Driveway Landscape Designs

What is driveway landscape design?
Driveway landscaping can consist of both hardscape and softscape. Hardscape options include walls and fences, while your softscape driveway landscaping can consist of flower beds, ground covers, trees or shrubs.

What is the best style of driveway landscape design?
That depends on your home and your yard. The direction and shape of the driveway will always draw the eye toward other landscape elements of interest. If the home is characterized by a very orderly and symmetrical architecture, a straight driveway that runs to a side motorcourt and entry garden can lend itself well to a sense of majesty. If the home appears lower to the ground, and more spread out on the sides, then a circle driveway is an excellent way to keynote the entire property around a central focal point, such as a water feature or contemporary garden.

If the home is set far back from the street, then the driveway can be built to accommodate parking in the front, and a walkway can be built to link the parking area to the front of the home. This is a nice touch that adds a sense of grand entrance to homes in private neighborhoods.

What types of softscape can be combined with driveway landscape design?
Any type of hedge or shrub can be planted along a drive to decorate it with greenery. In most cases, it is best to use more than one shade of green in order to create fullness and dimension.

Flower beds are very popular addendums to driveway landscape design. You can choose to have flowers of a single color to compliment the color of your hardscape and home, or you can you have a layering of different colors designed by our gardening specialists.

An alley of trees is also a good way to ornament your driveway. Many different types of ornamental trees, including Red Maple, Pear, and Myrtle, work well with Houston landscape designs. Larger shade trees are very popular for longer driveways.

What kinds of hardscapes can be used with driveway landscape design?
Masonry walls and ornamental fences are two common hardscape elements used to augment the appearance of a driveway. Small walls add vertical impact to the sides of the driveway. They also help keep vehicles on the pavement and away from delicate plants. An ornamental fence or stone arch can be built at the entrance to the driveway to generate presence and formality.

What type of materials should be considered?
Popular materials range from concrete to asphalt, concrete pavers, brick and natural stone. Concrete is surprisingly more popular in Houston landscaping than you might assume. Thanks to today’s technology, what was once a rudimentary, practical building material can now be rendered highly decorative. Concrete can be stained with a wide variety of colors, and it can be treated in a number of ways to create very interesting textures and patterns in its surface.

Concrete pavers are a great way to create the look and feel of real stone and save a considerable amount of money on your driveway. Brick always lends itself to traditional, Colonial, and Old World themes, and asphalt is a great driveway landscape design to use in conjunction with modern and contemporary landscaping.

Should I light my driveway?
Yes. It is much safer to pull into a lighted driveway at night. Also, outdoor landscape lights are a great way to show off any flowers, shrubs, or trees that you have planted along your drive. These lights will also help increase visibility in your yard and improve the security of your property.

Driveway Designs

A driveway serves many purposes. It is a utility feature that allows easy access and parking onto your property. It is your daily welcome mat as you drive into the garage. It is also a component of curb appeal. For all these reasons, Exterior Worlds believes your driveway design plays an important role in your residential landscape design.

A subset of custom hardscapes—the non-plant features of landscaping that are tailor-made for your site—driveway designs are essential to the way we live today. But while all design considerations need to be practical, it doesn’t mean driveways have to be mere slabs of concrete. Form can flow from function.

Examples of our driveway designs include:

• The common straightaway drive, valued for the ease it provides for driving in and backing out. Often a driveway apron is added for extra parking, for turning around, or for entry into a side garage.
• Another popular design has the driveway traversing the front of the property to end on the far side where the garage is situated.
• Circular driveways are also prevalent and practical, especially for properties situated on busy streets.
• Courtyard designs recall Old World living or contemporary life. The enclosed area can be four-sided or circular—but spacious enough to maneuver vehicles—and can be outfitted with a water feature, such as a classic fountain or an exterior wall fountain.

For anyone contemplating ranch landscaping or estates landscaping, you will have special driveway needs, which include parking for family and guests, safe access to public roads, sight distances, all-weather access, load-bearing requirements and turning radius. We would be happy to walk you through this decision-making process.

Yard drainage is one practical consideration that must be addressed since driveways increase your impermeable surface area. Rainwater run-off must be routed somewhere. Because of our expertise in this area, Exterior Worlds is an excellent choice as your residential landscape designer. We will ensure that your driveway doesn’t create problems—for you or your neighbors.

Once the practical design needs are met, you get to make some aesthetic decisions, such as the material choice. Your options include concrete, decorative concrete (stained, stamped, polished), concrete pavers, asphalt, brick and natural stone. As with all elements in your landscape, your choice should be influenced by the materials already present in your overall design and the architecture of your home.

You can also add extra features. For instance, driveway edging, either flat or raised, ratchets up the design impact. Complementary or contrasting bricks, stone or pavers can be laid on either side of your driveway in interesting patterns. The edging further defines the driveway and creates a transition area into the yard. Also an ornamental iron gate across the driveway provides extra security while it presents an impressive entrance.

While driveways are usually built to withstand the rigors of daily wear and tear, they will require some maintenance. Exterior Worlds can power-wash your driveway as part of your maintenance contract with us.

