The essence and appeal of hardscaping is bringing vibrant beauty to your outdoor space. Successfully blending plants and stone, various textures, and greens and grays can transform a banal yard into a landscape with impressive visual splendor. So, Between a Rock and Hardscape lies Stone in Landscaping.
Landscape Balance
When deciding to incorporate hardscaping onto your property, ensure that the elements complement your landscape. You don’t want conspicuous boulders protruding from the lawn or clashing shapes and lines. Your aim is to organically blend the unique appearance of your landscape with the architecture of the hardscape. The shape of cut stone or tile, pathways or patio should naturally transition into the surroundings. Furthermore, these designs should extend to harmonize with your home’s exterior architecture. Textural balance is also crucial to the overall appearance of your property makeover. Adhere to a textural theme of stone or wood and limit the textures to two, advises HGTV.com.
Hemingway House via WikiCommons
Greenery
Don’t allow your hardscaping project to get out of hand and overrun your lawn. Keep some vegetation and greenery to frame your yard installations. For example, you can plant blue fescue and your favorite flowers to border stone steps. Plant shady moss under and around a fieldstone path. Keep a swath of grassy lawn for the kids, suggests HGTV. To easily maneuver around the hardscape obstacles, a zero turn lawn mower will help you to maintain well-manicured lawns.
Pathways
That old dirt pathway in your backyard could probably use a visual makeover. For Southwestern homes, fine desert gravel surrounded by a coarser slate gravel mulch and cacti or agave makes for an appealing pathway, opines Sunset.com. Set small rocks or pebbles flat-side up in concrete for a smooth path or simplistic flagstone set in multicolored gravel. Your eye should travel toward a destination, but have pleasant visual pauses along the way, according to landscape designer Susan Murphy on to HGTV.com. Use an Oriental lantern or weeping evergreen to subtlety build up to the main attraction. Consider installing a stone fountain or statue to act as a focal point at the end of a path. In addition to foot traffic pathways, think about the pathway for your car. Entertain the idea of renovating your driveway with a material other than asphalt. Stone pavers set in a consistent pattern will give your driveway an idiosyncratic quality in comparison to your neighbors.
via Wikicommons
Patio & Stone Walls
Low stone walls add rustic allure to any landscape. Choose a regionally appropriate variety of stone, one that matches the distant mountains, desert sandstone or granite. Not only do walls add charm, but they serve a utilitarian function as well by holding back slopes when integrated into the hilly turf. Homeowners can also erect a wall to encompass a patio. Setting up a semicircular stone wall enclosing a gravel patio and central sycamore tree is one nontraditional patio option. Another is the soft patio — a “best of both worlds” solution to a lawn and patio. This irregular combination intertwines paving stones and surrounding grass turf.
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