Home Garden Landscaping Design

How would home garden landscaping design benefit me?
A professionally installed garden will add curb appeal to your home and transform your yard into a beautiful outdoor living experience. It will also serve as an island of tranquility that you can retreat from the stress factors of work life any time day or night.

I can’t seem to think of any good ideas for home garden landscaping. Where should I start?
Start by doing image searches on the Internet to see all the millions of gardens that are posted online from all over the world. Go back through your stacks of magazines and newspapers and circle the pictures of gardens that catch your eye. You may see only one or two things about a garden that you like. That’s ok. Keep in mind that many different types of gardens still often use the same plants and motifs to create design.

It is also a good idea to drive around Houston in the springtime and simply look at what people are doing in their yards. If you see a home that reminds you of your own, the garden design around that home will give you an excellent frame of reference in terms of what will best work with your home architecture.

Should I really hire a landscaper to install my garden for me?
It’s a good idea. Call us and sit down for a consultation and share your design ideas with us. We can help you refine those ideas into a detailed home garden landscaping that will work in relationship with other landscape elements, and, most importantly, the architecture of your home.

What if I have a limited budget to work with?
Home garden landscaping does not have to cost a fortune in materials to be aesthetically appealing. Sometimes less is more. We recommend that you observe the following guidelines when brainstorming ideas for your garden design.

• Think of your favorite types of plants and flowers. What looks pretty to you? Forget, for the moment, what other people are going to think about your garden. Your obligation is to please yourself with what you look at. Our obligation is to take what pleases you and make it appealing to your friends and family. Working together, we can accomplish this.
• Find pictures of homes similar to yours that have gardens visible in the scene. Understand that such pictures are a beginning frame of reference, not a recipe for duplication. However, it is important you share such images with our team so we can help you determine the nature and contents of your garden.
• Give serious consideration to having a garden installed that is more than something to look at. Any lawn services company can plant rose bushes or flowers around your trees. In fact, you can do such simple plantings yourself. Professional home garden landscaping offers you so much more than this. It offers you the opportunity to turn a garden into an activity center where people can spend an evening outdoors in celebration, conversation, or quiet retreat.

I never thought of a garden as an activity center. What are some examples of what you can create?
We can build custom patios as seating areas, lighted fountains in the center of courtyards, play areas for kids, and pathways for moonlit walks. The key is to make such areas easily accessible by combining custom pathways and walkway designs with landscape lighting.

Garden Design Ideas

Garden design ideas can be based on geometry, type, or style. Geometry is necessary to tie the architecture and hardscapes in with the organic elements of the Houston landscape. By using repeating patterns common to both the living and the manmade, we can establish common motifs that tie the two together.

Garden type, or style as many call it, are designations based on the proximity of the garden to certain structures (such as a patio garden or courtyard garden), or the actual contents of the garden itself. Sometimes too, a garden type is named after what the garden is used for. A good example of this is a morning garden, which is a garden you sit by in the morning as you drink your coffee and read your paper.

While it is possible for a do-it-yourself gardener to come up with very good garden design ideas on his or her own, making those ideas work with the rest of the yard is another matter. That is why you need a professional landscaper to come to your home and take a good look at your property. Identifying opportunities for garden design is the first thing we do. The second thing we do is point these opportunities for design out to you and match them to your plans for a future outdoor lifestyle.

Once our consultation is complete and the landscape master plan is in process of development, there are many garden design ideas we can introduce into that plan to make your yard into the equivalent of a second home just outside your home. Just of few of these ideas include the following:

Small Gardens
The intention of small garden design is to make use of ignored or overlooked spaces and to transform them into something aesthetically pleasing. This works to bring home architecture into a better relationship with surrounding yard elements.

Asymmetrical Gardens
Another popular garden design idea is an asymmetrical garden. At face value such a thing may not sound attractive, but it can work very well a small lot that is not shaped perfect to square, or where the house may be too close or too far away from the street.

Shade Gardens
When you have to sit under the trees to withstand the Texas heat, it is always nice to have greenery and flowering plants around you under the trees. This adds to the warmth (instead heat) to your outdoor living experience.

Formal Gardens
Symmetrical balance is the foundation of all formal garden design ideas. The garden is always centered on a geometric shape, statue, or custom fountain that brings all of its linear and radial elements together in focus. Plant life is also controlled and balanced, and trees and shrubs are planted at regular intervals with mathematical precision.

Contemporary Gardens
Contemporary gardens are unique in that they actually work to minimize vegetation and favor the man-made over the organic. They are very precise, abstract, and mathematical so as to communicate the exaltation of human though above instinct and organic impulse.

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.

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.

