Jun
17

5 Outdoor Living Room Essentials for Dining and Entertaining

Nothing beats outdoor dining with family and friends on a clear, warm summer’s day! With the correct configuration of properly placed lighting, stylish furniture, a visually appealing fire feature, and plenty of lush plantings, you can transform your backyard into an inviting outdoor living space perfect for hosting dinner parties and summer get-togethers. Explore our checklist of outdoor living essentials to elevate all of your alfresco dining and entertaining experiences this season:

Refreshed Landscape

Before making any additions, let’s get your existing landscape ready for visitors; we’ll weed, add new mulch, redefine bed edges, trim bushes and shrubs, deadhead perennials, add fresh plantings, and much more. Our landscape maintenance plans will get your landscape back to looking its best and keep it that way all season long.

 

 

Fire Pit

A must-have for any outdoor living area, fire pits allow you to get the most utility from your outdoor spaces by adding some warmth to those chilly early spring and late autumn nights. Don’t forget the visual appeal! Fire pits come in a variety of styles and shapes and can be crafted from long-lasting wall block or natural stone. We guarantee our fire pits are built to last!

 

Permanent Seating

Now that you’ve got the fiery focal point of your outdoor area ready, it’s time to add permanent seating. Adding permanent seating to your landscape not only ensures there’s plenty of seating for guests but also helps frame patios and outdoor living areas to create a room-like feel outdoors. Have a large landscape with multiple sections? Seating walls can help break up your different landscape areas with the added convenience of ample seating room. Let’s customize the materials to match your application and style by choosing from a variety of durable wall block materials that will stylishly protect the integrity of your beds, patio, and overall landscape.

Walkways & Pathways

How do you want traffic to flow into, throughout, and out of your landscape? Consider adding walkways to guide visitors throughout your outdoor living area intuitively. No matter the style, shape, size, or material, all of our walkways are crafted using the longest-lasting, high quality, and weather-resistant pavers or natural stone for safe travels every time.

 

 

Landscape, Walkway, and Patio Lighting

You’re almost ready for outdoor living in 2021! Put the finishing touches on your updated outdoor living areas with expertly placed Landscape Lighting. Proper lighting makes partying late into the night a breeze while you enjoy your beautiful new outdoor living area. Trust us; you’ll definitely want to show off your landscape’s outdoor beauty. Plus, landscape lighting helps guide visitors as they enter and exit your outdoor area safely in the dark.

 

May
13

Transform Your Landscape into an Outdoor Paradise

 

Summer will be here before you know it and your landscape is looking well-maintained and healthy. But, a gorgeous landscape only goes so far when you don’t have an outdoor living area to enjoy it from. This is where having a show-stopping and functional outdoor area comes in. With a large project like a hardscape install, it’s crucial to get the planning and design right the first time or you risk unforeseen install mistakes like insecure structuring of your project or choosing the wrong material(s) for the job. Even if you get the DIY right, do you really want to spend all season working on your project instead of enjoying it? Hiring a pro to help plan all the specifics of your outdoor living area down to the individual materials chosen and overseeing the engineering and installation really does save you time and money in the long run! Let’s explore a variety of options to complete your landscape and create the perfect outdoor living oasis that matches your family’s needs and lifestyle.

Patio

If outdoor entertainment is your social goal for this year, a Patio is your next landscaping must-have. Patios do it all – they’re a space to work, play, entertain, cook, and more. With a variety of natural stone, pavers, and wall block materials to choose from that blend color, design, and even paver art styles, Patios are the optimal blend of function and style. Plus, they add a TON of value to your home!

Seating Walls

Make your landscape more comfortable with permanent seating! Seating walls are the perfect small-scale landscape project to help you comfortably enjoy your landscape even if you’re short on space. Every wall we build is tailored to your home, landscape, and client needs by blending design and function with a variety of building materials, colors, designs, and seating arrangements to choose from. Whether you’re thinking a small wall to enjoy your most colorful blooms or a large, curved wall around the fire pit, permanent seating brings a new level of visual interest and dimension to your landscape; All you have to do is kick back and enjoy the scenery!

