When it comes to garden design, many people already know the word “landscaping”. They know that it usually involves moving around soil and dirt to create a beautiful garden with the help of professional designers. However, landscaping has a relative that many people often forget about–hardscaping!
Hardscaping is becoming one of the most unique ways to spruce up your garden because it can be used in conjunction with landscaping to create some utterly amazing backyards. So in this post, we’re going to give you a brief explanation of what hardscaping is and how you can use it to your advantage.
What is hardscaping?
Let’s start with the basics; what exactly is hardscaping? Hardscaping usually refers to hard surfaces and elements such as wood, concrete, and stone being added together with natural elements such as soil and plants to achieve a beautiful look in your yard. Landscaping technically includes hardscaping as well, but people have started to separate the terms to open up more design possibilities.
In fact, some people have chosen to focus completely on hardscape design or at least prioritise it over natural landscaping elements such as living plants. Lately, there have been many new garden designs that have a higher ratio of hardscaping elements than plants, especially for modern homes where people don’t want to spend lots of time maintaining their lawn or watering their plants every day. It can be an incredibly unique way to design your backyard or front yard and offers lots of unique benefits that we’ll be going through.
Benefits of focusing on hardscaping
First, unlike natural plants, hardscaping doesn’t need as much maintenance. You don’t need to water them, you don’t need to mow it to maintain it, and they usually don’t get affected by the sun or weather conditions. With no maintenance required, you can have more hardscaping elements for an easy-to-maintain garden.
Hardscaping can also add lots of unique features to your home. Since hardscaping includes things like adding paths and patios, you can actually improve the functionality of your home. Add more pathways around your property, create a space where you can put furniture, or even create a cosy little hideaway for yourself to relax in.
Hardscaping can also improve privacy. Adding a fence is considered a form of hardscaping, but you can go a step further and use other materials to create boundary lines or even raise the walls a little and create tiered planters for landscaping purposes. There are loads of different ways to use these various materials and you’ll want to work with a hardscaping specialist to unlock the potential in your home.
Lastly, hardscaping can also increase the visual appeal of your home which leads to a higher home value. This is great if you’re planning to sell your home in the future and want to make it more attractive to prospective buyers. It’s definitely an investment that, if taken care of, can give you greater returns in the future.