What Luxury Homeowners Regret About Their Landscape Projects
There are lots of things that seemed like a good idea at the time. That haircut you saw in a magazine and showed your stylist. Spicy jalapeno pizza at midnight.
Planting 100 plants instead of a lawn.
Every well-lived life includes a few regrets, right?
What are some common landscape project regrets? Not including shade from the searing Florida sun. Planting too many plants, assuming they’re easier to maintain than grass. Not thinking ahead about future landscaping projects.
Let’s learn more about luxury landscape design mistakes, including:
Landscape Project Regret #1: Forgetting to Include Shade
Is it just us, or is it hot and sunny around here?
It’s not just us. Sarasota averages 251 sunny days per year. The sun sizzles.
Homeowners who don’t include shade in their high-end landscape project regret it.
One Tropical Gardens client came to us for help after they installed artificial turf but added no trees, no palms, no pergola. No shade.
Their artificial turf installers neglected to tell them how hot synthetic turf gets in the sun. Ouch.
Artificial grass absorbs and retains direct sunlight, often reaching surface temperatures of 120 degrees or higher. That’s hot enough to burn bare feet and paws.
Unlike natural grass, artificial grass lacks moisture to cool itself through evaporation. Homeowners often keep their irrigation systems after they switch to artificial turf, turning them on to help cool the turf.
Shade is crucial here in Sarasota, Siesta Key and Longboat Key. We installed several coconut palms in this client’s yard to add much-needed shade.
Another client had a beautiful patio surrounded by stunning landscaping.
Her family can’t use it, she told us. It’s too hot out there. Common landscaping mistake.
We installed a sheltering pergola with just quarter-inch spaces between the cross beams to provide cooling shade. Now they use their pretty patio all the time.
Why is this a common luxury landscape design mistake? Isn’t shade an obvious need for people? Well, if you’re doing your landscaping project in the winter, you might not think about the need for shade. It’s nice and cool.
But once March rolls around, it’s suddenly 98 degrees and the sunniest month in Sarasota, with about 70 percent of possible sunshine.
Shade isn’t just an option for your Sarasota, Siesta Key or Longboat Key landscape design. It’s a must have.
How to get it and avoid landscape project regrets? You have a few good options:
Duck Into the Shade of a Pergola
These popular garden structures are made of vertical posts or pillars that support cross beams or lattice overhead.
A typical pergola offers only dappled shade due to light coming in through the cross beams overhead.
But, as we mentioned earlier, you can adjust that by placing the overhead slats closer together.
Add even more shade with a sliding canvas cover that can shade your space during the afternoon and retract after the sun sinks lower. It’s a popular pergola feature in Sarasota high-end landscape design.
A pergola can conveniently cover your entire outdoor kitchen or patio. They’re great for a bit of outdoor shade at your sunny poolside, too.
A Tiki Hut Offers Shade Plus a Tropical Vibe
These custom-built outdoor structures with the tropical vacation vibe are constructed mostly of wood, topped with a weather-resistant palm thatched roof that offers precious cooling shade.
Tikis are custom built, so your tiki hut can be any size you need, but the most popular sizes are 10 by 10 or 15 by 12 feet.
Shade your patio. Add one over your outdoor kitchen. Install one poolside.
Bonus: Not only do they offer full shade outdoors from the brutal Sarasota sun, those charming natural thatch roofs keep the rain out, too.
Relax Beneath Shade Sails
Shade sails are canvas or mesh shades attached to structures with stainless steel hardware so they cover and shade an area.
Attach one corner to your house, another to a conveniently located palm or pergola.
Some homeowners layer several sails, overlapping each other, to extend the shaded area.
Be sure to take them down before wind storms or hurricane warnings.
Let Trees Provide Cooling Shade
Shade structures are great, but nature plays a pretty good shade game, too.
Meet five shade trees we love for luxury landscape design in Sarasota:
- Shady Lady Black Olive offers lush layers of leaves for cooling shade. And it doesn’t get huge, so it’s great for a medium-size yard.
- Live Oak is made for shade, with a crown spread of 80 feet and a mature height of 50 feet.
- Gumbo Limbo is the clear winner for the Coolest Name Award, but it offers cool shade, too. It’s a South Florida native and a semi-evergreen tree with a thick trunk and branches covered with smooth, peeling coppery-colored bark.
- Montgomery Palm is great if you need shade but don’t have a lot of space. It has a slim trunk, so it will fit in places that other palms won’t. Its fronds are long and hang like a canopy, almost like it’s made for shade.
- Silver Bismarck Palm is a shady stunner, with a 15-foot frond span from tip to tip and thick, fan-shaped fronds. But you’ll have to be patient, as it’s a slow grower.
Landscape Project Regret #2: Too Many Plants
We’ve seen this regret in action more than once. It’s actually one of the common high-end landscape project issues, as homeowners who have a generous budget splurge on lots of plants.
Here’s what often happens: A homeowner is fed up with the hassles of lawn care and decides to install plants instead, assuming they’ll need less maintenance.
Surprise! Plants can often require even more maintenance than lawn. And plants grow fast here in Southern Florida, so before you know it, those plants look messy and overgrown.
Hire lawn care, and you’re only paying for someone to operate a mower. Hire plant care, and you’re paying a higher rate for someone with horticulture training and expertise.
We solve this problem by recommending 80 percent lawn, 20 percent plants.
Landscape Project Regret #3: Not Thinking Ahead About Future Projects
You don’t need a crystal ball to know that there are probably more landscaping projects in your future.
Landscaping evolves. Lifestyles change. Priorities shift. You see a spectacular garden on Instagram.
So when you’re planning your Siesta Key landscape design now, think ahead to what might come later.
We’ve seen customers install beautiful new landscaping, then decide to refinish their pool and watch much of that landscaping get destroyed.
Or spend money to landscape their seawall then get a new seawall.
Homeowners settle for narrow walkways or undersized patios, assuming they’ll meet their entertaining needs.
Then their family grows and people are stepping off the path onto mud, and the bigger patio furniture they suddenly need barely fits.
Think ahead a few years, then coordinate your landscaping projects accordingly.
A little forward thinking now can save you stress and money down the garden path.
Work with a Skilled Landscape Designer to Avoid Common Landscaping Mistakes
When you partner with a skilled and experienced Sarasota landscape designer, you’re not in this alone. You don’t have to think of everything. That’s our job.
When we meet you at home for our initial consultation, we don’t just take lots of measurements and check out the lighting conditions in your yard.
We’re not afraid to ask you blunt questions like “Why don’t you want any shade?”
Or “Are you sure you want 150 plants?’”
Every great landscape starts with a detailed plan. Our landscape design team helps put your ideas on paper and guides our crews during the installation process, ensuring your new landscape begins and ends just the way you want it to — planned correctly from the beginning with design expertise, attention to detail, and consideration of long-term usability.
No landscape project regrets.
Avoid Landscape Project Regrets: Talk to Us
When you embark on a new landscaping project, you’re making a big financial investment.
Make sure you’re spending that money wisely, avoiding mistakes and getting a landscape you love that’s beautiful, functional, and thoughtfully planned.
At Tropical Gardens Landscape, we specialize in high-end landscape design in Sarasota, Siesta Key and Longboat Key that’s custom designed for your lifestyle.
Let’s design a backyard that has shade to keep you cool out there; a nice balance of lawn and plants; and smart forward thinking so future projects will fit in seamlessly.
Call us or fill out our form today to schedule a consultation with our landscape design team.
You won’t regret it.
