Landscape Design For Homes in Houston Texas

Have you cut out and collected pictures of great landscaping ideas, but now wonder how to actually put them onto your own property? Have you wanted to capture the vision of a stately French mansion on your property in Houston, Texas? Would you like to know whether the plants you've admired in European and New England countryside estates will grow on the Texas coastal plains?

If so, you need the services of an experienced residential landscape design professional. A competent landscape designer or landscape architect takes you through the entire design development process, which includes: consultation and program development, analysis of the existing site, conceptual landscaping design, construction documentation and permitting. And then on towards turning the vision in your mind from virtual reality to actual reality.

Landscape design and Analysis of the Site

An essential part of the initial consultation with your landscape designer or landscape architect is a walk around your property. Here is where you get to share your overall vision, detail your wants and needs and desires. It should be a free-flowing discussion about aesthetics, which includes your likes and dislikes of materials, preferences on arrangements-all the "wouldn't it be nice if..." things you've been considering.

Try to be as specific as you can. For example, you may want a deck to seat a party of ten people or a large lawn area on which your three- and five-year-old can play with your Labrador retriever. This detailed information will be brought together by your residential landscape designer or landscape architect to create a program of uses. The program organizes uses by their relationship to one another, much like the inside flow of your home. In fact, the architecture and flow of your home should relate to the architecture and flow of your landscaping. Understanding these relationships and interpreting them well separates the artist-architectural designer from a landscape horticulturalist-contractor.

Residential Landscaping Design

The next step in the design process develops out of the meeting notes, site analysis, program of uses, and the design professional's experience. At this conceptual level, the landscape designer or landscape architect conveys the overall design intent, such as the general use areas and their sizes, swimming pools and other hardscapes, outdoor kitchens and outdoor fountains, lawn areas, and plantings. This phase will also be the time when it is determined which wish list items are possible on the site and which are not. An overall cost study is developed from the conceptual landscaping design as well.

Moving Forward with you Landscape Design:

Once you have agreed on the overall design intent, sizes of use areas, general material selections and their applications, you are ready to begin the landscaping design development and construction phase. The documentation for this phase can be broken down into three groups: 1) landscaping design drawings for permitting. 2) landscaping design drawings to convey final design intent and material selections for you and the installation contractor 3) landscaping design drawings, called construction documents, with specifications for materials, specifications for their installation and installation methods.

These drawings may be accompanied by a full package of additional drawings to include an existing site survey, tree disposition and elevation plan, tree preservation plan, demolition plan, swimming pool plan, landscape drainage systems, irrigation systems, hardscape plan including outdoor kitchen and outdoor water fountains, landscape planting plan, landscape lighting plan, and construction details for the above plans.

As for permits, each city has its own unique requirements for landscape plan approvals. The norm is a submittal of the entire permitting package to be approved or rejected by a committee board. For this reason, it is important to hire a landscaping company that is fluent in these areas, one who knows what vital information to include, such as lot coverage ratios, engineered drainage plans, pool fencing layout and specifications. It is equally important to omit unnecessary information that could create confusion or send up a red flag that would keep the project from getting approved. A knowledgeable residential landscape designer or landscape architect helps win approval as quickly as possible.

Garden Design and the End Results

Whether your project is a simple landscaping design that only encompasses landscape planting or is a complex construction package, it is vital that you hire a landscape designer or landscape architect that is competent in the skill sets detailed here. For your satisfaction, it is also important to distinguish between off-the-shelf landscaping design and a designer who can reflect your unique style. Always ask to see a portfolio and visit the website to determine if the landscaping company under consideration has the sense of style you appreciate and is one who can design a landscape that complements your home and lifestyle.

Additionally, it is highly recommended that you utilize a landscaping design company that not only does the design work, but also performs project management and landscaping installation. There is a world of difference between someone who has great ideas and another person with great ideas who also knows the availability and best use of local materials, local contractors and their methods of construction, overall cost and budget development, and can then maintain the finished product. In short, you want a landscape designer or landscape architect who can deliver a landscape design solution that flourishes in the Houston climate over the long term.

