A Houston landscape design company is not the same as a Houston landscaping company. Landscaping companies, as a general rule, work only with the organic elements of the front and back yard. Many only do lawn work, while others perform more specialized gardening services. Almost none of them, however, do anything to create sophisticated outdoor environments.
The truth is that organic elements represent only a fraction of what true Houston landscape design really is. What a landscape design firm creates in the form of a master plan is the equivalent of an home outdoors, complete with outdoor rooms and buildings, special gathering and recreation areas, and zones of highly aesthetic interest and emotional tone.
To create this unity between multiple forms, there has to be an underpinning theme that binds them together like an invisible fabric. This theme is the architecture of the home itself. The geometric principles that it establishes create the framework that then maps out new lines and radiuses into the yard. This brings the yard subliminally into unity with the home and simultaneously differentiates it as a unique point on the Houston landscape proper.
Hardscape is one of the most important components to the entire process of landscape design. By the broadest definition of the term, a hardscape is any manmade structure. But a more narrow definition of hardscape is that of a stone or concrete plane such as a patio, a motorcourt, a driveway, or the tile flooring of a courtyard.
Structures that rise perpendicular to the Houston landscape are more accurately described as custom masonry or outdoor architecture. These structures include such forms as architectural walls, retaining walls, custom planters, ornamental drains, stone steps, columns, and seat walls. Hardscapes can comprise up to 80 percent in some Houston landscape plans.
This is not to say that softscape elements are any less important. On the contrary, the smaller percentage of vegetation in relationship to architecture increases its aesthetic value. Trees, shrubs, gardens, and ground cover all appear much more unique and highly individuated in relationship to deliberately constructed geometric structures. This lends a sense of sculpture to something that is by nature boundless and wild, and introduces a sense of discipline to landscape design than nonetheless preserves organic essence in the quest for order and symmetry.
Hardscapes and softscape can work together in this fashion because they are not polar opposites like many people assume them to be. Plant life is alive, and architectural structures are living spaces. In this sense both represent living systems of differing, but not necessarily opposing, natures. Landscape design focuses more on building relationships of interconnected interdependence between these two systems rather than falsely assuming they are opposites that need to be reconciled.
Outdoor rooms and outdoor buildings create luxury outdoor living space in the midst of life and geometric boundary. Technically speaking, an outdoor room is really nothing more than a special set aside for a purpose. Entry gardens and courtyards, morning gardens and terraces, are all forms of outdoor rooms. Notice that virtually none of these have walls as we would normally conceive a room to have. Most have only partial architectural walls or rows of vegetation that provides a sense of private enclosure while still allowing the guest a clear view of the Houston landscape.
Outdoor buildings are the structures that more closely resemble the rooms in a house. Common types include summer kitchens and arbor living rooms. These buildings almost always have roofs and walls, although it is common to leave at least one side of the structure open to the yard so people can enjoy a view of the landscape from the comfort of luxury dining or fine living room furniture.
For more the 20 years Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston's fine neighborhoods.
To design a landscape that truly reflects your lifestyle and values, you have to think about visual impact, mobility, recreation, and functionality. Having a sense of these things before you sit down with your professional landscape designer will go a long way toward getting the yard of your dreams...
When landscape designers talk about centering a Houston landscape master plan on a garden, we are not talking about building the garden in the center of the yard. What is actually meant here pertains to centering the garden on the main access to the house. There is always at least one centerpoint ...
An outdoor stone fireplace makes it possible to enjoy the Houston landscape any time of the year. During the winter it can be used to heat a special patio seating area, outdoor room, or outdoor building. In summer months its architecture can be illuminated both inside and out to provide a keynote ...
Natural stone patios and walkways can make a Houston landscape look pristine without abandoning the controlled principles of design. It also conveys a sense of design that is casual and relaxed. Stones are made to look as though they were made and placed by forces of Nature, but this is a skillful...
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.
In order to understand just how important custom masonry is to Houston landscape design, we have to first understand what it is. Custom masonry is the most pronounced type of hardscape because rises up from the ground. It adds a vertical element to the foundations and porticos of patio design, and...
The Many Uses of Cut Stone in Houston Landscape Design
Cut stone can be used to construct all sorts of feature that accentuate a residential Houston landscape and add respective compliment to a variety of surrounding architectural forms. The most common use of cut stone is the construction of cut ...
Clean landscaping is a form of contemporary landscaping. It gets its name from its characteristic lack of clutter. From one point of view, in fact, clean landscaping could be call epitome of the “less is more” approach to landscape design because of its simple approach to hardscape geometry and ve...
By definition, a narrow space is any part of a Houston landscape that is longer than it is wide that stretches between two points on the landscape. The mathematical proportions of such an area typically approximates to a 5 to 1 ratio. However, there is not an absolute, and the exact dimensions are...
The feeling of special space and intimacy is essential to the Houston outdoor living experience. On smaller properties such a feeling is a given because there is only limited space. On a larger lot, this is more of a challenge because there is so much space that the landscape designer runs the ris...
From the perspective of the professional landscaper, the constitution of the soil in the Houston landscape is very unique. It is composed almost entirely of clay. As a result of this very atypical composition, Houston soil presents the professional landscaper with some very unique opportunities an...
By definition softening the view of the Houston landscape involves obscuring or partly obscuring the view of other structures, buildings, homes, use plant material, bamboo, shrubs, and other kinds of plants that can be hedged.
Houston Landscape Design 