Fire Pit

Everyone loves the warm glow of a Fire Pit! Adding fire features to your landscape helps you get outdoors sooner in the season and enjoy your outdoor areas later into the season when the chill of Fall and Winter sets in. Don’t forget about the exceptional return on investment – Potential buyers are almost always willing to pay more for homes with established patios and fire pits integrated into the home’s landscape. With endless choices in design and build, like fire pits with permanent seating or multi-level fire pit patios made from a variety of paver, natural stone, and wall block material, we guarantee adding a fire pit to your landscape will make the time with family and friends we’re all craving right now more comfortable and enjoyable.

 

Apr
19

Get on the Path to a Great Landscape!

Outdoor living has been a growing home improvement category for years, but with people (children included) working from home, the need for private spaces beyond the four walls of your home is greater than ever before. There’s nothing worse than being interrupted during a work Zoom call. That’s why we’ve put together an easy-to-follow plan on how you can transform your backyard into a usable space that puts in extra work every day, just like you.

1. Get Ready to Grow

Preparing and planning for your landscape upgrade is possibly the most important step in creating an outdoor living area. Before you decide to pursue a custom outdoor area, consider some of the following questions:

  • What’s the function of the space?
  • Will your new space match your current and future lifestyle?
  • How much maintenance work are you willing to do?
  • Do you want temporary or permanent seating?
  • How much wildlife interaction do you want in my landscape?

Every property is different and so is the taste & lifestyle of each homeowner. Whether your goal is easy maintenance, attracting pollinators, or creating an outdoor entertainment area, a landscape design that caters to a client’s wants and needs is essential to a successful landscape install.

2. Fresh Plantings

Adding fresh plantings to your landscape helps fill in any bare spots and adds just the right amount of color for you to enjoy. Right now, people are loving the pops of color from various flowering trees, like Weeping Cherry and Magnolia. For season-long color and texture, try incorporating a variety of perennials, grasses, and shrubs into your landscape. If native plants are your preference, adding Beebalm, Little Blue Stem, and Winterberry can help attract pollinators and provide lasting color. No matter what plant you choose, it’s important to consider how much space you’re trying to fill and how much the plant will grow.

3. Start Living Outdoors

In 2021, we all need a space to gather outdoors with our friends and family. Patios are the true MVP’s of any outdoor living space. They make balancing work, play, entertaining, cooking, and everything else you want to do in your outdoor space possible. Easily plan for and create your unique outdoor living space by choosing from a wide variety of patio pavers, mixing styles and colors. Any handy DIY’er can handle laying their own pavers, but many fail to consider the time, size, design, and other important considerations of any hardscape project like the list in point 1.

4. Blooms & Plantings for Privacy AND Beauty

With outdoor entertaining rising as the new trend in outdoor living, it’s important to make your space multifunctional and make it feel more private. Add some privacy to your outdoor living area by planting new dense evergreen foliage that will make your next backyard gathering feel like you’re enjoying a private getaway. From the classic look of an easy maintenance dark green hedge-like Boxwood or Arborvitae to the sweet-smelling white blooms of Privet and Viburnum, turning your landscape into a secluded retreat with privacy plantings is simple and accessible to any budget.

5. Light it up!

We’re firm believers that any outdoor living space needs a fire pit. Adding a Fire Pit to your patio makes those cool Spring and Summer nights more comfortable and extends how long into the season you can enjoy your outdoor space. With a variety of high-quality wall blocks or natural stone materials to choose from, your fire pit should complement the colors and style of your home and the rest of your outdoor living space. Many DIY’ers think that building a fire pit in the backyard is an easy job, but having the proper equipment and material knowledge that only experienced designers & installers have is essential for any long-lasting firepit project.

Is your landscape equipped to handle the needs of your family (and friends!) this season? Let’s talk about transforming your backyard into a multifunctional outdoor living space that does it all.

Mar
19

Get Ready to Grow!

Just as “spring cleaning” tasks freshen up a home that has been shuttered up all winter, your landscaping needs some TLC at this time of year to prepare for and be at its best for the upcoming growing season.

