Top 5 Landscape Features for Marietta GA Yards

Planning and looking for the best features to enhance your Marietta, Ga landscape? Understanding which landscape features work well together will help you design a yard that can significantly increase your home’s curb appeal and value.

toddsmariettatreeservices.com gathered the following landscape design principles and features to help you create a stunning Marietta, Georgia, yard.

Landscape Design Principles

The following landscape design principles have been utilized by designers for centuries in all art forms, like painting, construction, landscape design, etc. Consider the following design principles when developing your Marietta, Georgia, front yard landscape concept:

Balance – Symmetrical balance is used in formal landscapes, in which each side mirrors the other. Asymmetrical balance, or informal balance, differs on either side and appears relaxing and free-flowing.

Focal Point – A landscape’s focal point is often a feature close to the front door to enhance the home’s entrance.

Proportion – Landscape design proportion considers building size, yard size, tree, shrub, plant size, and planted areas vs. open space.

Simplicity – Avoid a cluttered landscape by using too many (or clashing) colors, shapes, curves, and textures.

Rhythm – A rhythm is established when landscape features are repeated with standard intervals. Trees, plants, shrubs, stones, benches, or other elements can be repeated within the design to create rhythm.

The colors, shapes, sizes, textures, and other landscape features can easily create a beautifully unified front yard space.

Popular Landscape Features

Front yard landscaping design and its features define your home’s exterior. Your front yard is the most seen part of the property, greeting your guests and visitors before reaching the door and setting the tone for the rest of the house. Consider the following popular landscape features:

1. Front Yard Garden Space

Well-designed, multi-level garden areas showcase your gardening prowess with color, and variety, and when used as borders, can highlight other landscape features, like a pathway, driveway, specimen tree, pond, etc.

Tip: Reduce watering and care requirements by planting native plant species.

2. Landscape Lighting

Landscape lighting improves your home’s safety and security. Well-placed landscape lighting can enhance trees, gardens, and other features in your yard while illuminating a hard-to-see walkway, driveway, or raised steps.

Read more about landscape lighting and its ideal palcement at toddsmariettatreeservices.com/where-to-place-landscape-lighting

3. Front Yard Water Feature

Besides creating a focal point, a water feature provides individuality to your landscape. This occurs through the feature’s size, shape, color, design, and placement. Water features give movement to an otherwise still area with rushing water.

Note: Your fountain will attract birds, butterflies, and wildlife to your front yard.

4. Landscape Trees

Specimen trees are excellent front yard focal points while providing shade, offering leafy screens, or framing a picturesque view. A large specimen tree in a vast landscape can add structure and shape to the space.

Using trees for privacy screens helps seclude you from your neighbors’ wandering eyes while providing a lush, green landscape year-round (evergreen species), shielding your property from wind, and creating a beautifully shaded scenery.

Tip: Hire a professional tree service to provide seasonal pruning and care.

5. Front Yard Walkway

Installing a stone, brick, concrete, gravel, or paved walkway gives guests and visitors a sense of invitation. It simplifies getting to your front door (or other destination), which naturally increases your property’s curb appeal.

You can add visual value to your front yard walkway by bordering it with flowering plants, shrubs, and lighting.

Tip: When installing a walkway, consider applying a slip-resistant surface to avoid slips and injuries during watering cycles and wet weather.

Visualize Your Landscape Design

You can sketch your front yard landscape design by drawing the yard’s outline, penciling in any existing features, then adding any rocks, waterways, structures, slopes, etc. Consider the following app to help you formulate the perfect Marietta, Georgia, landscape design:

iScape – With iScape, you can create an accurate front yard digital model. The app will show you what featuring your favorite trees, shrubs, and plants looks like, so you can visualize the landscape design before beginning your project. The app is user-friendly and can insert objects, move them around, and more.

Landscape Features

In this article, you discovered essential information about landscape design principles, elements, and the value it adds to your home’s curb appeal and value.

Creating a stunning landscape design can add significant value to your home while adding to your neighborhood’s beauty and biodiversity.

Missing the simple but important landscaping features can result in reducing your home’s curb appeal and potential value.

Sources:
edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/MG086
extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C1032-3&title=drawing-a-landscape-plan-the-base-map
aces.edu/blog/topics/lawn-garden/residential-landscape-design/
canr.msu.edu/news/principles_of_landscape_design
gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/design/modern-design.html

Todd’s Marietta Tree Services

Marietta, GA (678) 505-0266

Originally published on: http://www.toddsmariettatreeservices.com/top-5-landscape-features-for-marietta-ga-yards/

Where To Place Landscape Lighting

Avoid a dark and potentially dangerous landscape due to not knowing how to properly light it. Knowing where and how to use landscape lighting will enhance your home’s security, highlight your yard’s features, and increase your home’s curb appeal.

toddsmariettatreeservices.com gathered the following information on where and how to place landscape lighting to increase your home’s value and enhance its safety.

