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.

Garden and Landscaping

What goal am I trying to achieve in garden and landscaping?
You are looking to have your property transformed into a work of art that speaks of luxury Houston outdoor living and increased curb appeal. You already have a sense of vision as to what you want to see. Our job is to come in and develop a landscape master plan around that vision and literally paint your landscape in three dimensions for you.

What type of grass works best with garden and landscaping design?
There are all sorts of grasses that can be added in place of the all-too-common San Augustine grass that dominates so much of the Houston landscape. San Augustine is a convenient grass to use in yards, but its aesthetic value and tactile comfort leave much to be desired. In dry summer months, entire patches of it will turn brown and die.

Even when it doesn’t die, it is rough to walk on with bare feet. Perhaps you might want to consider a greener, softer grass like Zoisa. It adds a superb emerald quality to large open parts of the yard that previously were interrupted by dry patches.

What role do patios play in garden and landscaping design?
They play a major role. Hardscapes like patios are built to draw crowds. Sometimes these crowds are very large and congregate to celebrate special occasions outdoors. Gardens are very important along the edges of these patios. They frame the inorganic surface with a sense of life, and they serve to unify the manmade with the natural.

What role does the house itself play in this process?
It serves as the visual and thematic centerpiece for all garden and landscaping design. Both the size of the home and the architecture of its geometry help determine the style of landscaping design we ultimately shape the surrounding property with.

How important are trees in garden and landscaping design?
Trees provide opportunities for small gardens and flower beds. In a large yard, such plantings help create zones of interest that minimize the overwhelming feeling of a large lot. In small lots, flower beds can be planted in such a manner around trees as to make the yard look bigger than it is. It is all a matter of perspective.

Does swimming pool design play a significant role in garden and landscape design?
It does not play a direct role in garden design, but it is crucial to the success of the overall landscape. A swimming pool should always be designed by a professional landscaper who can draw it to perspective with surrounding outdoor elements and home architecture. The landscape contractor can then subcontract a pool specialist to do the actual labor. This way, the pool is both proportional and aesthetically complimentary to all inorganic and organic elements alike.

What types of outdoor architecture work will with Houston garden and landscape design?
Outdoor kitchens are a favorite throughout the Houston area. Courtyards and outdoor fireplaces are also very popular. Custom outdoor rooms around lighted fountains are yet another popular structural element that combines masonry with vegetation.

All of these examples involve blending hedges and flowering plants into a very complex and carefully constructed landscape that may have up to 80 percent of its surface area covered in hardscape. The skillful planting of vegetation and smaller trees helps ensure that a sense of vitality and dynamic experience clearly differentiates the quality of life outdoors versus indoors regardless of the level of creature comforts we build into our structures.

Garden and Landscaping

What goal am I trying to achieve in garden landscaping?
Garden and landscaping services transform your property into a work of art. Like any work of art, there are key points of interest, unique variations of color, and calculated interplays of light and shadow. This makes your yard look multi-dimensional in its expression of beauty. It also provides you with more opportunities for Houston outdoor living, because the many elements that evolve from garden and landscaping services ultimately become hotspots for entertainment.

How important is my lawn in all of this?
Your lawn is like a canvas. It serves as the backdrop of your garden and landscaping design and establishes the degree of openness that your back yard or front yard communicates to guests. The more grass in your yard, the more a sense of vastness. The more hardscape and conscious cultivation of softscape elements, the more isolated points of interests become.

How many gardens should we have in a big yard?
It is not the number of gardens, but rather the way in which they are designed and arranged. When we work in a big lawn, we divide it into zones where different garden and landscaping designs can be developed.

There can be a garden pergola in one zone that leads up to an arbor, while in another zone, a hand-laid stone patio can overlook a lighted natural swimming pool nestled beneath forest-like trees. In still a third zone, a swimming pool with flagstone patio and lounge furniture can function as a transition area between the house and the rest of the back yard, while in a fourth zone, a small garden courtyard can surround a lighted custom fountain for special gatherings and conversations under the stars.

