Friday, May 9, 2014

Driveway Landscaping Ideas

By Darren Hartley


Driveway landscaping consists of both hardscape and softscape. Hardscape options include walls and fences while softscape options include flower beds, ground covers, ornamental trees and shrubs.

The achievement of a great enhancement of driveway landscaping possibilities is a matter of the inclusion of walls in the plan. Walls can either parallel the driveway along its whole length or meet it at the entrance perpendicularly. The second solution opens up a number of additional driveway landscaping possibilities.

The attachment of driveway gates to the wall is one of these additional driveway landscaping ideas. A second idea would be spanning the opening in the wall with an arch. Practically endless are the variations in the softscape side of driveway landscaping.

With a small budget and a large driveway, accenting the driveway entrance is certainly a cheaper way of driveway landscaping. But it is not really about the budget and the driveway size. It is actually about the purpose for the landscaping. Is it for the creation of a grand driveway entrance, the running of the length of the driveway or both?

Should budget not be a primary concern, the primary considerations for a driveway landscaping project would be where the gaze of the viewer is wanted to be drawn and what features of the property are wished to be emphasized. The hardscape and softscape options are equally affected by these considerations.

The gaze of the viewer is, of course, wanted on the property itself. The property is actually the final destination of the driveway, By planting colourful annual beds along the sides of the driveway, the gaze would then travel from the driveway to the property. That is the dictate of driveway landscaping.

However, attention may not be wanted to be drawn if the destination of the driveway is an ordinary-looking garage, in plain view from the street. Likewise, driveway landscaping suggests not emphasizing the straightness of the driveway should the property be already dominated by straight lines, i.e., straight house walls, straight decking and the like. For such purpose, planting the edges of the driveway with straight flower beds will not do.




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