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.

Bush Planting in your Landscape Design

At Exterior Worlds, we think the hard-working bush is one of the gardener’s best friends. The taller, evergreen bushes create the backdrop against which colorful plants stand out. At the mid-level, or filler, range, shorter bushes provide interest and flowering bushes add color and texture. All of which makes bush planting one of the foundational elements in your Houston landscape.

Bush planting is sometimes called foundation planting, coinage that came about when most houses were pier-and-beam and bushes were planted close to the house to hide the distracting construction. Unfortunately, foundation planting is often static and too narrow, a single row of shrubs in lockstep with the lines of the house. This problem has a quick fix: just layer the bushes front to back, from shortest to tallest, making sure none of the new bushes loom above the established ones.

One tip on garden landscape design when planting bushes: the wider the beds, the more freedom of expression. A wide bed lets you combine seasonal color, native grasses, evergreen bushes, flowering shrubs and graceful trees, which are more attractive. The wider width gives you more planting opportunities for a lush, layered look.

With bushes, you want to go with evergreens to create a year-round structure. However, you also want to use deciduous shrubs and perennials that provide ornamental value all year. Planting roses is one way to add bushes and color to your landscape. Rose bushes require specific and meticulous care, but the pay-off comes with that bowl of fresh roses from your very own garden, sitting on the dining room table and sending out waves of pleasure.

Planting azaleas is an often dazzling choice for our region. In addition to azaleas, choose plants with staggered bloom times so that you have spring blossoms, colorful summer flowers, bright fall foliage, and winter berries and fruit.

One ally in your bush planting endeavors is a reputable lawn and garden services provider, such as Exterior Worlds. We can do the inspection for insect infestation required feedings and pruning. And speaking of pruning—you need to be mindful of choosing varieties of shrubs that will grow to the size you want. It saves on your landscaping budget because it means the landscaping crew spends less time trimming.

Bushes thrive on proper mulching, as do all the plant material in your garden design.
We recommend that mulch installation be done as soon as new bushes are planted and then checked regularly to see where it needs to be re-applied. For superior results, garden beds should be mulched twice a year. Mulch should not run up the trunks of bushes—or any plants—as this over-application harms them and invites disease.

Finally, when planting gardens, plan before you plant. A good starting point is with an enlarged photo of your house from which you can trace its outline onto paper, including any features, such as mature trees, that you plan to keep. Then draw in your preferred plants, including bush plantings, at their mature shape and size. Exterior Worlds employs professional landscape designers who can aid tremendously in this important step.

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.

Houston Garden Design

What types of garden design work the best for Memorial homes?
Although it is very close to the Galleria, the Memorial neighborhood has a distinctively rural feel to it. In fact, it feels and looks more rural than a lot of Houston area suburbs. The large lots and ranch style homes create a feeling of expansiveness. Houston garden design experts support this by planting natural gardens that contribute to the forest-like feeling of heavily wooded lots, and country-style gardening that supports the ranch style homes.

What are gardens in River Oaks like?
They are very formal. Lots in River Oaks are very large, and many of the homes date back to the 1920’s. River Oaks is famous all over the world for some these Old World and Colonial style Mansions that are truly magnificent in every respect. Many of the trees here are also among the oldest in Houston. The magnolias, for example, are survivors of Houston’s all but gone indigenous forest that was cut down in the late 19th century to build the railroad.

Houston garden design teams must be careful to preserve all the many layers of history laid on top of one another in River Oaks. Many unknown factors—such as tree roots near the surface that must be worked around, or utility cables that are not marked on city documents—require highly customized garden installation to avoid disturbing existing tree life and structures.

What are Tanglewood gardens like?
In the Tanglewood neighborhood, the lots are very large, and the homes were built in the 1960s. The terrain is very flat in this part of the city. Large water oak and live oak abound throughout the Houston landscape in all directions, giving the otherwise flat lots a sense of fullness and life.

This led to the original homes here being built in the same ranch style homes that Memorial is known form. However, recent trends have seen a more toward the construction of new custom homes, many of which are well over 6,000 square feet in size.

Rose gardens work very well with many of these yards. Around the perimeters of new custom homes, we take a more innovative and highly individualized approach to Houston garden design. Forms here must be highly individualized in order to properly respect the persona that the new home projects toward the neighborhood. Front yard landscaping and small gardens in the front are very important here in order to give each new home a highly distinguished and truly unique appearance.

What about Bellaire and West U?
In Bellaire and West University, Houston garden design focuses on making small lots look large. Most lots here are small, and the homes range from smaller wooden homes to very large homes that have recently replaced original structures. Gardens must be compact, geometrical, and often many in number. This helps create the illusion that the property is larger than it is and proportional to the new, larger home now residing on it.

