6 Excellent Details to Include in Your Rectangular Backyard Landscaping Plans

Is it finally time to update your backyard? By putting in the time to update your backyard landscape, you can ensure you have a fun and relaxing spot for everyone to enjoy. If you’ve been meaning to build a deck or have a swimming pool, now is the best time. For easy-to-follow rectangular backyard landscaping plans, use this helpful article as a guide.

1. Light It Up

The great thing about having your backyard is you can use it anytime. As fall turns into winter, the days will continue to get shorter. As a result, you won’t be able to enjoy the sunshine too long in your backyard. Therefore, you should include professional lighting in your rectangular backyard landscaping plans. The best way to do so is to contact a local landscape lighting company.

With the efforts of a local landscape lighting contractor, you can ensure your backyard has additional safety. After all, you don’t want to be tripping over things and stumbling around in the dark when you’re trying to enjoy your backyard. Do you plan on hosting events such as holiday parties or happy hours? Needless to say, a few drinks may cause people to lose their balance at times. So you want to ensure whether you’re sitting there drinking coffee, taking a dip in the pool, or hosting a party, that everyone can properly see where their next step is so you can avoid any falls or injuries. Keeping your property safe from the inside out can reduce any chances of liability issues.

When it comes to safety, it goes beyond preventing people from falling and hurting themselves. You also want to be able to quickly see if there’s anyone in your backyard who shouldn’t be there. Thanks to motion detector lights, lights can automatically come on when a presence is felt. By keeping the space well-lit at all times, you can help increase the security of your home.

As you develop your rectangular backyard landscaping plans, there may be some features you want to highlight more than others. For example, you may want to guide guests to a corner seating area on your deck. You may want to have your walkway lit from your home to your greenhouse or guesthouse. When people come out on your deck, you may want their eyes to go to another structure, such as your beautiful gazebo or garden.

2. Add a Pool

A local pool service is a great addition to any rectangular backyard landscaping plans. Swimming is a popular activity around the world for many reasons. Having a swimming pool is a great way to cool off from the summer heat as well as stay fit. So if you want to burn off calories and stay limber, but you don’t feel like going to a gym, you can increase your fitness level by taking advantage of several swimming laps a day

With a professional pool contractor on hand, you can have the customized swimming pool of your dreams. If you live in an area where inclement weather or various seasons, there’s no need to avoid getting a swimming pool because you think you’re only going to be able to use it briefly. Luckily, residential swimming pools can come with heated water.

A heated pool is great for swimming during the colder months as well as physical therapy. If you have mobility concerns or arthritis, swimming is great for that, and heated water can increase the therapeutic benefits that naturally come from the buoyancy of water. In addition to having heated water in the standard part of your pool, you can add additional features such as a hot tub. Between a swimming pool and a hot tub, your outdoor living space can easily become the party spot or a great source for aqua therapy.

As you make those rectangular backyard landscape plans regarding your swimming pool, consider who will be using it. Having your pool contractor install stairs in your swimming pool can ensure that anyone with mobility issues can easily climb in and out. Do you have any expert swimmers or divers in your family or friend group? Add a diving board for additional swimming competitions.

There are other safety features to consider besides adding stairs. Swimming pool contractors can also add an enclosure around it, which comes in handy when you have kids or pets. Do you plan on getting some swimming in at night time or having nighttime parties? Keep the pool illuminated with lights at the bottom and around it.

3. Strut on Custom Walkways

When it comes to your home exterior, your walkways go beyond your sidewalk and stairs leading up to your front door. A local landscape design company can also use hardscaping services to supply custom walkways. Design walkways that are safe and can easily lead people in a clear direction. These walkways can be made from cement, brick, or stone. Landscapers can highlight your walkways with various plants, flowers, and landscape boulders.

Add a walkway to any aspect of your rectangular backyard landscaping plans. Have a walkway extend from your front door to the backyard. If you have other structures on your property, such as an exterior guesthouse, gazebo, or greenhouse, have walkways that also go right to those entryways.

4. Build a Deck or Patio

It should come as no surprise that patios and landscapes are some of the top features American homebuyers look for. After all, if you’re serious about true outdoor living, you can’t have one without your good deck or patio as a base. Patio building can add value to your home as it increases the overall square livable footage. A deck or patio can be made from a range of materials such as wood, concrete, brick, or stone.