If my lot is very small, does that mean I can only have one garden in the back yard?
No. We also have garden and landscaping designs that work to make a smaller property look much bigger than it is. The key here is to use smaller hardscapes and smaller physical garden sizes to emphasize the grassy parts of the lawn. In places where shade trees may have killed patches of grass, we can plant shade resistant grass and flowering plant species to extend the greenery up to the bases of the trees. This goes a long way toward enlarging the perceived size of the property.
Can you plant trees near my gardens?
Yes, but only if we plan your garden with shade-resistant species. On a larger lot, you can have a veritable forest of large trees toward the back of your yard and still have plenty of room left over for formal garden and landscaping work. In smaller yards, you have to be choose between limited your softscape options to shade-resistant plants or planting a few trees in key locations where they will not interfere with garden growth. You may also want to consider smaller tree species like Japanese Yew or Japanese maple.

Gardening in Houston

How does Gulf Coast humidity help gardening in Houston?
The high humidity can be great for growing plants. Many gardens feature exotic and tropical plants that are indigenous to very rainy parts of the world. Houston is like a second home to these plants, which find the same hot, humid climate that tends to annoy us something of a paradise for themselves.

There is a downside to our humidity, however. Fungus also finds it paradise and can damage any type of plant. Gardening in Houston must include professional maintenance to ensure that fungus does not get a chokehold on the garden and destroy its contents.

Is it significant that it rarely freezes here?
Yes. The infrequent freezes allow many types of tropical plants got to grow and thrive in the Houston area. Many species of palm trees and Mediterranean flowering plants do very well in all parts of our city and can be used in Houston gardening to build formal, uniquely cultural, or highly personalized custom garden forms.

Another great advantage that our weather lends to Houston gardening is that it gives the landscape maintenance professional plenty of time in advance to cover plants that need protection from the few occasional freezes we do get in our area.

What makes the soil here so amenable to gardening in Houston?
The Houston landscape has very few rocks and is composed of a clay-like type of dirt that is very easily tilled. The resulting earth is a very lose, fibrous composition that is ideal for growing any type of plant. Even plants that require more sandy soil can be made to grow well here by mixing in sand to the now loose Houston earth that has been properly tilled and prepared.


How does the topography here (completely flat) help or hinder gardening in Houston?
Unfortunately, our topography hinders gardening in Houston in certain respects. Our biggest disadvantage anywhere along the Gulf Coast is the completely flat terrain that offers no drainage. It is difficult to move water out of a garden when you do not have adequate slopes to draw it off.

Houston landscaping professionals overcome this by building sub pumps that get rid of excessive rain water. This is one of the biggest reasons not to attempt gardening in Houston exclusively on your own. You may have all the design and botanical skills necessary to plant a superb garden of any style. However, it almost always takes an experienced landscape professional (NOT a yard services person) to build concealed irrigation and drainage systems that will remove excess rain water from plants without running your view of the Houston landscape.

When is the best time of year to plant a garden in Houston?
The best time of the year lies between the months of October through May. While it is ok to add to a new garden throughout the year, October is still the very best month to get one started.

Centering your Houston Landscape Design around Your Garden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Garden Maintenance Services

Expert garden maintenance services are a necessity for a luxury garden. Luxury gardens, such as a Zen garden or tropical landscaping as you might find in sophisticated residential landscaping, need exceptional care and specialized knowledge. And not just in the early stages, but throughout the lifespan of the garden.

What are some of the benefits you should expect from Exterior World’s high-quality garden maintenance services?

