You’ll see a Lawns of Dallas sign in Candy’s yard and countless yards around Preston Hollow, Park Cities, Plano, Frisco, and more. That’s because Madison Gardner and his top-notch crew not only do amazing residential lawn maintenance, they’re a full-service landscaping company that provides landscape design and installation.
Daltxrealestate.com sat down with Sam Artz, Director of Design and Sales for Lawns of Dallas, to discuss what trends he’s seeing in landscape design.
Looking at the past 5 years or so, what are some of your favorite landscaping trends?
Personally, I like how landscapers and designers are finding ways to avoid mosquitos. Screened-in outdoor living spaces have been incredibly popular over the past four or five years and that’ll continue. For the homeowner that enjoys year-round outdoor activities, a screened-in porch with a built-in kitchen, fireplace, and quick-drying outdoor cushions is a great way to enjoy even the harshest weather that DFW can dole out — with no mosquitos.
Synthetic turf is another very popular trend we’re seeing. With the aesthetic improvements we’ve seen with new materials on the market, turf is no doubt a popular choice for its many pet- and family-friendly options.
Does synthetic turf work for most yards, or are they a niche that work better for certain types of lawns?
Synthetic turf has incredibly versatile options in residential landscaping applications. The layout may vary tremendously based on architecture, client needs, pets, location, and permitting requirements. But there is almost always an elegant way to implement these landscaping trends into a design.
How are interior design trends influencing landscape trends? Any crossover?
The intent of interior design, much like landscape design, is to ‘attract not distract.’ There are many ways we blend interior home finishes with landscaping to help direct movement and transition from your home to your garden space.
Material selection and special organization is equally important in landscaping as it is with interior design. Incorporating stone material and focal feature items is one way to blend interior finishes into the landscape design.
We tend to look at each project as a blank canvas with many ways to put the puzzle pieces together. The goal, of course, is implementing client needs with the architecture of the home and proper material selection to make everything cohesive. More often than not, taste in art and color selection from the interior of the home is what we like to bring out into the garden.
It seems like gray is the go-to trend for home renovations. How is that being incorporated into outdoor living spaces?
We have certainly seen an uptick in homeowners updating the interior and exterior of their residence, trending towards a more transitional design style. Cool color pallets such as grays to whites are an essential component to achieving this desired trending style.
As landscape design goes, we use a variety of different ways to bring these tones out to the garden. Painting a fence in certain shades of gray can achieve this by opening up a small rear garden space and help focus the eye on key elements like outdoor seating areas.
Another way we can achieve this is by our stone material selection in outdoor patios, screened-in porch living spaces, pathways, and pool decks. We will use a variety of Travertine stone, Lueder Limestone, Porcelain tile, and a large variety of concrete applications with softening elements such as gravels and beach pebble working into the design to achieve the desired look we are going for.
A go-to favorite plant pallet that also falls into the ‘timeless landscape’ design is a Boxwood. You can frame an Azalea hedge with a 6″ Dwarf Mondo border to create an elegant layered front yard. It’s also great for creating an intricate modern layout without hiding low windows. It is a shrub clients and designers love to lean on to enhance a wide variety of architectural styles and homeowners needs.
Speaking of color, blue was hot this year. How is that being incorporated into yards?
We have certainly used blue in many landscaping applications this year. In traditional-style homes, we’ve incorporated large blue vases that gently lead the eye around the garden space. In modern designs, we’ve also seen the use of blue sculptures with detailed landscape lighting that captures every detail from multiple vantage points.
Blue glass rock has been a very popular choice for those who want to enjoy a truly ‘maintenance free’ landscape. It can highlight the exterior of an art piece or subtle banding detail around a pool or spa.
What are some blue-hued flowers that’ll perform well here?
There are many seasonal colors that will provide a vibrant touch of blue throughout one’s landscape. Some of those include Plumbago, Blue Daze ground cover, Scaevola, Blue Salvia, and Petunias. Hydrangeas would be a favorite shrub suggestion for those who are looking to have a large splash of blue in the warmer months in North Texas, ‘Endless Summer’ Hydrangea is a very popular design choice with great resilience.
Lawns of Dallas offers free landscape design estimates. Contact Lawns of Dallas at 214-357-6522 or visit LawnsofDallas.com for a quote request.
