yes. This is why you need to have it built by a landscaper. Plants soften the hardscape and differentiate outdoor living from indoor living.

Is professional hardscape design important?Yes. A hardscape is actually the equivalent of a floor. Just like the floor in the room of your house, it must be carefully planned in order to fulfill its intended use. One of the worst mistakes new homeowners make is to treat the patio like a slab of concrete to mount lawn chairs on.

This can ruin the entire scene of the back yard, and waste a great deal of money on pouring a slab that works against home architecture and garden design.

It is essential to plan your custom patio in order to make it functional, durable, and decorative. By hiring a professional landscaping company to design your custom patio as a foundation for an outdoor lifestyle, you ensure maximum enjoyment of your outdoor living space.

Should I call a masonry contractor in the phone book?
You can, but masonry contractors normally work under the invoice of general contractors. They are not used to working directly with homeowners. Also, many have experts skills in building hardscape structures, but not in landscaping itself. If you hire our company, we can find any number of masonry experts to bring in the special tools, teams, and knowledge necessary to building your custom patio.
What do I need to think of first and foremost?
All you have to do is make a list of all the things you want to do with it. We will do the rest by taking the items on your list and turning them into design specifications our contractors can follow.

When you make this list, think creatively about all the different activities that you can use a patio for. Some of these activities are personal and private, while others involve large numbers of guests and family members.

Getting a clear picture from you about what you plan to do in the future will give us invaluable information on where to begin building your custom patio. It will give us a clear picture of how large it should be, and it will also give us good idea for what building materials to use.

What materials should be used?
There many, many materials that we can use to build you hardscape. Stone is the most popular material because it is natural and lasts the longest. Its only drawback is its cost. Even less expensive stone is still going to represent a very large investment. If you are planning on adding several structures to your backyard landscape, it might be better to use an alternative to stone for some of your hardscape.

Brick is an excellent choice for this. Brick has a historical look and feel to it that works very well with many period styles of architecture. It also lasts for long periods of time, comes in a variety of colors, and can be arranged in all sorts of interesting patterns.

Concrete is another option you can consider. Plain concrete is the cheapest material you can build a custom patio with, but it looks somewhat drab in most landscapes. A better choice is colored or stamped concrete. The techniques we use to create these designs can actually make concrete look like stone or brick—at far less the cost.

Concrete pavers can also be used and laid out in many different types of patterns that are similar to those used in brick work, although they create a much more different effect.

Hardscape

Where does the term hardscape originate?
Most materials used to build these structures are very hard, resilient, and durable. These structures are sketched out first in the landscape master plan. This is because they establish order and system throughout the yard, and often serve to highlight even more the lush shades of green and vibrant colors of garden design and manicured lawns.

What are some of the more common types of hardscape you build?
Elements like paved areas, sidewalks, brick patios, atriums, courtyards, and walkways are common examples. We also build retaining walls to create boundaries between architecture and vegetation. Other landscape features include custom fountains, sports courts, outdoor stairways, patios, pergolas, trellises, arches, masonry walls, and planters.

What are the more common materials you use?
They can be anything that provides a firm surface that will resist the elements and add decorative curb appeal to your property. Stone is a popular material because it looks so natural and can go with any residential landscaping design. Concrete is also another popular form. Concrete can be colored and stained to mimic stone, or stand out with a unique, decorative statement all its own. Wood and brick are mainstay materials that have been with us for centuries and will no doubt continue to remain with us for centuries to come.

What can hardscape do for us?
There are several practical and aesthetic benefits that hardscape contributes to every landscape. Some of these benefits include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Create transition by providing a clear, recognizable transit area that moves traffic from one point of interest to another.
• Make a small yard look bigger by creating diversity between forms that lend perspective and depth to the scene
• Create borders around vegetation and activity zones
• Change the grade of the Houston landscape
• Create privacy with a wall that encloses a private space, like a courtyard
• Screen the view with such elements as lattice walls or raftered ceilings partly open to the stars
• Establish entertainment and seating areas, such as swimming pool patios, terraces overlooking spas, and outdoor fireplaces
• Create grand entrance in the form of stairways and steps leading to and from pools, outdoor buildings, backs of homes, and natural ponds
• Creating shade in the form of garden pergolas and arbors
• Create vertical impact with masonry constructs and architectural walls
• Create curb appeal with front yard walkways leading up to the home, and custom driveways and motor courts that are decorative and safe

Is hardscape more decorative or functional by nature?
That is an excellent question. To be honest, we try to make as many elements as possible both practical and highly pleasing to the eye whenever possible. However, there are times when something that is exclusively decorative can make the difference between having a nice yard and a superb yard. Custom fountains are one example of this. Other examples include trellises and small architectural walls, which do little to create enclosure or privacy per se, but make a world of difference when it comes to adding dimension and vertical impact to your home and property.