Find more : home garden , beautiful garden , landscape design , landscape designers

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Landscaping Design Ideas

Most homeowners already have one or more Most homeowners already have one or more landscaping design ideas fixed firmly in their mind when they contact Exterior Worlds. They may have seen visited our landscaping design portfolio and seen the work we have done for other homeowners in neighborhoods like West University, Bellaire, River Oaks, and Tanglewood. They may have seen photographs of properties in a reputable publication that inspired certain landscape design ideas based on several motifs that caught their eye, or they may be have had a passion for a certain cultural style such as French, Italian, or Japanese that they have always wanted to develop on their own personal homestead.

Regardless of the origin of such inspiration, it is important that you work with a Houston Landscaping Service that can help you more fully develop your landscaping design ideas in a manner that compliments the appearance of your home and helps extend its living space outdoors in a way that fully expresses the core values and subjective sentiments of your own personal lifestyle.

Make your landscape a virtual, organic extension of your home's structure and aesthetic.

When you meet with your landscaping architect for the first time, try to develop landscaping design ideas that will compliment the architecture of your house. No matter how small or large your home actually is, it represents the most dominant feature of your landscape, and as such, cannot be ignored. Any outdoor structures such as an arbor, fire pit, outdoor kitchen, patio fireplace, or special walkway needs to reflect the basic design principles that distinguish your house from surrounding structures.

The swimming pool in particular is something you should pay very close attention to. Most swimming pool construction that is done independently from a landscaping plan tends to focus only on making the pool itself functional and aesthetically pleasing. We see this all the time when we work on older homes that were build in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The pool looks fantastic in and of itself, but it clashes severely with surrounding terrain and home architectural features. We commonly have to remodel swimming pools significantly, or rebuild them all together, to harmonize the poll with the surrounding landscape.

Garden design is another area that you should really rely upon professional expertise to help develop. While you may already have dozens of landscaping design ideas in mind about what types of flowers, shrubs, and trees will look best in your yard, please keep in mind that vegetation groupings constitute forms in and of themselves that either work with or against the appearance of your house. A good example would be some of the contemporary landscapes we have done in our landscaping portfolio section which required us to plant some very unique vegetation patterns to truly do justice to the unique elements that constituted a particular home's appearance.

Think form follows function when developing a landscaping plan.

The best landscaping design ideas will develop forms around practical use of open areas. After all, the more beautiful your landscape, the more you are going to want to go outside and experience it firsthand. Activities will naturally follow, so coming up with a clear picture of what you intend to ultimately do when you are outdoors will help you more fully develop a plan for development of key areas of your yard. If your ultimate goal is to create entertainment space, then outdoor structures and special environments will need to be built that support the many activities that you and your guests particularly enjoy. If you have children, and you are looking to create special play areas and sports facilities, Houston professional landscapers can help you by subcontracting specialists who can design these facilities (such as courts and practice fields) safely and effectively while still remaining ultimately true to the overall landscaping design idea envisioned in the master plan.

Ornament the landscape to create special space in addition to simply decorating it.

Even something that normally conveys a purely artistic sentiment can play a functional role in the development of your landscaping design idea. Your Houston landscaping company can help develop special patio and seating areas that are aside just for you. Here, you can reflect, meditate, read the paper, and enjoy the morning over conversation and coffee. Fountains and sculptures, though typically categorized as purely decorative, can take on a new, more subtle role as boundary markers between public space, children space, and special, private space. Landscape lighting can then be installed around these areas to maintain these boundaries during the night as well as the day. In this sense, one single landscape can be turned into many smaller landscapes; each represented by its own unique features, forms, purposes, and carefully designed ideas.

fixed firmly in their mind when they contact Exterior Worlds. They may have seen visited our landscaping design portfolio and seen the work we have done for other homeowners in neighborhoods like West University, Bellaire, River Oaks, and Tanglewood. They may have seen photographs of properties in a reputable publication that inspired certain landscape design ideas based on several motifs that caught their eye, or they may be have had a passion for a certain cultural style such as French, Italian, or Japanese that they have always wanted to develop on their own personal homestead.

