Landscaping

Aqueous elements are pleasing landscaping details that help soothe the senses. Adding ponds, waterfalls, and fountains adds a pleasing kinetic dimension to any landscape plan.Water features can be small, off-the-shelf elements, or custom-engineered designs that wind throughout an entire yard. Water features bring sound and movement into your landscape spaces, letting you escape to a more tranquil and cooler feeling environment.

Extend the enjoyment of your outdoor living spaces into the nighttime hours with outdoor light fixtures. Choose from fixtures to light pathways, garden areas, architectural features, patios, decks and more. Landscape lighting used to be simple. A few recessed can fixtures lining the front path, a couple down lights tucked in the trees, and you were done. Not anymore. When it comes to the great outdoors, homeowners have seen the light. Today, the biggest excitement in outdoor lighting is the whole artistic aspect. Outdoor lighting can be both functional and aesthetic. It’s an art to understand how much light to place on a house or determine where the focal points are.Think of it as painting a picture of the landscape at night, using lights to achieve the look a homeowner wants.

Landscape design is the process of analysis, planning, creation and/or construction of exterior spaces utilizing plant materials and appropriate hard scape elements including incidental paving and building materials. A professional landscape designer like Green Shadow is an individual who is qualified through education, training and professional experience to practice landscape design for monetary compensation. What does it takes to be a landscape designer? It takes a thorough grounding in the principles of landscape design, the capability of using these principles to translate a client’s wants and needs into a creative reality, the ability to graphically communicate the design, knowledge of plant material and knowledge of soil and hydrology.

Open your doors to nature by incorporating natural stone into your exterior landscaping decoration. Elegant Country, Tuscan, or Modern no matter what your style, infusing natural stone look into your exterior landscaping design is the perfect final touch. Whether you are looking to install a natural Rock Garden, stone tile flooring, or adding stone edging to your flower beds, Green Shadow is your solution to all stone exterior applications.

There are three basic types of soil: clay, sand and loam.

Loam is a combination of clay, silt, sand and organic matter, and is the best and easiest soil to work with. It has the most diverse combination of materials, giving it the richest soil. Clay, which holds water too long, and sand, which doesn’t hold water long enough, can impose limitations on how your yard can be landscaped. Because loam has both, it balances the soil out so it holds the proper amount of water, and the silt and organic matter don’t hurt either. Clay and sand can be improved by adding the missing organic matter, which includes everything from yard clippings to barnyard materials such as straw and manure (once it has been composted, of course). The richer your soil is, the darker it will be.

Walls are used for many purposes. Whether it be to create a flat surface for a pool or patio area or to level out some flaws in your terrain our designers can guide you to the perfect solution. They can also provide more usable space on your property and as property boundaries. There are many materials and patterns that can be used in your design to accomplish these goals.

Mulch is usually made of chopped up wood or other synthetic materials. The most common type of wood mulches used are cypress, cedar, and pine because they are not only durable, but they look nice and smell great. It is used in landscaping to cover the exposed soil between plants, in paths or walking trails, driveways, or in playgrounds as a cushion for when children fall. Mulch can make the yard look more uniform and more appealing. Yards look much cleaner and kept up, plus it keeps the weeds from growing back as long as the ground is covered with mulch.Mulch is ideal for flower gardens because it will hold water in the soil and protect it from drying out in the sun. Mulch prevents erosion of the soil by acting as a barrier between it and the rain and wind, and maintains the temperature of the soil so the plants can properly grow. It maintains the nutrient content and helps the flowers to thrive while keeping weeds from growing. Mulch also keeps the soil from becoming compacted and prevents the surface of the soil from becoming hard and crusted. Organic mulch will breakdown into the soil, adding more nutrients to the soil that there was to begin with, allowing the plants to grow even better than before.

Landscape contracting is a licensed profession in many jurisdictions in the United States, with requirements varying, but including a combination of formal education, work experience, and/or apprenticeship of a certain time length, technical testing, posting a bond, and periodic renewal submittals. Landscape Contracting Associations offer ongoing education, specialty skills certifications, and recognition of outstanding professional accomplishments.