Plant Landscape Designs

The best Houston landscapes exploit interesting and vital design concepts that are in balance and ones that serve both form and function. With your plant landscape design, you have an opportunity to intermix hardscapes, plants and natural features in an artful way.

Before any planting takes place, soil deserves a special mention in a Houston plant landscape design. In any dirt component, there is usually a mixture of sand, silt and clay, with one predominant element. In our region, the soil has a high concentration of clay, a special challenge for gardeners. We recommend amendments for planting soil in this ratio: 1/3 loam (or soil), 1/3 sand, and 1/3 organic matter.

Landscape design tree placement also needs to figure in the early days of this process. Trees are vital components in your design, yet they are the structural elements that take the longest to mature. Therefore, we counsel our clients to plant them early and to plant them with their mature size in mind.

When thinking about creating a memorable plant landscape design at Exterior Worlds, we are mindful of three basic areas of your landscape. Public spaces, such as the front yard, are on view by the public, which includes everyone from the postman to the mom on her way to the grocery store to potential buyers arriving with their real estate agent. Private spaces are the back and side yards and any other space shielded from accidental view. Utilitarian spaces encompass trashcan, compost heaps, a/c units, and pool equipment areas and are best kept out of sight.

In considering the placement of plants within a landscape, we always concede that plants have personalities. While some are showy and flashy, others are soothing and hardworking, and still others are here today and gone tomorrow. And just like with a party, you want a good mixture of the different types. If you only invite the quiet types, you have a totally forgettable affair. With too many show-offs, the place gets overwhelming.

Bush planting forms the foundation for your landscape. Taller, evergreen bushes generate a pleasing background, shorter bushes provide filler texture and flowering bushes provides the splash of color. Here in Houston, you can choose among evergreens that create a year-round structure and also incorporate deciduous shrubs, such as planting azaleas, that afford ornamental value throughout the year.

Deep red pansies, pink geraniums and black-eyed Susans—they delight us and draw us. Planting annuals supplies the eye with something new to look at by providing color and texture. Seasonal color acknowledges the changing of the seasons while renewing your enjoyment of the outdoor landscapes.

Exterior Worlds like to use plants in unexpected ways, such as a living garden wall. We create these walls by training plant material to grow around a metal frame. We then position them as you would any wall, say, a seating area within a larger zone or to provide protection from the sun and wind.

Enliven your Houston patio and garden with a design conscious landscape from Exterior Worlds that reflects your genuine style. We will create a thoughtful plant landscape design for you that will define you as a serious homeowner, one who cares about lush but appropriate statements.

Outdoor Gazebo

What is an outdoor gazebo?
It is an outdoor structure that can be used as either a garden shelter, outdoor room, or viewing pavilion. Gazebos go back 5,000 years in history to Ancient Egypt. The modern outdoor gazebo, however, is based on the combined design motifs of Japanese teahouses, Chinese garden shelters, and small Dutch buildings.

What types are there to consider?
There are several different types that you can choose from. There is the conventional style that is basically an outdoor room with a floor, supporting pillars, and a ceiling. Some people, however, prefer to have a custom patio substituted as the floor, or to have the gazebo itself built on top of a courtyard patio.
You can also have a portable gazebo constructed that can be moved from point to point within your yard.
What shape are they built in?
They can be built in hexagonal, octagonal square or rectangular designs.

Why should I consider an outdoor gazebo?
It is a great way to enjoy a view of your home, garden, and the surrounding Houston landscape. The covering gives you shelter from the sun on hot days, and it gives you shelter from rain on cloudy days. A screen can even be built around the sides to keep out mosquitoes.

