If your landscape feels a bit bland, adding some masonry features can be a wonderful way to add artistic flair as well as functionality. The right materials will make your landscape a visual feast. Here are three masonry ideas for a multi-color landscape design in East Hampton, NY.
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Before we get into specific masonry features that can add color to your landscape, keep in mind that less is actually more. Adding too many permanent (masonry) elements in more than three colors will just become busy, especially against the backdrop of a colorful landscape. Instead of marveling at the beauty, you’ll quickly tire of the busy-ness.
A better approach is to choose a consistent color theme for your masonry elements and let them act as focal points that draw the eye to something that pops from the landscape. This is a timeless approach that won’t ever become dated or tired.
1. Retaining Walls
A wall is just a wall… until it becomes a work of art. Today there are so many choices, from natural stone blocks, concrete blocks, to natural stone or manufactured stone veneers, which means that the artistic potential of walls has never been greater. The great thing about walls - even if you don’t have a sloped lot - is that they are strong elements that draw the eye along their length, exactly to where you want the eye to land. They offer an opportunity for placing colorful potted plants on the capstone; as a support for climbing vines (which will delight you both with summer flowers and fall foliage); and to offer contrast against a lush green landscape. Taller walls could even house niches for artwork, to give a wall even more character.
If your lot isn’t sloped, putting in a low seat wall around the perimeter of your patio or along a driveway or walkway adds vertical interest, a way to incorporate landscape lighting, and provides an interesting contrast between the natural and manmade elements of your landscape.
2. Fire Features
Central to any outdoor living space is a fire feature, whether it’s an outdoor fireplace, a fire pit, or a fire table. Once again, this is an opportunity to create a backdrop for colorful elements. With a fire pit or fire table, you won’t be placing colorful objects on it (like you could with the mantel of an outdoor fireplace). However, bands of contrasting color could give these pieces their own panache. Reddish banding such as brick could serve to liven up the fire feature, and charcoal banding such as granite could add a touch of sophistication. At night, take advantage of color-creating opportunities using landscape lighting installed into the fire feature itself.
3. Water Features
Masonry water features could add a pop of color to your landscape. It all depends on how vibrantly blue you want the basin to be. From a pale blue to deep turquoise, the basin of a water feature (or for that matter, a pool or spa) is an opportunity to create contrast between any reddish elements found in the landscape (brick, or a rose garden) using rich blue tones. At night, light and water are a natural pair. Use various bulb colors to create exactly the atmosphere you want, from cool and chic to party central. Once again, you could use accent banding to add color to the water feature itself and use colored glass instead of decorative stone in the catchbasin of a pondless waterfall.
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