Clearly, driveways get noticed. They are your landscape’s first and impression, so make your driveway design a good one.

Call Exterior Worlds at 713-827-2255 to discuss upgrading your driveway.

Concrete Driveway Houston

What is an affordable and durable driveway option for our residence?
Consider getting a concrete driveway built for your Houston home. Concrete is an enduring substance that can easily last for decades without showing any signs whatsoever of wear. Concrete driveways require virtually no maintenance and can be built in a number of ways that will improve the appearance of any lot and can also be used by your family as places to skate and play basketball.

How long can a concrete driveway last?
It is not uncommon for a concrete driveway in Houston to go as long as 30 years before needing any type of major repair work. Its strength makes it well-suited to the clay-like soil and flat terrain of the Houston landscape.


What benefits do concrete driveways offer Houston homes that other materials do not?

• Affordable- As a material, concrete costs less than many other materials. Its low maintenance cycle offers additional financial gains that accrue over time.
• Quality- The driveway is the first impression people get of your home. A well-designed concrete driveway adds curb appeal to your home creating a very clean, polished façade at the forefront of the property. Many concrete driveways in Houston were built so well in the 20th century that they have since outlasted the homes they were built to enhance!
• Durable- Aside from steel and natural rock, you won’t find anything that can weather the elements and take the stress of vehicle traffic as well as concrete will.
• Decorative-We routinely build concrete driveways in Houston of all colors, textures, and surface patterns. Remember—concrete may be concrete, but it doesn’t have to look like concrete.
• Versatile- Concrete driveways can fit with any Houston landscaping style.

What kind of design options can you offer us in a new concrete driveway?
There are three elements of design that can be customized to your home architecture and landscape design. One is shape. Concrete can be poured in a linear shape or built with a radial arc to form a semi-circle or circular drive.

Texture is another variable we can customize to your preference. While concrete is wet, there are all sorts of things we can do to enhance its appearance. One of these is pattern stamping. Just after pouring the slab, we can imprint any number of patterns that will emulate bricks, tile, or stonework.

We can also finish these surfaces with swirl designs, bromide, brushing, or exposed aggregate.

The third option is color. Along with finishing, brushing, and stamping, we can add chemicals to the concrete mixture that will alter its basic color into a variety of hues and shades.

How do concrete driveways contribute to Houston landscape architecture?
Houston homeowners have always put a great deal of care into maintaining the exterior facades of their homes. Concrete drives lend a sense of invitation to the front of the house . This, combined with its versatility in shape, texture, and color, makes it a something of a universal Houston landscape element that can work in front of a mansion in River Oaks just as well as it works in front of a small wooden house in West University Place or the Upper Kirby District.

Houston Driveway

What is a driveway?
In residential landscaping, it is a small thoroughfare that provides street access to the front yard. Most Houston driveways are plain concrete slabs and nothing more. People park their cars over them and never give them a second thought as they march to the front door.

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way in your front yard. Exterior Worlds can build you a driveway that is as decorative as it is functional. The key to doing this is the understanding of your home’s architecture and the construction of a surface that mirrors its aesthetic elements and compliments surrounding hardscape and softscape elements.

What are driveways used for?
Houston driveways support the commuter nature of our city by providing parking areas in front of homes. Not everyone parks their vehicles in the driveway all the time, though. Some use garages and carports to house their cars, trucks, and SUVs and leave the motor court open to guests. In these scenarios drives can be built that almost act like pathways leading from the street to a separate motor court parking slab or covered parking area.

What are different types of Houston driveways are there?
The residential parking areas that we design tend to be highly individualized to the home. Much of the customization lies in the choice of materials. A brick driveway goes very well with a traditional or colonial home. A concrete driveway, on the other hand, works very well with contemporary styles. Black asphalt can contribute a majestic sense to custom homes that are large in size and feature a unique blend of architectural motifs. Still other materials include decorative forms of concrete, such as brushed concrete, decomposed granite, and cobblestone.


What would you suggest for driveway landscaping?
Houston driveways can be constructed using a blend of hardscape and softscape designs. Varying both the surface and the structure of the hardscape is the best way to make your drive truly stand out. Walls are one way of enhancing the form without altering its function. In fact, walls can even provide additional safety for parking at night. They can be built to run parallel to the surface, or they can cross perpendicular to the entrance. A gate can be installed that then allows you to control access to your own parking area and secure your car behind a barricade after dark. If you do not want to look so elusive to your neighbors, we can build an arched-entryway that provides a decorative, open access to and from the world at large.

Can you really integrate softscape into a Houston driveway?
Yes and far more than you may think. Plantings like small gardens, tree islands, shrubs, and various ground cover species can bring attention and vitality to your parking area. Flowers can either support or enhance the geometric boundaries of the motor court. For example, if your drive is simply a straight, linear form with no variation, we can plant a variety of garden forms that sweep out in curved radiuses to either side. This can soften your entire front yard and add a sense of dimension and vitality impossible to achieve with strict linear movements.