What are these structures made of?
They are almost always made of wood. Cedar and pressure treated pine are the two most common wood types used. Cedar is much more expensive. Pressure-treated pine can be stained and painted to make a strong, sturdy structure that will last and that looks good near any garden, pool, pathway, or natural pond.

Can any other materials be used to build an outdoor gazebo?
Yes. In contemporary gardens, such a structure can be built out of metal, reinforced concrete, or even stone. The roof can be made from copper, slate, or some other inorganic material to contribute to the Mentalist themes of contemporary landscaping and contemporary gardens.

What are a few features to consider?
Outdoor lighting is always a good thing to have in any outdoor structure. It will not only make it easier for you and your guests to see each other at night, but it will also make the gazebo itself a notable landscape element in its own right.

You can also have a small bar installed, complete with an electrical outlet so you can plug in a blender for mixing drinks. Most Houstonians also want a ceiling fan installed in the top of their gazebo.

What is the best architectural style for an outdoor gazebo?
To a certain extent, the style is flexible. The only absolute here is that it has to compliment the architecture of the home. Beyond that, anything from an Amish design (which you typically see in garden pictures) or a wrought iron Victorian style will work with a variety of outdoor landscaping themes.

Try not to restrict yourself to a preconception of style, however. What we prefer to do is to create a landscape master plan that reflects the entirety of your dream of an outdoor lifestyle. The many elements of your landscape will both individually and collectively create this experience. The actual style of your gazebo will ultimately be determined by its location. If it is built near the home or garage, it will compliment building materials in those structures.

If, on the other hand, it is built in or near a garden, or setback among the trees, it will reflect a more organic theme and geometry. The colors and stains used will also support these motifs, so that when you look at your outdoor gazebo, you see an extension of the landscape itself in the form of a structure that both pleases the eye and invites your attendance.

Landscape Yard Design

A professional landscaping company is your best resource for landscape yard design. It gives you access to a team of people that will create an outdoor environment based upon the very essence of your personal desires and sensibilities.

Exterior Worlds differentiates itself from lawn and garden service companies in this respect. We do more than trim trees, cut grass, and maintain flower beds. We work according to a set of principles that create a holistic unity between your house, your yard, your outdoor architecture, and your garden design.

These principles constitute the core values of all landscape yard design, regardless of the style of landscaping itself, the size of the yard, or the many unique elements we can populate your landscape with.

The first of these principles is the establishment of thematic unity through a landscape master plan. This plan is a CAD document that details everything that will be created in your yard. It shows how individual elements will work together in relationship with one another to establish an outdoor living environment that compliments your home and extends your lifestyle beyond its four walls.

The second principle we follow is simple garden design in key locations. This creates pockets of beauty and interest in otherwise fallow portions of your yard. By simplicity, we mean avoiding overkill that would smother the senses with too much input. Our experience has shown us that less is more. By focusing on the design and pattern of a garden and choosing two or three colors to repeat throughout its form, we can establish a high level of aesthetic without creating runaway growth or excessive complexity that could potentially create a distraction.

The third principle in landscape yard design is the principle of balance. There are two types of balance, these being symmetrical balance and asymmetrical balance. Symmetrical balance is based upon the idea of creating mirror images through complimentary identical elements. Asymmetrical balance uses interwoven geometry, complimentary colors, and motifs of forms to link vegetation and architecture through subtlety and suggestion.

The fourth principle of landscape yard design is transition. Transition is the establishment of movement from point to point within a landscape. It can take both conscious and unconscious form. Obvious elements of transition include gated entrances to entry gardens, entrances and exits to custom patios, courtyards, and outdoor rooms, and walkways of stone or brick. More subtle forms of transition involve variances in perspective. The positioning of certain elements in relationship to one another can alter the sense of depth when you look into the yard. Differing heights of vegetation can also create a line of sight that pulls the eye in a certain direction. Landscape lighting can motivate movement toward the back or front of the yard, depending on the position of the observer and how the lighting is installed.

For more information on how we can use these elements to create a landscape yard design that will add curb appeal to your home, call our office for a free consultation to discuss the preliminaries of a proposed Houston landscape design plan.

