With it’s beaches and beautiful natural landscapes, Glen Cove, NY, is a gem. As your personal sanctuary, your landscape should reflect this by incorporating greenery and all things natural, allowing the inherent beauty of the setting to take up prime position in your backyard design. Below are some must-haves for any homeowner seeking to integrate greenery into their outdoor spaces.
Flowers
With careful selection, flowers can add life and vibrant color to your landscape. Although it may be tempting to cram your plant beds with lush annuals, a more modern design may call for simple touches of color or accents. Glen Cove’s soil is slightly saltier than other areas because of it’s proximity to the ocean. Plants selected by your landscaper will take this as well as general weather conditions into account, along with the nature of the soil specific to your property. Flowers as well as other greenery can be incorporated into your landscape in a number of ways, not just in designated plant beds around your lawn. Raised plantbeds and retaining walls can be used to include flowering plants in and around your patio and other hardscaped areas, serving to soften the clean lines and crisp edges prevalent in modern design.
Shrubs
Just like flowers, shrubs can be colorful and bring an interesting accent to your landscape, while requiring less care. Many will go as far as to say that shrubs are the backbone of a softscape design. Boxwood is an excellent shrub for contributing greenery, shape and form to landscape designs in Glen Cove’s plant hardiness zone (Zone 7a). Boxwood is available in a number of different cultivars of varying sizes. Depending on the size of your backyard or the requirements of your design, you can opt for dwarf, mid-size, or full-height shrubs. Because of boxwood’s dense structure and ability to maintain a consistent form, it offers an ideal decorative option for modern landscapes, with the ability to be pruned into shapes appropriate to your geometric theme. Rows of boxwood can be used as a hedge, to form a privacy screen, or to add minimalistic touches of cultivated greenery to a more modern landscape design.
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Walkways
Walkways not only serve to connect spaces and offer a safe, easily navigable path through your landscape, they can also provide an opportunity to carry guests through the sights and sounds of your softscape. For this reason, walkways complement the greenery of your yard, drawing attention to certain key features and leading backyard strollers to secret spots tucked away in the surrounding vegetation.
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Natural stone and wood
The rich, warm color of wood and the neutral, earthy tones of natural stone are both perfect complements to lush greenery, highlighting the colors of nature and emphasizing the green of lawn and leaves. A wooden pergola not only complement greenery with its coloring, but also provides the ideal framework for vines and creepers, further contributing to the greenery of your yard. The cooler colors of grey limestone, granite, bluestone and slate are subtle and assuming, allowing the color of the landscape to take centerstage.
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