Two landscapes are rarely the same, and when winter subsides, revealed is the unique aftermath mother nature has prepared especially for us. With all of the other tasks that warmer weather seems to add to our plates quickly, it can be easy to dismiss Spring Cleanup and Maintenance. Resist the temptation to skip this critical step! A thorough spring yard cleanup readies your lawn and landscaping for summer, but it accomplishes so much more than that. In most cases, it will save you from headaches and more work farther into the growing season and allow you to spot areas needing improvement before they become time-consuming or costly fixes.

Now that Spring is finally here, your landscape is likely in need of some rehab. Get a good pair of gloves and get rid of the mess from decaying leaves, debris, and dead vegetation in plant and flower beds. Have an abundance of weeds? Make sure they’re successfully pulled by getting the roots out, not just the tops. Then, you’ll want to give your landscape that crisp, clean, and professional look by redoing the edge of your flower beds and plantings. Looking to add some more visual interest to your landscape? It is the perfect time to begin thinking about your vision for this season’s plantings during a Spring Cleanup, adding fresh plants to create visual interest and texture to your landscape. Finish off your refreshed beds with new mulch to help the soil retain moisture and deter pesky weed growth.

It wouldn’t be a Spring Clean-Up if we didn’t discuss boosting healthy plant growth! One of the most important maintenance tasks of a Spring Clean-Up is trimming & pruning bushes, shrubs, and ornamental grasses, especially those that produce blooms. Proper pruning when spring rolls around allows sunlight and fresh spring air to reach live stems, spurring healthy, new growth. Just like you may need a Spring haircut, so do your small trees, shrubs, perennials, and many other plants! Remember that each tree and plant has its own pruning procedure to ensure optimal growth or blooms, and be careful with those high and hard-to-reach areas!

If your landscape already has some lighting fixtures, now is a great time to inspect for damage and function while clearing away any debris that might block their beautiful glow. A good check will ensure that everything is working properly and identify any maintenance that’s needed. These simple steps will not only make your lights shine but will protect your investment and help extend the useful life of your fixtures!

Does the Spring season have you excited but also feeling a little overwhelmed with yard work? We know that it takes dedicated time to create and maintain a healthy and lush landscape – but we can help! Let us quickly take care of all the dirty work so you can begin enjoying your outdoor living spaces now.

Book a Free Consultation, and let’s get Spring Maintenance checked off your to-do list.

Sep
6

Fall Landscaping Checklist

Fall is the time to ready your landscape for the dormant season and prepare for the upcoming year. If you put in the time to care for and clean your landscape this Fall, you’ll not only give your home a fresh look, but it will also give you a jump-start on Spring maintenance.  Below are tips for your Fall landscaping.

 

1) Trim or prune shrubbery to remove dead or damaged branches.

2) Cut back perennials and ornamental grasses that are done blooming for the season.

3) Remove Spring and Summer annuals. Unlike perennials, annuals do not come back from season to season. Pull them up, roots and all, and add them to your compost pile.

4) Weed your landscape beds.  Removing grass and weeds from flower beds is a quick way to improve the overall appearance of your home.

5) Cleanup leaves from lawn, landscape beds, and patios.  Heavy layers of leaves left on lawn and landscape beds can smother plant material and harbor unwanted guests over winter, such as moles and mice.

6) Replace or add plant material to your landscape. Fall is a good time for planting.  Plants still have time to establish root systems before the colder winter months.  Although water is still needed, less effort is required for watering because the hot Summer months have passed.

7)  Winterize or pack away fountains, bird baths, and patio furniture. While most patio and fountains are manufactured to remain outside for the winter, some precautions may still be required for harsher weather conditions.

At Houp Landscaping, we know how important it is for you to keep your landscape in excellent condition throughout the year. Because these parts of your home are alive and always growing, they require regular maintenance in order to look great and provide your home with the functionality and aesthetic enhancement that you need it to.

Enhancing Nature’s Beauty One Yard at a Time in Berks, Chester, Lehigh & Montgomery Counties.  If we can be of service, please contact us TODAY!

Browse our Pinterest boards for more landscaping ideas this season!