Exterior Wall Fountains in your Landscape

Within the landscaping vernacular, exterior wall fountains belong to the category called custom hardscapes. They are the non-plant structures and materials of your landscape design. This category, whether custom or not, include landscaping elements such as decks, patios and courtyards, garden arbors and arches, pathways, gates and fences.

Exterior wall fountains make stylish additions to your landscape. The clients of Exterior Worlds have found that they add auditory pleasure and visual charm as they direct the admiring eye across the outdoor design. In addition, they are extremely versatile, taking center stage as a large water fountain that covers an entire wall or fitting snugly into the odd corner.

If your plantings were chosen for their ability to attract wildlife, as with a butterfly garden design, you will find that fountains of all designs and sizes are excellent choices to make. Wall fountains naturally pair up with outdoor structures such as brick garden walls, whose rectangular surface seems to invite the gracefulness of water. Another excellent location for a wall fountain is a retaining garden wall—the moving water turns the retaining wall’s stolid and functional nature into an element of beauty. In fact, exterior wall fountains fit into any garden theme, from traditional to modern, from stone landscaping to shade garden design.

Exterior Worlds recommends that you consider a custom fountain. Our custom-built water fountains address any design problems upfront, such as the problem found in pre-fabricated fountains when water bounces out of the fountain. This over-spray leads to subsequent problems, such as discoloration of the surrounding material due to Houston’s hard water and the area near the fountain becoming slippery and moldy.

You can find exterior wall fountains in a variety of materials, including stone, slate, cast concrete and metals, such as copper and steel. We highly suggest that, in addition to its visual quality and attraction, durability be an important characteristic you look for since you want your fountain to withstand the constant contact with water and Houston’s various—and notorious—weather conditions.

You will also want to include the fountain in your overall residential landscape lighting plan in order to maximize your overall pleasure in it. As your lighting design experts, Exterior Worlds will help you imagine the wall fountain in daylight and nighttime conditions. We will use lighting techniques that make it a nighttime highlight or a subtle accent, depending on what you want to achieve.

From a design viewpoint, wall fountains are adaptable and flexible resources, a quality that has to do with their varying sizes. At one end of the spectrum, you could install a freestanding wall, complete with fountain, within the spare lines of a contemporary backyard design. Or if you have a wall niche in a small side garden, one can fit perfectly there. In the same manner, a wall fountain at your front entrance establishes a welcoming ambiance. Your imagination and good taste should be your guide you as you contemplate installing a water fountain. It will provide you with years of pleasure and peace—which is a fine investment for your property and for you!

Swimming Pool Landscape Design

For a Houston landscape, a swimming pool landscape design is often the pièce de résistance. Our climate invites the presence of a pool and people are naturally drawn to it. The creativity applied to the attendant landscaping only heightens the impact. Not merely the glue that holds everything together, a pool and its landscaping are the jewels atop the crown.

Exterior Worlds offers luxury designs that take the basic elements of swimming pools and give them sophisticated élan, creating a special atmosphere for all your festive occasions. Our swimming pool landscape designs allow you to move seamlessly from the interior to the exterior with the pool area functioning as a continuation of your living space. Because it serves as this linkage, it is imperative that the swimming pool design properly complement the architecture of your house. Our professional landscape designers will help you achieve all the prerequisite demands.

There’s even good news for homeowners of older residences with pools designed and built in, say, the 70s and 80s. If you’ve been looking with desire at the latest shelter magazines with their exquisite spreads of swimming pool landscape designs, a swimming pool restoration or swimming pool remodeling project from Exterior Worlds could be your solution.

A restoration project is the least involved of the two projects. Perhaps the pool’s shell could use re-surfacing to achieve a particular aesthetic that is available with today’s product offerings. Or it could mean updating the pool decking with more current material choices.

With a remodeling job, however, a complete re-do is required. It is a project that involves reconsidering your pool area and tailoring it to your specific site, including terrain, tree elements, drainage and all structural architecture, and complying with your specific needs and desires. Since no two remodeling jobs are ever alike, an Exterior World’s professional design team is best suited for this extensive venture. Bottom line, though, both re-do options are viable alternatives to consider.