Houston Patios and Gardens

Most Houston patios and gardens are built in the back yard. These constructs literally carve special spaces out of the fabric of the landscape itself. These spaces are meant to play host to special activities and support those activities with specific states of mind.

On some larger estates, like those in River Oaks, patios and gardens can be built in the front yard as well. People in these neighborhoods often like a seating area near the sidewalk where they can visit with neighbors and get a panoramic view of the Houston landscape.

A Houston patio and garden go hand in hand. The patio gives you a surface that you can stand or sit on, and the garden frames that space with elements of vitality and life. This feeling of living enclosure makes you feel warm and invited into an intimate setting irrespective of the size of the patio itself.

There are all sorts of patio design that you can choose from. The fittingness of any given style, material build, or hardscape size always corresponds to the nature of the event that will occur on the patio and the aesthetic demands of the property. We must always respect home architecture and maintain thematic consistency with the design of the surrounding landscape. Nevertheless, there is a tremendous amount of freedom that exists for us when working even within these boundaries.

For instance, patios can be built out of any number of materials. Just a few of these include decorative concrete, natural stone, ornamental brick work, and decorative wood treated to resist the elements. Which of these works will work best with any given landscape style will ultimately be determined through consultation with the client and the expert advice of the landscaping professional.

Another major factor in Houston patio and garden design are the weather conditions of various seasons. The landscape designer must integrate some form climate control into a patio and any corresponding structure that surrounds it. This can be anything as simple as an overhanging tree or a decorative canopy.

In the hotter summer months of July, August, and September we may need a bit more to cool things down. Outdoor structures like arbors, living rooms, and outdoor kitchens can be built with ceiling fans and basic AC systems. Gardens around are often planted with shade resistant species because the plants receive less sunlight.

For the cool months of the year, patios and gardens are by nature much more self-contained. Because of heavy humidity combined with sporadic cold snaps, people must be kept both dry and warm. Garden plants used here are typically species that flourish in cooler climates with heavier rainfall. Drainage is very important because from December to February in Houston often experiences heavy thunderstorms and flash floods that can make outdoor environments uninhabitable and wash plants away if preventative steps are not taken.

Popular patio styles for winter are outdoor fireplaces and outdoor fire pits. Both can be built either as standalone structures or part of a courtyard or entry garden. Other elements like lighted fountains, pottery, and decorative statuary can be added to make even the coldest of winter nights vibrant and comfortable. Winter canopies can be used to cover seating areas on rainy nights so lighted vegetation and decoration can still be enjoyed regardless of what the weather happens to be doing.

On clear February nights, however, an evening outdoors on an Exterior Worlds lighted patio and garden space can be just as enjoyable—and perhaps even a bit more romantic and mystical—than a typical summer evening that many take for granted in our traditionally warm climate.

Houston Home and Garden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

French Courtyard on the Far Edge of the Greater Houston Landscape

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limestone Patios, Architecture, and Décor

What architectural theme does this best support?
All architectural themes and Houston landscape designs can benefit from limestone forms. Limestone is a soft stone that can be easily crafted into almost any style shape or form. This makes it easy to match the resulting form to the specific architecture of houses and outdoor buildings.

Limestone can also be polished, which makes it very good for creating ornamental or decorative elements. There is very little that we cannot do with limestone.

Are there any negatives to limestone?
Limestone’s only negative attribute is that it is highly porous, so any surface that requires resistance to water should be built from something else. Aside from this very narrow and singular limitation, it can be used to build virtually any type of hardscape.

Where is it mostly used?
While it works with any type of architecture, its most powerful expression is found as a compliment to very strong architecture. There is a cultural and historical association that all of us share in that links limestone to antiquity.

Classical buildings and porticos were commonly built of this stone, so any work we do on today’s Houston landscape can convey that same feeling of grand drama and regal authority that we associate with our own heroic, historical origins.

English and French landscape designs both convey a strong sense of presence due in part to the their deliberate incorporation of classical materials and their insistence on symmetry and geometry that trace their way back to Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia—cultures that all used limestone to build their monuments, temples, and great works of art.

What if I could care less about ancient culture?
Then you can enjoy limestone’s modern application. Because of its malleability, limestone is a timeless material to work with. It is easily molded to human intent, and it works just as well in contemporary and modern Houston landscapes as it did on Appian vineyards and Greek hillsides 2,500 years ago.

You can go forward with limestone just as easily as you can go backward. The choice is yours.
What are some decorative objects that you can build out of limestone?
Many decorative Houston landscape design elements can be made from limestone. These elements include custom fountains, walls, arbor columns, urns, and planters.

