Your property's landscape design has a significant effect on how you use your outdoor spaces as well as your home’s market value. By creating a landscape design plan with the aid of an expert, you can transform your yard into a valuable and enjoyable highlight. While considering the hardscapes and softscapes that you’d like to incorporate into your design, be sure to think of how natural light can be used as both a practical and aesthetic solution for your outdoor planning in Long Island, NY.
Making Shade
The most practical manipulation of natural light coming into the landscape is through creating and altering the effects of shade. During the warmest months of the year, enjoying your outdoor space will depend on having a shady spot to congregate. For a softscape solution, you can incorporate trees with a wide, healthy display of branches. Porch roofs also provide shade, but you can make interesting aesthetic features part of the display by choosing alternative materials like bamboo. Some light will still filter in, providing the needed shade while allowing the sun to seep through, casting light and shadow.
Casting Shadows
Similar to shade, the shadows cast in your yard can add an interesting element to your landscape aesthetic. These elements will change throughout the day, depending on the position of the sun, so consider incorporating several elements, each designed to extend shadows in a fun way at different points during the day. These can take the form of visually interesting trees that cast remarkable shadows or hardscape features designed specifically to create extraordinary shadow effects. Your guests might consider it a happy accident, but you’ll know that your intended design successfully displays natural art and beauty.
Embrace Reflection
Shade and shadow aren’t the only effects created by natural light that can enhance your landscaping design. Reflection is another key effect of light. You can incorporate this beautiful element by adding water features to your landscape plan. Whether you use an existing pond on a large plot of land, design a reflecting pool, or take advantage of a Koi pond, waterfall, or swimming pool, consider the effect of reflection as you determine where to place softscapes, outdoor rooms, or outdoor sculptures. Using water features to add depth to your landscape aesthetic requires little effort but can produce extraordinary results.
Color and Light
The effect of natural light on your landscape architecture depends largely on your use of color within the landscape. Light shades emphasize shadow as well as the green of your lush plants. Be careful to allow plenty of light to enter your yard; too much shade will darken your yard and lessen the contrast that highlights your greenery. Also, choose light colored stones and wood features to make your plantings pop within the landscape design. Balance the amount of greenery in your yard with the light available, and consider every effect of natural light in your finished design as you and your outdoor expert create the plan for your landscape architecture.