Posts made in October 2018

Steps to a Successful Landscape Design, Part 2

Landscape Designer in Sarasota | TroysTropics.com

To continue our information about creating a successful landscape, we suggest you consider how you want people to move from one area to another on your property. Do you want to add walkways or hardscapes? If different paths are needed throughout your property, that factors into the kind of plantings you should choose. Other items to consider are your maintenance capability, style, and budget. Have you thought about how much time you want to spend on your landscape? Maybe you have the budget to hire a crew to maintain your new landscape. If not, it makes sense to plan carefully to get and keep the landscape you want for many years to come. Additional tips to consider as you set about planning to upgrade your property’s curb appeal include:

The Initial Consultation

Spend time with your landscape designer in Sarasota by walking through your property. Make sure you say what plantings you like and point out those that are not your favorites. Be sure to give him or her your “wish list.”

Create Concepts

After you’ve surveyed the property together, the landscape designer comes back with several different ideas for your review. Choose the one that fits best with your budget, appearance, and overall goals.

Choose Troy’s Tropics when you need an experienced and knowledgeable landscape designer in Sarasota. We help you get the most out of your yard by thinking of it as another space in your home.  Rely on our team to upgrade your home’s curb appeal with care, beauty, and attention to detail.

Steps to a Successful Landscape Design, Part 1

Landscape Design in Sarasota | TroysTropics.com

If your home can benefit from extra curb appeal, there is a way to create a successful landscape design in Sarasota, which is much more than simply adding some plant materials and hoping for the best. Professionals in the landscape business often use specific guidelines and processes for making sure that a landscaping design appears just as they and their clients want and expect. Some of the concepts and steps that lead to a successful landscape design include all of the following:

Know Your Yard

The specific conditions of your yard are the amount and length of sun and shade exposure the area receives. Areas of your property are one or a combination of the following: full sun, partial shade, shade, or deep shade. The position of the sun and how long your yard is exposed to it are important factors to consider when selecting plants for your landscape. It also helps to consider how water drains in your landscape.

Use of Your Yard

If your yard is used as a place for children or pets to play and romp, that may require a certain area of space to be set aside. Also, if you want to use your yard for outdoor entertaining, you can create a different space to accommodate that.

Work with Troy’s Tropics when you are ready to increase your home’s curb appeal in Sarasota. Visit TroysTropics.com to find out about the plants we have available at our nursery on five acres.

Planning a Low-Maintenance Garden

Curb Appeal by Landscape Designer in Sarasota

It is not uncommon, especially in a sun-drenched, hot-climate state like Florida for many homeowners to want to have a low-maintenance garden to tend throughout the year. There is no real garden—as opposed to artificial—that is no maintenance at all, but there are ways to plan to have gardening chores take up less time in your daily life. You can also work with the experienced landscape designer in Sarasota at Troy’s Tropics when you have little time to invest in hoeing, raking, weeding, and amending the soil. Following are some tips on how to have a low-maintenance garden that still adds value and curb appeal to your home:

  • Plant Perennials & Shrubs

Choosing hardy perennials (those that come back year after year) that can withstand summer heat and even a bit of drought means you have fewer weeds and not as much watering to do. Also, while shrubs like azaleas bloom profusely in the spring, they don’t require much pruning. You can also use certain kinds of ornamental grasses the only need cutting back once a year.

  • Native Plantings

Florida’s native plants are drought-tolerant and hearty. A native plant is one that has flourished in the weather and soil of an area. For example, some of the most used native plants, shrubs, and trees in Florida include the beautyberry shrub, muhly grass, coontie, and Southern magnolia.