• Care for annual flowers. Our services include pruning annuals to maximize the bloom cycle and, in the cold season, we cover them ahead of freeze warnings. We are also experts at switching out seasonal color.
• Landscape lighting. A vital part of high-end gardens, landscape lighting serves the two-fold purpose of enlivening the garden at night and providing safety. We can do the required repairs and maintenance to this intricate system.
• Fencing and gates. Our specialty garden crew can also paint and repair the fence and garden gates to maintain proper security and increase the life of your fencing. Additionally, we can maintain and repair your automatic driveway gates.
• Specialty services. This category includes regular chores such as pressure-washing patios, driveways, sidewalks and other hard surfaces, inspecting and cleaning the gutters, and tree removal.
• Landscape drainage systems. Since drainage systems are such an important infrastructure of yards in Houston we have, over the years, become experts at their design, installation and maintenance.
• Irrigation systems. Sprinkler systems work best with scheduled inspections. This inspection—and any subsequent repairs—is a time-consuming job best done by professionals such as Exterior Worlds who are routinely in the gardens and yards, and thus can spot problems quickly.
• Mulching services. Mulching is necessary for moisture retention and proper mulching is even more necessary. For instance, it is important not to put too much mulch on the base of plants as it causes plants to struggle to survive. Unfortunately, we find this careless practice done by some of our competitors.

If you currently use a single maintenance crew for both your garden and lawn services, remember that you can “un-bundle” those services. For instance, you can keep the lawn crew—something you may prefer to do out of loyalty or due to favorable pricing. However, you could hire Exterior Worlds, with our finely-honed skills, for the subtle work needed by your gardens.

In these days of increased ecological awareness, it is important to discuss xeriscaping with your garden maintenance services professional. Exterior Worlds is an advocate of xeriscape (pronounced “zer-a-scape”) gardens, which is a type of gardening that de-emphasizes the use of fertilizers and watering via sprinkler systems. The intention behind this gardening philosophy is to use indigenous plants that take naturally to our soil and climate—and still look magnificent. You can use these plants in a new bed or we can artfully arrange them into your existing garden.

For a wonderfully unique landscape, you need the best garden maintenance services. Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has provided the best landscaping services in the Gulf Coast region by understanding the local terrain and weather, using the best techniques and practices, and always striving to understand your desires and needs.

Houston Garden Services

A convenience that we offer the Exterior Worlds’ client is the unbundling of services. For example, you can hire us to perform garden services only. Beautiful gardens afford you with an ever-changing, ever-constant source of pleasure—the exchange of light and shadow, the interplay of textures and colors, the wondrous creatures of nature that are attracted to gardens, such as butterflies, birds and dragonflies. Additionally, gardens can be quite sensible. When it comes time to sell your home, a well-maintained landscape makes your house stand out to prospective buyers, giving you an advantage over other houses in your market.

Our garden services contract involves hiring us to perform the countless tasks required of a multi-layered garden, excluding the maintenance and care of lawn and turf. This type of contract works well for clients who have a maintenance crew already in place with whom they are pleased. While this crew does the upkeep of the grass areas, however, they do little—or cursory—care of the garden beds, bushes, trees and hardscapes. Hence the need for an Exterior Worlds’ garden services contract.

At Exterior Worlds, we believe in delivering unique, personalized services while creating landscapes and gardens filled with natural hospitality and warmth. An extension of that philosophy is that a regular, well-executed landscape maintenance plan helps you to protect your landscaping investment.

A short list of our garden services includes:

• Prune annual flowers to maximize the bloom cycle.
• Train roses, vines and other climbing cultivars on garden archs, garden arbors and trellises.
• Trim ground covers and shrubs. We work conscientiously to maintain the original intent of the landscape design.
• Mulch. It is important to not put too much mulch on the base of plants. While it is terrible for the plants, we unfortunately find that it is a common problem that we often have to correct for new clients.
• Pull weeds, as needed.
• Cover plants in advance of freezes.
• Treat for fungus, weeds and insects. Fungicides and insecticides are applied two to four times per year. Exterior Worlds is licensed by the Texas Structural Pest Control Board, License # 12015. (Texas Structural Pest Control Board, P.O. Box 1927, Austin, TX 78767-1927. 512-305-8250.)
• Fertilize and feed. For a Houston landscape, flowers require fertilization every six weeks.