Items to consider in your swimming pool landscape design:

• In conjunction with your swimming pool designer, you will first need to ascertain the best location of the pool, a choice driven by the space available and the spatial relationship of the house and yard. You want it to be eye-catching and inviting. At the same time, you want it to fit the space without overpowering it.
• Another major element is the patio, the wonderful and much-used outdoor space is often the “living room” of your backyard. Common construction types include flagstone patio, wood patios and patio pavers.
• One feature of the pool to pay close attention to is the pool coping. Coping is the masonry product that sits on the edge of the pool’s shell, often rising above the patio and is the hard surface on which you sit when you dangle your feet in the water. Coping material choices are driven by two functions: compatibility (it should be coordinated with other material choices made for your home and landscape) and safety (it needs to be a non-slippery surface like brick or stone).

For more than 20 years, Houston has turned to Exterior Worlds for high-end landscape design and services, including custom swimming pools. 713-827-2255.

Your Front Yard Landscape Design

A front yard landscape design speaks volumes. It clearly sends messages like “All are welcomed here” or “We like our privacy” and is the first thing that registers with people about your home. As professional garden designers, Exterior Worlds can bring all your landscape design elements together. We help you make decisions on lighting, plant placement, the use of various plant textures and the best focal points. Employing sound design principles and our years of horticultural expertise, we can transform your yard into an image of pleasure that greets you every time you pull into the drive.

One way to add a big wow factor to your front yard design is by selecting a theme. This concept works best when coordinated with the architecture of your home. For instance, rock landscaping accentuates a Southwestern style home or a home built in the style of a French chateau invites a formal garden.

However, a simple choice can make an impact in your front yard landscape design. Planting annuals puts sparkle in all outdoor environments. Any well-drained garden spot, including pots and urns, can be used, with the ideal location being one that is highly visible and thus lends itself to maximum effect.

Typically one of the most prominent features of the front yard, driveway designs include the circular drives and the straightaway drive, sometimes with an apron for additional parking. While driveway designs need to be practical above all, we can help you add a design element to them with your choice of materials, such as stone, brick, pavers, decorative concrete and combinations thereof.

A wrought iron driveway gate completes a driveway with its powerful presence. Wrought iron, sometimes called ornamental iron, has utilitarian value, too, since it is practical in matters of security. These gates let you control who has access to your property when outfitted with an automatic gate opener, remote controls, sensors and code entry keypads. Wrought iron gates work wonderfully well with fencing that is also made of wrought iron, a choice that brings unity to your overall design, and equally well with wood, stone and brick fences.

When planning your front yard’s design, Exterior Worlds likes to include the side yards. They may present an opportunity for a small garden design, which will further unite the different zones of your property into one cohesive look.

While the front yard landscape design is always important for your daily pleasure, it is particularly significant when you need to sell your property. Exterior Worlds are experts at creating what real estate agents call curb appeal in your Houston landscape. Studies have proven that professionally designed and maintained residential landscaping is a major player in adding value to your property. It is an investment in your pleasure now. It is also an investment in the future with an expected return, often several times over, when you sell your home. Let us use all the landscaping elements at our disposal to create a valuable and sophisticated front yard landscape design for you.

Architectural Landscape Design

Why is architectural landscape important?
You need more than a lawn and a garden to make a landscape. A professional landscape master plan is developed with several priorities in mind. The most important of these is the priority of extending personal lifestyle into outdoor space. People want interest, activity, and comfort when they step outside, and architectural landscape design is needed to accommodate this.

Does this mean I have to pay for outdoor buildings to be built?
Not necessarily. Outdoor buildings like summer kitchens are popular forms, to be sure. What is the most important thing to keep in mind here is the need to add vertical impact to your yard, regardless of whether it be in the form of a building, per se, or some other structure. This is because the Houston landscape is flat and requires variation to look truly appealing and inviting to you and your guests.

What other ways can you ad vertical impact?
Other structures besides actual buildings fall into the category of architectural landscape design. Outdoor rooms can be built that offer full views of the open sky and partial views of the surrounding Houston landscape. These rooms can be built very economically if you are on a budget. Walls can be built out of masonry or hedges and only be a few feet high. This is often all that it takes to add a third dimension to your property.

