Landscaping Tips For New Homes: Simple Backyard Improvements

Custom Homes deserve Custom Backyards. 

Why would it be any other way? A Homeowner’s back door can be a gateway to an expanded and beautiful living space, a living and breathing extension of your house.  The Indoors and Outdoors can work together when we undertake their design simultaneously. Bringing your Landscape Designer into the process early helps with this integration. They may have landscaping tips for new homes that can change the entire feel of your backyard.

Think of the Landscape Design Process as creating the experiences you want to have and to share with others. Create the feelings and mood you are after.  This blends with your sense of style.  As with your house, your landscape can reflect your preferences for:

Traditional, Modern, Oasis, Rustic, Natural, Cottage, Farmhouse, Architectural, Futuristic, or a blend of these styles.

Here Are 4 of Our Landscaping Tips For New Homes:

1. The feelings and experience starts with what’s right at the doorway:

Shelter: from rain, direct sun, wet feet.

Surfaces: safe underfoot to help you move into and out of the space.

Access: for people of all ages and abilities, pets, and guests.

Connection: to the kitchen and family areas so movement between is encouraged and convenient.

Attraction: to draw you outside to a range of outdoor activities you engage in.

Secure: knowing you have appropriate control of your property

2. Add these features to achieve these ends:

• Porch covers and patio roofs
• Well-constructed decks and patios integrated well with the house and doorways
• Landings, stairs, railings, ramps, zero rise passage-ways, pet doors
• Garden and Landscape Views created to take advantage of windows and doorways
• Lighting to keep the connection alive at night, and to provide safe passage when needed
• Fences, walls, or hedges to define and enhance the area

3. Keep an eye on practical needs:

Where do the shoes go? 

Where’s a faucet and a hose stored?

How does the maintenance crew get in and out?

How is the space kept secure?

How do the pets come and go?

Where can I hang the laundry?

4. Now we can add any and all of the features that speak to you:

• Beautiful plants
• Sculpted gardens full of color and texture
• Native stone for aesthetic and structural uses
• Modern materials suited to your style
• Play areas for children, and adults!
• Cooking area
• Firepit or Fireplace
• Fountains
• Refuges such as a hammock, reading area, a chair with a great view or privacy, or both!
• Seasonal Garden beds and raised beds
• Workspaces, storage, and more.

Whether we are dealing with large or small properties, there are wonderful opportunities.  

Small Backyard Landscaping Ideas

Small Gardens can be highly designed and detailed to create a rich and useful space. Craftsman-level detailing during installation adds charm and delight. Taking advantage of every inch, small gardens use every opportunity to enrich your experience and provide for all your needs. 

Large Backyard Landscaping Ideas

Large Landscapes allow us to soar outward into the world. Taking advantage of vistas and wide open spaces, we can guide the development to enhance your setting and natural features. We can sculpt the ground to create 3-dimensional landscapes that include large-scale features such as a berm, ponds, and sports courts. Meanwhile, we keep a close eye on how large-scale properties are developed economically, and maintained over time. 

While we design your landscape, we also design the maintenance program.  We must remember, that while we dedicate resources to the construction of the landscape, we also determine the resources that will be needed to maintain and enhance the developed landscape over time. Will the homeowner be providing all of the care, or will they partner with maintenance professionals? Planning for these issues as we go helps us allocate resources appropriately. This leads us to many opportunities such as water harvesting, xeriscaping, weed fabric use, mulch choices, borders and edge materials, proper irrigation, drainage concerns, and so on.  Managing these practical considerations is essential to the long-term success of your landscape investment.

We hope you’ve found these landscaping tips for new homes helpful!

Peterson Landscape Services will help you navigate the design process, and create wonderful outdoor spaces.  The earlier we are brought into the process of home design, the better.  Contact us now to set up a meeting, and we will explore the possibilities together!