Impeccable and wide-ranging landscape services are our specialties. Exterior Worlds is a full service, high-end landscape design and maintenance firm, in business in Houston since 1987. We employ all our years of experience for each design project and each landscape maintenance contract. Our residential clients live in the Memorial Villages, Bellaire, Tanglewood, River Oaks, West University, and other communities in the greater Houston metropolitan area.

After spending the time and money on your landscape design and installation, it makes perfect sense to protect it and make sure it develops as intended. And that’s where a maintenance program such as discussed here can be used. We provide the level of intricate care that a sophisticated garden needs and deserves. Further, joining our garden services with a pre-existing turf crew is cost-effective for you and makes the best use of your time.

Garden Design

Garden design needs to be done by professionals with a sound understanding of geometry and experience in hardscape design. This is because so many areas like patios, fountains, outdoor kitchens, and courtyards appear magnified and vibrant in the power of a living presence. An extensive knowledge of plant species variety is also needed, because a garden needs much more than colorful flowers to add experience and value to Houston outdoor living.

This is because greenery, not color, is the foundation off all types of garden design. A professionally designed garden is always characterized by layered, varying shades of green. This upholds a three-dimensional aesthetic and makes the vegetation stand out more prominently. The residential landscaper uses many different plant species to create this effect, including hedges, special grasses, ground cover plants, and even small trees.

Color is then introduced in two ways. Ground cover plants with colored leaves (such as begonias, impatiens, salvias, pansies, petunias, and cyclamen) are used for annual color. Seasonal colors are created by flowering plants.

The location of the garden will be determined by its size and style. Larger gardens normally occupy a central position either in the yard. These styles include traditional parterre gardens (though not necessarily their derivatives), French gardens, Japanese gardens, and English gardens.

Other garden designs, such as Italian and Mediterranean work better as linear support elements next to homes, walls, fences, and alongside walkways. Contemporary and modern gardens are planted to counterpoint the abstract forms of contemporary architecture with a touch of the organic. They also are planted throughout modern landscapes to add life to the otherwise sterile intellect expressed through contemporary landscape design.

The ultimate decision on what garden design to develop will always based on relationship. Every major landscaping element must be harmoniously complimented by the vegetation we plant; otherwise the entire landscape theme will appear broken and out of sync with itself. Elements such as the home, both large and small trees, and water features of any kind must look enhanced by the selection of plants and the form they are arranged in.

Vegetation is also needed around any major hardscape features in order to unity these structures with a natural presence of life. This is especially true around anything made from brick, concrete, or wrought iron. Garden design softens the appearance of these often harsher forms and settles them into what ultimately becomes a pristine setting.

There is also a very essential, albeit unseen aspect to garden design, and that is irrigation and drainage. While it is a fact that Houston experiences a very humid climate, rain is unpredictable and sporadic. You simply cannot depend on the rain to water your plants. You need a professionally designed and automated irrigation system in the yard in order to ensure the viability of your vegetation. This system must be completely concealed in order to avoid diminishing the aesthetic of your property.

You also need a concealed drainage system to protect the yard from flooding during those times when it does rain. If your area begins to flood, this drain system will get the water out of your garden and into the storm sewer system. Again, only professionals trained in advanced landscape architecture should be trusted to design such a system effectively.

Garden Landscape Design

The first thing we do in developing a garden landscape design is select the best location for a garden. We look for an area that will appear complimentary to the home from multiple points of view, so that regardless of whether you are looking at the garden from your living room window, or admiring it from the patio of your custom swimming pool, the garden will add a unique and special vitality to the moment. Such locations often include the bases of fountains, areas around outdoor buildings, patios, fences, and masonry. Many of the larger, more formal garden designs like Parterre gardens can even center an entire landscape, serving as organic focal point around which all other landscape design features are designed.

