A Landscape You Will Actually Use
Thoughtful patio and landscape design begins with this question: How do you want to use your yard?
It sounds obvious, but we've seen a lot of very expensive landscapes that really are not all that suited to the people who live in the home.
Trends vs. Personal Needs
Many trends in landscaping are wonderful. But it's not always the best thing for your situation.
One of the hottest trends in landscaping today is outdoor kitchens. Lawn and garden magazines and social media accounts are filled with articles about the movement towards outdoor cooking.
That's fantastic for people who love to cook outdoors. But if what you really need is just a quiet spot in the sun to relax and enjoy a book? In that case, let's leave the built-in BBQ and wood-fired pizza oven to someone who will use it on a regular basis.
Tailoring Designs to Different Life Stages
If you're a young couple contemplating starting a family, your needs will be very different from a family with teens who are poised to leave the house in the next few years. And empty nesters with possible future mobility issues will have a different set of priorities.
Low maintenance vs high maintenance
If you love gardening you might actually want a high maintenance landscape. Many people love pruning and shaping trees and shrubs. Some people get great pleasure moving and dividing perennials and deciding what to put in next spring.
If this is not you, it will be a chore. Design your landscape with low-maintenance in mind.
Privacy vs openness
Landscape design can create neighbourly openness or a private oasis, or both. People have very different needs and preferences here.
Even within your own family unit, it can be nice to have an outdoor area where introverts can retreat!
It is a general truth that people want a place to be outside where they can go unobserved. It can feel almost awkward to live without this.
In most situations, we want a bit of both. We want connection and we want privacy. So we want multiple regions, if possible. For example, the front yard is obviously much more public and the backyard can be more private.
Humans are generally quite sensitive to this. Almost anyone can know immediately whether a patio looks like a cozy place to read a book, or if a garden looks like a pleasant place to work, or if a yard feels open enough to socialize in with a sense of the outside world and connection to a community. Often people can just tell at a glance whether a space will never be used because it just doesn't look right! One of the dimensions we are subconsciously evaluating on is privacy vs openness.
You can observe this easily in animals. You'll notice that a dog will take cover somewhere private sometimes, but other times she'll be right in the path of most action. People are the same.
To figure out what is best for you, we come back to our original question of what do you want to do in your yard?
Sun and shade
Most people want a mixture of sun and shade, but there is a range of personal preference here and special considerations. An obvious one is if you are interested in gardening, you'll want to reserve the sunny spots for that. Someone who is not interested in that, might want the patio in the sunny spot.
Entertaining guests
A lot of effort can be put into making a patio wonderful for entertaining guests. For some people, this is absolutely worth the effort since it is a great joy in their life. For other people, realistically they rarely host gatherings and it might not be worth the investment for a once a year occurrence.
Open space vs interesting features
What some families need most is a simple patch of open grass for the kids play on. Other people want a rich and interesting landscape with gardens, walkways and a water feature.
Our Commitment to Clients
Our approach here at Earthworks Landscaping is to favour your actual needs over anything else, to build something you'll actually love using, year after year.