Expert Landscape Design Advice

In-depth discussions, resources, and case studies

Imagine gathering around your beautiful fire pit with friends and family, enjoying the warmth and the glow. A fire pit is a wonderful addition to an overall outdoor living space design.

With the addition of this fire feature, your outdoor living area has come together just as you’d imagined it—that is until the wind from your fire pit is blowing smoke directly into everyone’s faces all evening long. Because orientation wasn’t given any thought with your fire pit design, each time you use it, you have to move away from the fire pit every time the wind picks up.

Or, even worse, maybe a novice installer used a material that is not even rated for such high heat. You may not know this, but concrete blocks can actually explode if they get too hot, making your fire pit a serious danger.

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Adding landscape lighting is such a valuable addition to any outdoor project. Not only does it serve a functional purpose by adding an element of safety and security, but it also adds a tremendous amount of aesthetic appeal.

There are countless ways to light up a property. While you may have seen a variety of landscape lighting ideas, you’re not sure which would work best for your property or even how they’d all come together.

Looking at pictures of landscape lighting is one way to start narrowing down which ideas you might like best. We’ve also rounded up some other ideas to keep in mind as you start planning your outdoor space.

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Your outdoor kitchen countertop is an important detail of your overall outdoor kitchen space. It’s where you’ll prep and cook your food on your outdoor grill and will likely include a seating area for your family and friends to socialize.

When designed properly, outdoor kitchen countertops can be the showpiece of your kitchen.

But when not done properly, your countertops can turn your dream kitchen into a nightmare. The wrong choices can really have a negative impact. For instance, instead of enjoying time seated at the countertop, you can’t sit there because the dark stone you chose is burning hot. Or perhaps the spatial layout of your kitchen wasn’t taken into account and you barely have enough room to squeeze into the cooking space or move around in your U-shaped kitchen.

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Imagine lounging by your pool, reading a great book or even watching your kids swim. You’re listening to the sound of your water feature churning and feeling totally relaxed when a scream cuts into the picture-perfect scene.

Your child was just stung by a bee or scratched by the thorny shrub that shouldn’t have been planted so close to your pool patio. And now that you’re looking closer, you’re noticing that your pool is filled with fallen flower petals and your patio is stained with berries.

This isn’t a dream at all—it’s more like a nightmare! And it’s all because of making poor choices in trees and shrubs.

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Even a small backyard can be spectacular. That was the case for this historic estate, which had a sprawling front yard, but not a tremendous amount of space to work with in the back. The new homeowners (who had recently relocated there) had a lot they wanted to accomplish with the yard and it required maximizing the available space to get as much out of it as possible.

Projects on the wish list included a patio design that incorporated various entertainment, dining, and living spaces. More specifically, they desired a cigar patio off of the sunroom, a dining patio for guests or family dinners, an entertainment area, and a cozy fire pit zone. It was a tall order for a small space and required some out-of-the-box thinking.

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No matter what type of landscape design you are investing in, chances are you want something completely unique. A cookie-cutter backyard that looks like everyone else's on the block just won’t do. In fact, you’d love to incorporate some of your own personal style and preferences into the project to make it truly your own.

While an ordinary landscape contractor might point you toward standard design ideas that they’ve used many times, you want creative, out-of-the-box solutions, and a landscape design company that can handle them. Finding a landscape designer who can take your ideas and run—turning them into something spectacular and truly unique, is what it’s going to take.

Here are seven examples of homeowners in Lancaster, Reading, and York, PA that found that type of solution.

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Whether it’s boiling a big pot of corn outside, grabbing a cold soda from the fridge, or even just having a place to neatly tuck away the trash, it’s the outdoor kitchen appliances that can make or break the convenience factor of your brand-new outdoor kitchen.

They might seem like small details, but it’s appliances like these that really complete the space. After all, nobody wants to take a seat at the bar only to realize they have to trudge all the way back to the house to get a cold drink. And when you’re in the midst of cooking raw chicken, it’s not enough to just wipe your hands on a towel. You want to be able to actually wash them in a sink with running water.

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