What garden design does this work well with?
It works best with Mediterranean, French, and Italian themes. Limestone makes ideal material for building architectural walls, retaining walls, garden stepping stones, and linear planters to set the boundaries of garden space.

Will just about any outdoor building benefit from a limestone patio?
Yes, because we can shape the stone to match the architecture.

Outdoor Garden Seating

Can Exterior Worlds design gardens that are more than beautiful places to look at?
Yes. We specialize in building gardens that work as seating and gathering place for outdoor events and family entertainment.

What styles of gardens support seating?
Outdoor garden seating can be created in any style of garden. It is not so much the style of garden you need to think about. It is the number of people that the space we are developing is supposed to support.

Why is outdoor garden seating so important to Houston landscape design?
Houston landscape design is the heart and soul of Houston outdoor living. It is all about the emotions you create for people. Beautiful gardens are essential elements of the outdoor experience. Much of what people will take with them in the form of memories will be generated while they are sitting in the garden.

Therefore, it is very important for us to think about where people are going to sit and what they are going to be looking at. How people enter the garden and exit to other zones of interest is also very important. No one can enjoy themselves if they feel cramped coming and going. Transit areas to and from the garden are also needed to keep people’s feet dry and to avoid safety issues like trip hazards.
Is this a small yard, big yard, or any yard motif?
Exterior Worlds can design superior outdoor garden seating in any Houston yard of any size. Even a small lot with a curved linear pathway can have a garden area and garden seating placed along its edge.

Does this ever tie in with water elements like pools, fountains?
Yes. Outdoor garden seating is often developed near a number of outdoor water elements. The most obvious is a custom swimming pool. Because it is very common to install gardens near pool patios, we can often create seating areas in the garden itself to function as an alternative to patio/poolside seating.

Garden seating in front of a lighted fountain is also a popular motif for both small and large back yard landscapes. Lighted fountains provide special focal points for ambience and conversation and contribute a very unique, multi-dimensional presence to the softscape surrounding the gathering area.

Is this part of outdoor room design, and if so, how?
In a very loose sense of the term outdoor room design, we might can call this form a very rudimentary type of outdoor room. However, we want only the garden itself to create the sense of intimacy and enclosure. True outdoor room design involves the construction of either organic or inorganic wall elements, or sometimes ceilings in the forms of literal outdoor buildings.

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.

Landscape Remodeling

Exterior Worlds takes an extensive and systematic approach to landscape remodeling because our experience has taught us that home values significantly increase when the surrounding yard looks like a unified reflection of the house. When potential buyers come to look at the house, they will also be looking at the yard to see if they will enjoy living outside as much as they do inside.

It is here that a home sale can often be either made or broken, because nothing looks worse than incongruent landscape features that may have been constructed well as structures and elements within themselves, but offer little sense of relationship to one another and therefore lack harmony in the eyes of the viewer.

Landscape remodeling requires carefully redesign of outdoor structures both functional and aesthetic. It must be approached with a mindset of balance and proportion that ultimately points all elements back to the home as the preeminent feature on the lot. Outdoor buildings often require significant renovation. Swimming pools and patios almost always require reconstruction in order to appear truly proportional and complimentary to the house and surrounding landscape.

In these areas, we can offer much help to Houston homeowners who are looking to significantly raise property values and ensure the highest possible return on investment. While this is seldom done low cost, we do have ways of making this work within the budget of any client. This is called Landscape Phasing and involves developing a master plan for the project first, then completing portions of the plan incrementally according to the available funding that the homeowner has to invest in each part of the project.

Some examples of what we do in a phased landscape remodeling follow:

• We redesign the swimming pool. More than likely the pool works fine as an element in its own right, but was not constructed aesthetically appropriate or sized proportional to the landscape. We can redesign the look and functionality of a pool and bring our own pool contractors in to handle the reconstruction under our close supervision.
• Outdoor buildings were likewise probably built just like the pool. They work well within themselves but do little if anything to complement home architecture or home value. Exterior Worlds will remodel every building on the landscape to correct this problem and lend the entire property more of a sense of true outdoor living space.
• We can add new features like summer kitchens, outdoor rooms, outdoor fire places, custom patios, and entry gardens.
• We practice careful tree preservation techniques and make certain to work around all subsurface utility lines and conduits.
  

Again, we must stress that this does not have to be done all at once. Each phase of our landscape remodeling plan can be performed separately from the rest, and it can be invoiced at a price point that is well within the comfortable budget of our client. The total investment is well worth it when one considers the intrinsic return on investment that each phase of the project brings to home and property resale value.

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.