The actual style chosen for a particular garden landscape design is based on two factors: geometry and intended theme. Because any house occupies the position of central importance on the property, it is necessary to begin every residential landscape project with a systematic architectural analysis. No matter how eclectic a house looks, its architecture is based on the same basic geometric forms seen in every other structure. It is only the manner in how these forms are combined that determines uniqueness. Our garden landscape design professionals pinpoint these forms and plant vegetation in corresponding patterns. These forms will either directly reflect architectural geometry, or they will compliment it with correlative counterpunctual designs.

Another consideration that weighs heavily in our choice of style is the theme of the landscape master plan. If we are looking to create an abstract, conceptual aesthetic, we will plant a contemporary or modern garden. If we want to create a sense of meditative repose, we can build a Zen garden or Japanese water garden. Formalism is best developed through traditional garden designs, such as French, Italian, and English Gardens. Mediterranean and Tropical gardens can be planted if we want to create an atmosphere of the romantic or the exotic. Custom gardens that are comprised of blended elements from all styles can work to establish a strong eclectic tone in the landscape.

The heart and soul of garden landscape design are the plants and flowers growing within the garden. Every design, regardless of origin, depends upon a blended presentation of greenery and color. Different shades of green must be used in order to avoid looking flat and two dimensional. A layering of lighter shades of green with darker tones creates a much deeper, more multi-dimensional perspective. Different shrub species, ground cover plants, and special types of grass our use to create these layers of shade and tone that range from an almost lime-green to a dark green that almost looks black in certain light levels.

Once this foundation of green is laid, color is then be added in appropriate amounts, depending on the style of garden we are developing. There are a few designs, such as the Parterre Garden, that use practically no flowering plants at all. Others styles like knot gardens feature a plethora of herbs that flower seasonally and add a different spectrum to the yard every 3-6 months. Still other forms like French, Italian, and especially tropical gardens, allow for a much more creative and liberal use of color.

Houston Texas Gardens

A Houston garden by Exterior Worlds does a lot for your property. It reflects your home architecture first and foremost. It complements the canopy of tree branches and leaves with a carefully developed geometric patterns of organic vitality. Outdoor buildings and hardscapes look a lot better too with a garden growing with shrubs and flowering plants growing around them. The presence of life linked to construction helps unite the manmade with the natural in any front or back yard.

Such statements may seem like bold claims to a confident do-it-yourselfer or someone who is characteristically skeptical. However, please keep in mind that we are talking about more than flower beds and hedges when we talk about a professionally designed Houston garden. More than a mere decoration in the front or back yard, it most often is the foundational element of the master plan of the professional landscaper.

In order to make a Houston garden look truly proportional to everything else in the yard, professionals often have to do some pretty advanced mathematically calculations and rely on sophisticated computer design software. Without these methods and tools, even landscaper developers would be unable to fulfill their own ambitions.

Professional service companies can also provide you with a higher grade of materials than you can obtain on your own. Commercial entities like Exterior Worlds have better access to plants, fertilizers, and irrigation construction materials than do retail stores and typical online channels. A garden that is planted with better quality plant material, soil mixtures, and fertilizer will immediately show its value on the first morning following installation.

Two other crucial elements of any healthy Houston garden--irrigation and drainage—absolutely have to be done by a professional landscaper. Unpredictability seems to be the nature of the weather in Houston, so all garden design must take into account the need to deliver water to plants when rain is scarce, and to drain excess water in times of heavy rains, seasonal storms, and occasionally floods.

A landscape maintenance contract is an added value that every one of our Houston garden clients should look toward investing in. Insects and fungi can destroy a multitude of plants and flowers, particularly roses, and have to be controlled with regular insecticide and fungicide treatments best left in the hands of experts. Also, soil must be aerated properly on occasions, and different types of plants need different types and measures of fertilizer that are best mixed and delivered by professionals.

As far as the actual design of your Houston garden goes there are many from which you can choose. These include French, Italian, Mediterranean, Japanese Water, Contemporary, Modern, and Zen designs—all of which create unique aesthetic expressions in their own respect and provide specific complimentary presence to the many other landscaping elements our team can develop in your front and back yards.

