In well-designed landscapes, hardscaping elements are just as important and eye-catching as the greenery and flowers you choose. The word “hardscaping” includes non-plant landscape features such as retaining walls, paver walks, patios, decks, firepits, and decorative fencing. Hardscapes give your landscape an added dimension, enhance your outdoor living spaces, and solve practical problems like drainage. Hardscaping adds structure and organizes your plantings, giving your landscaping year-round style and practicality. Quality hardscaping adds value and curb appeal to your home.

Start with Retaining Walls

One of the most dramatic improvements you can make in your landscape is to surround your planting beds with retaining walls. Retaining walls can divert runoff away from your home, create level living areas in hilly yards, and allow you to build planter beds filled with good garden soil. They can solve problems such as slopes along the foundation, bringing plantings up level with the house for a more professional look.

Interlocking wall blocks are available in many shapes, colors and sizes, or with natural stone. Stone or concrete walls will last for the life of your home, if they’re well-designed and built professionally.

Dry-laid Paver Walks and Patios

Creating a shapely front walk is the first step in designing landscapes with curb appeal. A gracefully curved walk allows a more interesting landscape than a boring straight line of shrubs between the house and walk. Dry-laid pavers, set on a compacted gravel base, have a three-dimensional texture, colored all the way through, and are more than twice as hard as poured concrete for wear and stain resistance. Pavers come in a huge variety of sizes, shapes and colors, and they can be laid in intricate patterns like inlaid tilework. Dry-laid pavers are the tailored suit of the landscape world.

Dry-laid pavers can also be used to create elegant, graceful patios, in colors that compliment your home. Patios can be raised, or built on slopes, by using retaining walls for support. Raised hardscape patios last much longer than wood decks, and they require less maintenance. Firepits, either wood-burning or gas-burning, can be recessed in the paver patio.

If you’re looking for luxury hardscaping that combines old-world craftsmanship with modern landscape design, GoodSeed Farm Landscapes is an invaluable resource. Southwest Ohio homeowners have trusted this team with turn-key, low maintenance landscape makeovers since 1998. For more information, before-and-after pictures, and more ideas for elevating the curb appeal of your property, visit their website. To schedule a free consultation, call (937) 587-7021.