What are some other examples of architectural landscape design?
Any type of hardscape that is used to enhance the organic presence of a yard or garden can technically be called outdoor architecture. While this technically includes patios and driveways, we prefer to use this term to distinguish structures that have some degree of vertical rise. There are more vertical forms that we can build than you might initially have thought of. These forms can have either an exclusively aesthetic value, or they may play an important functional role in Houston outdoor living.

Examples of such include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Retaining walls
• Planters
• Custom fountains
• Masonry fireplaces
• Courtyard walls
• Architectural walls around entry gardens
• Boundary walls on either side of a walkway or driveway
• Architectural walls around large estates or private areas of a yard
• Waterfalls cascading over a series of descending terraces

The list goes on. In fact, many times our clients already have a list waiting for us when they get to their house, or they have pictures from magazines or Internet landscaping resource sites.

Regardless, we get to know them as people and then create architectural landscape designs that unify home and yard, garden and patio, lifestyle and landscape into one unique and highly personal expression.

Contemporary Garden

What distinguishes a contemporary garden?
There is an emphasis on hardscape and geometry. Plant life is minimized to support a more Mentalist view of the world. Water, sculpture, art, and special materials are all carefully arranged around select plantings of vegetation to support the idea of a world where Man dominates and controls his environment.

What types of plants are to be used?
Plants that have a strong shape, texture, or color are preferred. The idea is to communicate a feeling of stark absolutes in everything we do. Some species that may be useful to this purpose include bamboo, fruitless olive, wormwood, blue fescue, and Crimson Pointe Flowering Plum.

Shrubs should be darker in color to compliment the gray and white hardscapes that are common in a contemporary garden.

Should it have water fountains?
It does not necessarily need a water fountain in the traditional sense of the term. Modern and contemporary art are by nature highly abstract. There are a number of things we can do in such a setting that using running water as a decorative element in its own right. Again, this does not require creating a typical fountain with a visible bowl or spout. A pump can be placed underground to make water emerge mysteriously out of gravel. Or, it can pour over a mirror or stainless steel back plane like an avant garde, artificial waterfall.

If the area is large enough, a small stream can be created that will cut through rocks, hardscapes, or vegetation in a geometric pathway that contributes dimensions and fluidity to the scene. Remember, the whole point of using water as a landscape element is to generate a state of mind where freedom of consciousness is conveyed through the movement, and tranquility of emotion are established through the sound.

Both attributes of water features lend themselves very well to contemporary gardens for this reason.

Does it have rocks or gravel?
Absolutely. Rock and gravel function as replacements to grass. They also help break up larger segments of the hardscape like concrete pavers or large stone blocks without giving way to the temptation to overplant vegetation in areas where portions of the hardscape have to be removed.

What we wind up with instead are sections of gravel where plants are growing out of the rocks rather than grass. There is a sense of life here, but a very controlled sense of life due to the absence of an entirely “green patch” of vegetation, per se.

Should it have art?
Yes. There are many forms of abstract art that can be integrated into a contemporary garden. Metal sculpture lends itself well to this style because it can be worked so many different ways. Mirrors can garden elements with a trick of the eye. Installing a single planting of vegetation and several mirrors can set up an illusion where the amount of visible greenery is completely relative to position and point of view.

Is masonry design part of contemporary gardens?
Yes. Many times we use bricks, concrete blocks, or cut stones to build architectural walls or planters. These structures add vertical impact when constructed within the boundaries of the garden. In cases where we are installing a contemporary hardscape and softscape as part of a courtyard, we use masonry contractors to create architectural walls around the seating area, water features, sculpture and plant life within.

Simple Garde Design

Why is it called simple?
Simple garden design is so called because it is based upon the awareness that less is actually more. The intention in this particular element of landscaping is not to create grand outdoor living experience or a peculiar sense of the exotic. It focuses instead on establishing basic sensory experiences of sight, sound, and smell that create a desired state of mind. The geometry is very basic as well—sometimes even being deliberately plain. Colors are attractive but not overdone so as to suggest an experience to the eyes without overwhelming them.

What style or theme can you use in a simple garden design?
We would base the style on that of your home’s architecture. This does not necessarily mean that your garden will look like an identical geometric compliment to your walls and rooftop. It may work better as a counterpoint to architecture than a direct, reflective correspondence. It may also provide a vital focal point for your landscape master plan.