Houston Yard Maintenance

Exterior Worlds provides high-quality yard maintenance for upscale residences in West University, Tanglewood, the Memorial Villages, Bellaire and River Oaks. We believe that yard maintenance is important in and of itself. Instead of being something to relegate to the lowest bidder, we think it is foundational to your landscape design.

A residential maintenance contract at Exterior Worlds includes yard maintenance items such as:
• Regular mowing and trimming. We recommend weekly mowing and trimming March through October and bi-weekly November through February.
• Chemical treatments. Fertilization, feeding, and chemical treatments make for hearty plants and prevent infestations and diseases common to Houston.
• Garden services, such as dead-heading flowers, expert pruning, rose maintenance and training vines.
• Professional mulch installation and regularly turning over the mulch.
• Inspection of your drainage system. Proper yard drainage is essential for Houston lawn care. It carries water off your property in a timely manner, thus promoting healthy grass. By draining excess water, it also allows your maintenance crew to perform its regular lawn care service duties.
• Inspection of your irrigation system. Since the system is both mechanical and electronic, a fully functioning irrigation system requires ongoing maintenance. We also monitor the best times and days to water, which change depending on the weather and the season.
• Lawn aeration. This practice is essential to proper lawn care and provides benefits, such as improving water infiltration which helps with drainage and reduces harmful fungi, increasing the activity of microorganisms that promote de-thatching, and increasing the earth worm population.

Additionally, we work with the hardscapes of your landscape, the elements that bring true distinction to your landscape architecture.
• Landscape lighting—design, install, repair and maintenance.
• Tree protection and tree preservation. During any construction project, this service is critical and continues to be important on an ongoing basis.
• Custom swimming pools—design, installation and maintenance. Pools are an expected amenity for the high-end home these days. They provide hours of pleasure when designed specifically for you and when maintained with accurate care by professionals.
• Outdoor rooms, pavilions and outdoor kitchens—design, build and maintain. These outdoor areas expand your living space and allow you to fully enjoy our temperate winter months.
• Garden structures—garden arches, garden arbors, garden gazebos and trellises.
• Outdoor water fountains—installation, repair and maintenance.
• Hardscapes—maintain and repair elements in your landscape design, such as driveways and courtyards, patios, outdoor fireplaces, retaining walls and pathways.
• Fencing and gates—installation, repair and maintenance, including painting fences and gates. Also the repair of automatic gates.

Our clients are homeowners who understand that money invested in landscaping—both plant materials and hardscapes—improves the value of their home, usually the single largest financial asset of the individual. They find merit in hiring professional landscapers such as Exterior Worlds because we provide all the fundamental landscaping services, like yard maintenance, plus pay fastidious attention to the finer details. When it comes time for our clients to sell their home, they bring an impressive property to the market. In the meantime, they’ve enjoyed lush, luxurious gardens and yard.

Garden Services

A consistently implemented and carefully considered garden services plan is the best way to protect the beauty and vibrancy of your landscape. Keeping the landscape clean and healthy makes a powerful statement to surrounding residences. It says you care about your property, and you wish to have it emphasized from every vantage point along the street.

It makes no sense to invest in professional landscape design services to have vegetation carefully chosen and planted, only to neglect it after the fact. The Houston climate is brutal, to say the least, and most of the plants you will have in your new landscape come from other parts of the world where the heat and heavy rains are not so severe. It is necessary to protect these delicate investments with a garden services program that will help them weather both the hot dry months of summer and the temperamental winters where the weather vacillates between muggy wind and cold blasts of frigid arctic air.

Surprising to many, garden services actually begin with the lawn, not the garden.
The typical Houston lawn needs trimming weekly through the summer and bi-weekly in the winter months. It also requires yard aeration—something many people do not even consider. Lawn aeration keeps the clay-like Houston soil from clumping up around plant roots and blocking the absorption of water and vital nutrients. The lawn also needs to be fertilized four times per year.