Where Should I Put Front Yard Lights?

Your landscape and home can appear more beautiful and illuminated, and front yard landscape lighting naturally increases security by lighting up your entryways. Well-lit homes and yards are significantly less likely to be vandalized or invaded. Consider the following:

Path Lights – These are excellent lighting sources around the perimeter of a yard or to define a driveway/pathway entrance and illuminate walkway areas. This method of outdoor lighting adds to the overall ambiance and serenity of your exterior space.

Tip: Ideally, the lamps should be placed 10 to 15 feet apart, creating connecting pools of light that gently lead the way.

Hanging Lights – These fixtures are perfect for above a front door, gazebo, or porch area. They help with general illumination and add sophisticated detail to your home’s exterior living or gathering space.

Up and Down Lights – Uplights are placed at ground level and aimed up to highlight focal or interest points in the landscape, like specimen trees, signs, water features, and architecture. Downlights are placed above an object or area and aimed down to imitate natural lighting like simulating moonlight or for providing an added layer of security to an area.

Wall-Mounted Outdoor Lighting – This type of lighting can be mounted on either side of a front, back, or garage door, and around the home’s exterior walls. Wall lighting can significantly increase curb appeal and visibility from the street and helps a home stand out in the neighborhood.

Driveways Low-Voltage Landscape Lighting – This convenient lighting is easy to install and uses less energy than other systems, making it an excellent option to light your way home.

Steps and Stairways – Steps should always be lighted for safety, and this can be done on the risers or the treads.

Doors – Place lights to each side or overhead at the front, back, and side entry doors for increased security.

Note: Designing your landscape with light requires the same planning as traditional landscape. Identify an area, object, or focal point within the yard to be lit and its most striking features.

How Far Apart Should I Place Landscape Lights?

Generally, you have to plan where your outdoor landscape lights should be placed. It is preferable to place the lights six to eight feet apart to ensure your yard, pathways, and driveway remain bright and continuously well-lit. However, spacing them closer is an option, particularly if you are trying to create an especially vivid lighting effect.

Where Do You Put Security Spotlights?

There are a few places to install security lights. One is above garages, decks, and patios. There’s usually increased nighttime activity in these places, like walking in and out of the house. It’s great when a light is on, or comes on, so you can see where you are stepping.

Tip: Motion sensor-activated lights are best placed 7 to 10 feet above the ground and facing downwards. The higher the lights are located, the wider radius they will cover.

Solar Powered Landscape Lights

For some, outdoor, solar-powered lights are a perfect landscape lighting solution. They tend to be budget-friendly and easy to install, and you can move them exactly where you want them since they don’t rely on hard-wired power sources.

However, for others, most solar landscaping lights do not offer the durability, brilliance, and energy outputs of low-voltage LED lighting systems. Most solar landscape fixtures are poorly constructed with cheap plastics and extremely low-light output lamps. Consider the following pros and cons:

Solar Landscape Lighting Pros:

• No Electrical Connection Needed
• Long-Term Savings Potential
• Easy to Install

Solar Landscape Lighting Cons:

• Fixtures Require Sunlight to Operate
• Frequent Maintenance Required
• Inconsistent Lighting

Note: Dark corners, covered patios, and other shaded areas that may need lighting may not be appropriate locations for solar lighting.

These convenient, ready-to-use solar lights may work great in parts of your yard that get some lighting. Then, you can install traditional wired lights in other parts of the landscape that need stronger, more consistent lighting.

Should I Leave Landscape Lighting on All Night?

Yes and no. If you have general landscape lighting, keep these lights on for the entire night (dusk to dawn). Use garden lights and spotlights with motion detectors, placing them strategically around the perimeter of your home. Areas where vandals or intruders can hide from view, are of particular interest.

Note: If you select solar-powered landscape lighting, your landscape’s lighting will be limited to the amount of energy each light fixture has stored that day.

Landscape Lighting

In this article, you discovered essential information and tips on where and how to install landscape lighting on your property.

Knowing how to adequately light your yard will help you increase your home’s curb appeal and value while adding a crucial layer of security to your property.

Ignoring the need for landscape lighting can leave your property targets to thieves and vandals, while making steps and objects nighttime trip hazards.

Sources:
cals.arizona.edu/yavapai/anr/hort/byg/archive/outdoorlandscapelighting.html
hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/1994/5-25-1994/light.html

Todd’s Marietta Tree Services

Marietta, GA (678) 505-0266

Originally published on: http://www.toddsmariettatreeservices.com/where-to-place-landscape-lighting/