What is a focal point?
A focal point is something that you use a landscape element to draw attention to. For example, if you have outdoor buildings, focal points should be established near the entrances of each so people can see where these structures are and how to enter them.

Some other very important uses of focal points include attracting attention to outdoor art and special monumentation like custom fountains. Focal points are also very important in large yards that have to be divided into zones of interest in order to prevent guests from being overwhelmed by a feeling of too much space.

Simple garden design can be used in all of these settings to establish perspective and boundaries.

What do I need to be careful about?
You need to be careful of people that promise you the moon for low costs.

Many people think that simple garden design means they can simply build themselves by going to a nursery and picking out some plants they like. What happens, though, when they get to the nursery, is that well-intentioned people offer them advise on installation that is almost never apropos to the homeowner’s needs.

If you go this route, you will probably end up with a collection of pretty plants and flowers, but that does nothing to contribute to aesthetic of your home and yard.

It is better to have a design created by a professional who can develop something that provides you with an experience in its own right, but whose size, geometry, texture, and sensory experiences builds aesthetically expansive relationships within the context of a larger landscape master plan.

Can simple garden design be a part of a patio?
Yes. This is often done with fireplace patios outdoors. For swimming pool patios, however, this is not practical. People step in the plants, and the plants would get too wet. Around these hardscapes, it is better to install garden materials that add accent and form to the surface and that work to blend the inorganic structure of the patio into the surrounding lawn and general landscape beyond.

Outdoor Living Space Design

What is the purpose of outdoor living space design?
It connects the home, outdoor rooms, and outdoor buildings to the environment. This link between the inorganic and the organic results in a fusion we call outdoor living space.

What are some considerations in outdoor living space design?
You want to subdivide your lot into zones of activity and special interest. This will make your landscape an outdoor equivalent to a house with many rooms inside. Without this process of subdivision and allocation, your yard will remain only a yard that lacks the structural complexity needed in a true living environment.

What types of zones do you create?
Generally we create zones that enhance mood or zones the serve a specific function. We can also blend mood with function with many of the elements that we design. Outdoor kitchens, for example, create a feeling of fine dining outdoors. They also serve a very practical function by making it possible to cook and enjoy an entire meal without ever once having to go inside. Play areas for children are another example. Play creates a feeling of fun for kids. A professionally designed play area can be built that gives them a place to practice for a sports team they may belong to, and it gives them a safer place to do it than simply playing in an open yard or a park without supervision.

How important is vegetation in outdoor living space design?
It is the heart and soul of everything. You can think of architecture and hardscape as the body of the design, and the organics of gardens, lawns, and trees as the spirit within the body. It is very important to develop organic element with as much care and deliberation as possible. The more of a feeling of life you have in your yard, the more apropos it feels as a living environment in its own right.

What types of vegetation do you plant?

• Special grasses more vibrant and attractive than San Augustine
• Vines and creepers that cover iron and brick with living matter
• Hedges of all kinds, ranging from tiny boxwoods to man-sized topiaries
• Trees of all sizes, ranging from trees barely taller than a child to towering oaks
• Flowering plants to add color to planters and patio edges
• Traditional and highly sophisticated garden designs

How do gardens contribute to outdoor living space design?
Gardens focus the eye onto geometric patterns that are formed out of multiple shades of green and many different colors. These patterns are formed as direct compliments to your home architecture and surrounding residential landscape design. Gardens also attract wildlife. You will see more butterflies, birds, squirrels, and even wild rabbits if you plant something that provides food and shelter for these creatures.

How do tree contribute to outdoor living space design?
Trees play a major role in two respects. The first is curb appeal through vertical impact. Because the Houston landscape is so flat, anything that rises up perpendicular to the ground is going to make the entire yard look uplifted to some degree.

The other role that trees play in your yard is providing you with shade. Just think about how hot it gets in the summer here and how important shade is to us all. We want the sun, but not too much of it. However, too much shade blocks out the sun in the winter time so you freeze if you go outside.

One of the marks of a good landscaper is the ability to judge where the sun will be travelling through the sky during the summer versus where it will be during the winter and plant trees according to the sun’s path. That way, summer sun is blocked, while winter sun is allowed to break through and warm the ground.