Regardless of the origin of such inspiration, it is important that you work with a Houston Landscaping Service that can help you more fully develop your landscaping design ideas in a manner that compliments the appearance of your home and helps extend its living space outdoors in a way that fully expresses the core values and subjective sentiments of your own personal lifestyle.

Make your landscape a virtual, organic extension of your home's structure and aesthetic.

When you meet with your landscaping architect for the first time, try to develop landscaping design ideas that will compliment the architecture of your house. No matter how small or large your home actually is, it represents the most dominant feature of your landscape, and as such, cannot be ignored. Any outdoor structures such as an arbor, fire pit, outdoor kitchen, patio fireplace, or special walkway needs to reflect the basic design principles that distinguish your house from surrounding structures.

The swimming pool in particular is something you should pay very close attention to. Most swimming pool construction that is done independently from a landscaping plan tends to focus only on making the pool itself functional and aesthetically pleasing. We see this all the time when we work on older homes that were build in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The pool looks fantastic in and of itself, but it clashes severely with surrounding terrain and home architectural features. We commonly have to remodel swimming pools significantly, or rebuild them all together, to harmonize the poll with the surrounding landscape.

Garden design is another area that you should really rely upon professional expertise to help develop. While you may already have dozens of landscaping design ideas in mind about what types of flowers, shrubs, and trees will look best in your yard, please keep in mind that vegetation groupings constitute forms in and of themselves that either work with or against the appearance of your house. A good example would be some of the contemporary landscapes we have done in our landscaping portfolio section which required us to plant some very unique vegetation patterns to truly do justice to the unique elements that constituted a particular home's appearance.

Think form follows function when developing a landscaping plan.

The best landscaping design ideas will develop forms around practical use of open areas. After all, the more beautiful your landscape, the more you are going to want to go outside and experience it firsthand. Activities will naturally follow, so coming up with a clear picture of what you intend to ultimately do when you are outdoors will help you more fully develop a plan for development of key areas of your yard. If your ultimate goal is to create entertainment space, then outdoor structures and special environments will need to be built that support the many activities that you and your guests particularly enjoy. If you have children, and you are looking to create special play areas and sports facilities, Houston professional landscapers can help you by subcontracting specialists who can design these facilities (such as courts and practice fields) safely and effectively while still remaining ultimately true to the overall landscaping design idea envisioned in the master plan.

Ornament the landscape to create special space in addition to simply decorating it.

Even something that normally conveys a purely artistic sentiment can play a functional role in the development of your landscaping design idea. Your Houston landscaping company can help develop special patio and seating areas that are aside just for you. Here, you can reflect, meditate, read the paper, and enjoy the morning over conversation and coffee. Fountains and sculptures, though typically categorized as purely decorative, can take on a new, more subtle role as boundary markers between public space, children space, and special, private space. Landscape lighting can then be installed around these areas to maintain these boundaries during the night as well as the day. In this sense, one single landscape can be turned into many smaller landscapes; each represented by its own unique features, forms, purposes, and carefully designed ideas.

Jeff Halper
Jeff Halper is passionate for Landscaping and wants to share information about that passion. At Exterior Worlds you can read more about Landscaping design ideas or Landscaping Design

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Landscape Design - Utilizing Drip Irrigation Systems

Using conventional watering methods, moisture is lost by run off, evaporation, blown away by the wind, and wasted on non-growth areas. The drip irrigation system is usually more than 90% efficient at allowing plants utilize all the water applied, where sprinklers are only 70% efficient.

It's wise to get a drip irrigation system for your home. Then you don’t need to concern yourself with getting the exact quantity of water delivered at the right moment, nor must you have to move sprinklers everywhere.

An irrigation system is not initially cheap, however it will pay for itself within a few years and most do it yourselfers can install it easily.

What Is It?

Drip irrigation actually refers to a combination of several types of low-pressure, low-volume water delivery methods. The exact term for such systems is "microirrigation". Each microirrigation system is characterized by a different style of emitter (the element that discharges the water).

Drip irrigation is the precise and slow application of low pressure water directly to the roots of the plants using emitters. A drip irrigation system is a series of connected flexible pvc tubing. The tubes have holes bored at specific intervals to match the placement of your plants. The entire system is either buried or placed atop the soil next to the plants.

