Transform Your Landscape: Hardscape Design For An All-Season Escape From The Daily Grind
Believe it or not, the late fall and winter months are a prime time to make landscape improvements, so why not take the opportunity to transform your commercial grounds into an all-season escape where people can enjoy an outdoor reprieve from the daily grind? It can be as easy as adding some useful and well-placed hardscape features like to your grounds.
Hardscapes Defined
Before we talk more about all the ways hardscapes can contribute to your company’s success, let’s define what exactly a hardscape is. The term “hardscape” is used to describe non-living landscaping elements such as:
- Patios of brick, wood, flag stone, limestone, or other cut stone, concrete, composite decking or another material.
- Walking paths of decorative rock, paver stones, wood chips, or recycled rubber.
- Outdoor seating such as metal, wooden or stone benches strategically placed where people can enjoy a regenerative break with nature.
- Retaining walls that add borders, designate pet-friendly spaces, prevent erosion, protect tree roots and can also offer a place to sit and take a breather.
- Fire pits where people can take the chill off while enjoying time outside all year round.
- Pergolas and gazebos for an outdoor respite even when the rain or snow is falling.
- Water features that beautify while creating a soothing, relaxing ambiance.
- Landscape lighting installed along sidewalks and to draw attention to signage, entryways, other landscape elements you’d like to highlight.
- Outdoor kitchens with grill surrounds, covered tables, and plenty of seating for outdoor gatherings.
Hardscape Features Can Make A Powerful Contribution To Your Goals
Now, you’re likely thinking that adding hardscape features is a costly endeavor, and depending upon your vision, it certainly can be. However, there are some hardscapes that can make a real contribution to your company goals without exhausting the budget by:
- Increasing curb appeal, which is key to attracting high quality leasing agreements as well as customers, visitors and patrons.
- Providing an outdoor public space, which can be a powerful draw if you’re managing a multi-family dwelling such as an apartment complex or condominium property, resort or hotel, healthcare facility, assisted living environment or convalescent home, an HOA, or even a business park or office property, where employees can appreciate getting outside for a break away from their desk for a few minutes.
- Raising property values through landscape improvements, which ultimately increases profitability.
- Elevating your status in the community by demonstrating that you care about your standing within your community.
- Making people want to do business with you because when they see how much attention you give to your property’s exterior, they recognize that you’re also likely to provide them with impeccable service, too.
Late Autumn Into Wintertime Is The Ideal Time For Making Landscape Improvements
So, let’s circle back to why late autumn into the winter months is an ideal time to give your grounds an upgrade. While starting a landscape improvement project at this time of year may seem counterintuitive, there are some good reasons why it is, in fact, a prime time to enhance your commercial landscape.
First, for most landscape management services providers, these months are the least busy time of the year–with the exception of those who’ve contracted to provide snow removal and ice management in regions where wintry weather creates hazardous conditions, and even then, they’re only consumed during snowstorms and icing events–so the seasonal pause from routine landscape maintenance duties frees your grounds care team to focus solely on performing landscape enhancements.
Advantages To Planning Ahead For Landscape Enhancements
Additionally, when you schedule improvements to your landscape well ahead of time with the goal of having them completed during the slower seasons, it offers multiple advantages:
- Cost savings – by giving your landscape improvement services provider plenty of notice, they’re able to order all the supplies they need to do the job, early enough that the availability is ensured without any rush fees, which can quickly add up when you wait until the 11th hour.
- Access to a wider range of options – in addition to avoiding increased costs associated with late orders, by having a plan in place months ahead of schedule you’ll have a wider range of options to choose from when it comes to the different hardscape materials available, so you’ll be less likely to have to settle for an alternate to your first choice.
- A dedicated landscape enhancement crew – as we touched upon earlier, planning for your landscape enhancements early ensures your landscape management services provider has the right team members in place to complete your improvement project right on time.
- Faster turnaround times – because you have that dedicated landscape improvement team on the job, efficiencies skyrocket, which translates to faster completion, so people can start enjoying your new outdoor public space sooner rather than later.
- You’re more likely to get exactly what you want – giving yourself the extra time to put plenty of thought and planning into what types of hardscape elements you want to incorporate as well as how the finished landscape design will look is much more likely to result in an outcome you’ll be happy with.
One other early scheduling benefit that can have a noticeable impact on your landscape improvement projects from the initial cost to how much time they take, is simply this: it enables your landscape management partner to avoid layoffs as the season slows down.
This is advantageous for you, because it ensures you’ll have a team of landscape improvement professionals enthusiastic about the ability to continue earning a living undisrupted; and it also means the conscientious grounds care specialists you’ve become accustomed to seeing on your property mowing, weeding, trimming, performing fall and spring cleanups, planting, and otherwise maintaining your landscape, will be the same competent crew enhancing your landscape.
Trust Your Local U.S. Lawns Landscape Improvement Pros
If you’re interested in learning more about how we can add outdoor seating and other hardscape features to your commercial landscape, get in touch with us today. We’re excited to learn more about your goals and show you ways we can enhance your landscape to help you achieve them!