Tree maintenance is another key element of a garden services plan.
Every small tree in your yard needs to be pruned as often as is necessary for that particular species. Your landscaper will also schedule annual deep root fertilization as part of your garden services program. Shrubs, ground cover, and vines will also be pruned and edged to maintain a neat, clean appearance. Hedges require aesthetic maintenance as well as vitality maintenance. They often have to be pruned to maintain special shapes and contours.

Flower beds need to be weeded weekly.
It is also wise to turn the mulch in the flower bed every two weeks to ensure that plenty of air and water are exchanging in and out of the soil.

A garden services plan includes professionally-administered fertilization and chemical treatments.
These treatments are not as simple as they appear at face value. Store-bought chemicals are not always safe to use with many of the plants we install in gardens. It is best to let the landscape designer apply proven treatment methods as needed to prevent diseases like brown patch and insect infestations.

Finally, your garden services plan must include freeze protection for your plants.
You would think that as hot as Houston is in the summer that our winters would be safe for plants. They are not. When northers blow into Texas, they can plummet temperatures and quickly frost plants that have just been rained on the previous day. This is a killer to many species, particularly tropicals. Plastic is not a good covering for these plants because it blocks light and water and will suffocate plants if left on them for many days. Instead, let your landscaping company come out and as a part of your maintenance contract protect your investment with a special freeze cloth which will allow light, oxygen, and water to pass through.

Home Garden Services

Perhaps your lawn guy is a person for whom you feel a sense of loyalty because of your many years of working together—but their capabilities do not include sophisticated home garden services and landscape maintenance. Then again, you might like everything about your lawn maintenance team, but want to establish more design-forward and intricate plantings and hardscapes—something beyond their skill set. Or maybe you have a yard crew with whom you’ve negotiated a favorable rate—but the contract provides fleeting attention to your garden beds. Exterior Worlds can step in wherever you have such needs with our home garden services.

We can complement the lawn care you already have in place with one of our home garden services contacts. If you have, say, a high-tech landscape lighting system built into a custom swimming pool with a related large water fountain, we have the technical know-how to maintain it for you. (We can also design, build and install them for you, by the way.) We have the experience and knowledge to handle landscape matters properly and in a timely fashion. Further, you can benefit from the relationships we have with specialists in the various landscaping fields—because of the volume of business we do together and our long-term association, you get their best prices.As a full service landscape design and maintenance company, Exterior Worlds deals with the full array of outside-the-home services that high-end homes require. These home garden services include:
• Garden services. The upkeep of a sophisticated garden, excluding the maintenance and care of turf and lawn.
• Garden structures—garden arches, garden arbors, trellises
• Custom swimming pools—installation and maintenance
• Outdoor water fountains—installation
• Outdoor kitchens, pavilions and outdoor rooms
• Hardscapes—maintain and repair elements in your landscape design, such as outdoor fireplaces, driveways and courtyards, patios, retaining walls and walkways and pathways. We also pressure-wash patios and other hard surfaces.
• Landscape lighting—repairs and maintenance
• Irrigation systems—installation and maintenance
• Landscape drainage systems—installation and maintenance
• Clean gutters
• Fencing and gates—installation, repair and maintenance, including the repair of automatic gates and painting fences and gates.
• Tree preservation and tree protection. These services also include tree removal.

For years, Exterior Worlds has continually met and raised the standard for Houston landscaping services. Today, we remain committed to our founding philosophy of providing our customers with the best possible quality, service and value. With our home garden services, the staff at Exterior Worlds is dedicated to providing unmatched service and convenience to our clientele.

The opportunity cost for high-net worth individuals to become entangled in the minutia of landscaping matters far outweighs what it costs to hire Exterior Worlds to handle them. You could say that we act as property managers for your home and residence. You make one call to us and let us make the subsequent 25+ calls to the various vendors, mechanics, builders and craftsmen. After all, isn’t it a better use of your time to be in the office working productively rather than meeting with contractors, coordinating schedules and handling disputes? Not to mention actually freeing up the time that you have off, which is oh-so-rare and way-too-short.