Advantages

By keeping the plant's roots moist (but not saturated) you really use less water than with normal watering techniques. Maintaining a perfect moisture level in the soil at all times causes:

-deeper watering
-more efficient watering
-water conservation
-almost no evaporation loss
-water only where plants are
-no wind to carry the water away
-deeper roots
-healthier roots (due to reducing disease problems associated with high levels of moisture on plants)
-plants are hardier: more resistant to pests, drought, and disease
-more abundant foliage
-greater crop yields
-no uv degradation of plastic and other materials exposed to sunlight
-lessens water, fertilizer, and labor if managed properly.

Where To Place

Drip irrigation systems are most often placed around flowers, shrubs, and even trees. This targeting allows watering to be more effective and efficient. It ensures that each of your landscape’s individual elements are properly watered.

A drip irrigation system can be easily hidden with a layer of mulch, so that even an above ground system does not diminish the view of your property.

How To Install

Installing drip irrigation is easy using kits obtainable at almost all home improvement stores. Kits come with instructions that clearly explain all the steps. There are a few tools needed for the installation, but you probably already have them. The installation takes 1 day or less.

You can make maintenance even easier by adding a timer to your system. The timers can be obtained where you get your kit and are simple to install as well. Timers insure that your plants get watered at the appropriate time without you needing to remember to do so. They help your plants get precisely the right amount of water at the right time.

Your drip irrigation system can be used in conjunction with “irrigation zones” in your landscape. Plants with similar water needs should be grouped in the same area, so that they can be more efficiently watered. This prevents over watering some plants just because others nearby need additional water.

It's easy to modify the configuration of a drip system. Therefore, a system can evolve as your needs change.

All in all, drip irrigation systems are economical as well as a great way to keep your plants healthy and hardy. They can help to improve your garden ... the easy way.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory


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Landscape designers make your property worthier

No one can be a better landscape designer than the nature. Then, why do we need architects for designing and shaping beautiful houses? Actually, we need to think here in a bit broader way. Our architectures think about only us and our necessities. On the other hand, nature constructs shelters for each and every species in the universe. So, certainly nature is the best architect. Here, we will explore different aspects of landscape transformation New Zealand.

New Zealand already owns wonderful landscape and landscape contractors strive to make it more enticing by adding swimming pool, beautiful garden, playgrounds, etc. The ultimate fact is, "wonderful landscapes enhance overall worth of your property." So, a many people turned into this profession. The competition is gradually becoming tougher. Now, you can get expert landscape contractors New Zealand in exclusively categorized on different basis. For instance, one can get specific category of landscape contractor for home, office, commercial complex and so on.

Some of the landscape contractors may be into this profession as a hobby or part time job. On the other hand, a many enter into this profession with professional degree. If you are extremely serious about your landscape makeover then always choose well trained professionals. Though, it is quite tough to find but only experts can understand minute specification of complete landscape makeover. Here minute specifications refer to terminologies like, landscape design, landscape construction, grading, loaming, seeding, transplanting and planting, hydro seeding, and commercial maintenance.

Probably, LandScapeTransformations.co.nz is perfectly aware with this fact. Hence, it has prominently marked its expertise in all sorts of landscaping structures. Nowadays, it is known as the synonym of the best garden designer New Zealand and swimming pool landscaping New Zealand.

Landscape makeover may leave adverse impact upon our surrounding ecology system. It may go against certain specific environmental norms as well. So as a prudent person, one should discuss all these issues with the professional contractors. Nowadays, Chinese Feng Shui & Indian Vaastu Shastra are also getting global recognition through architects. If you strongly believe upon astrology then you can discuss these two elements as well with your landscape contracts. http://www.landscapetransformations.co.nz

About the Author

Landscape Transformations carry out entire landscape projects from garden landscaping, pool landscape design, planting, hard and soft landscaping as well as the project managing the entire job and also the garden and landscape maintenance. Our qualified and experienced team of landscape designers will help you all the way. http://www.landscapetransformations.co.nz

Find more : home garden , beautiful garden , landscape design , landscape designers

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