With the right planning, your patio or deck can be used year-round. So don’t think that an outdoor space is only for people who live in hot climates like California or Southern Florida. Even if you live in an area like New England that’s very seasonal or a place like the Midwest that’s known for very harsh winters, you can still enjoy your deck or patio with ease thanks to enclosures. So you’re just as likely to enjoy a cold drink in summer or a hot drink in winter from the comfort of your deck or patio with the right construction details. Don’t want a full enclosure? You can always have a static awning built over your patio space so you can always have shade from harsh UV rays or rain.

As you develop your rectangular backyard landscaping plans, consider all of the additional features you can include on your deck. Did you know that cooking on your landscape pool deck can go beyond grilling? While you can still invest in a grill for those yummy, smoky meats, you can go full force with an outdoor kitchen. Your outdoor kitchen can have all the features that you would have in your main interior kitchen. If you have a big family, love to do a lot of entertaining, or are often the host for most holiday gatherings, an outdoor kitchen can end up being worth its weight in gold.

Do you sometimes like to eat smelly or smoky food? Even if you’re not hosting a big party, you can use your outdoor kitchen to cook fish or other smoky meat. That way, those intense odors won’t linger in your kitchen or nearby space, such as your living room, for days on end. In addition to your grill and outdoor kitchen, you can kick things up a notch with a fire pit. Fire pits not only add a beautiful focal point to your patio decor but also provide a space for small open-fire cooking. So if you want to do some temporary camping in your backyard, add a firepit to your landscape.

5. Hire Tree Specialists

It’s hard to seriously think about rectangular backyard landscaping plans without considering your trees. A local tree service can ensure these beautiful plants are placed in the right areas to benefit your outdoor living and interior space. Arborists can plant trees in strategic areas that can help your home become more energy efficient. Trees help insulate your home so it’s warmer in winter and cooler in summer. As a result, there is less pressure on your HVAC system which can lower those electrical bills.

Have you been having problems with noise in your neighborhood? Living in a noisy space can wreak havoc on your ability to relax and sleep. According to the Sleep Foundation, you should get 7 to 9 hours of restful sleep each night. If noise pollution becomes an issue, planting trees around areas in your home can help reduce that. Trees naturally block exterior noise so you have a home that has more of a sound barrier.

Do you have noisy neighbors or just leery when it comes to your privacy? Adding trees to your rectangular backyard landscaping plans can also increase the amount of privacy you have. In other words, the neighbors don’t always have to know when you’re having a happy hour gathering on your deck or taking a dip in the pool when you have trees in the right spot.

Are you trying to eat healthier and ensure you gain more independence by growing more of your own food? In addition to a garden, you can plant trees that bear fruit. Fruit-bearing trees can produce apples, oranges, grapefruits, nuts, figs and so much more depending on your climate. You can impress family and friends with your baking skills with apple pies made from fresh fruit from your trees. Start the day with a healthy glass of orange juice or lemon water from your backyard trees.

In addition to planting trees to enhance your backyard, you may also need some removed. Tree services can remove the necessary trees to clear a path for a swimming pool, gazebo, garden, or guest house. Also, remove backyard trees that are causing a danger to your home structure. Overgrown roots can uplift your house foundation as well as puncture your septic tank. So make note of your drainage field outback for any signs or potential sewage leakage. However, you can reduce that likelihood when tree services make the necessary removals.

Even if you don’t need to remove trees to make way for a pool or a guesthouse, you may still need to remove some for the safety of the trees as a whole. Tree trimming companies will ensure your trees stay healthy and prevent the spread of disease. They know the right spot to trim a tree so it can produce healthy fruit and flower buds and prevent any illness from spreading to the rest of the tree. If your trees are too close together, it’s easy for one sick tree to spread the illness to another one. In other words, your trees will need some breathing room, which may require removing a few trees here or there.

6. Plant a Garden

Shrubs and trees aren’t the only plants for your rectangular backyard landscaping plans. If you’re ready to develop or show off your green thumb, start a garden. While trees can produce fruit and nuts at various times of the year, having a garden can give you a greater yield of fruit and vegetables. Plus, if you have children, get them involved to show them the benefits of the life cycle of food production and teach them more independence. A garden helps you eat healthy, and it’s also a great focal point to beautify your backyard. Even if you don’t want to focus our fruit and vegetables, you could have a flower garden with roses, lavender gardenias, hydrangeas, and so on.

As you can see, you have many options to include in your rectangular backyard landscaping plans. Add or remove trees, plant a garden, build a deck, and have custom walkways. Hire an outdoor living space contractor to help develop your plans. Be careful as once you start enhancing your backyard, it may be hard to stop. So have fun enjoying your outdoor living space!