When most people think about their property’s landscape, they envision colorful flowers, pruned shrubs, healthy trees, and vibrant green grass. Professionally maintained landscapes are beautiful and create a great first impression, but what else can a landscape do?
Over the past few years, some of our clients have begun to find new, practical uses for their landscapes. They use our commercial landscaping services to help solve problems that go far beyond curb appeal. Here are 3 examples of how our clients are thinking differently about the landscaping at their properties and in their communities.
Landscape to Improve Air Quality. This first example is a practical lesson we’ve learned from some of our manufacturing clients. These are companies that build very large, very complicated, and very precise products. Think airplanes and heavy industrial equipment. One of their biggest challenges is controlling the quality of the air inside their enormous manufacturing facilities. They can’t risk allowing dirt and dust to get inside and contaminate their work areas. So, in addition to large, expensive air purifying systems inside the buildings, they’ve found another key to controlling particulates in the air – covering the dirt outside the buildings with grass. This common sense solution reduces the amount of dust in the air outside, so there’s less chance of it getting into the building. This allows them to change out expensive air filters less frequently, and their industrial air purifying systems don’t have to work so hard to keep their assembly areas clean.
Landscape to Control Erosion. For communities and commercial properties with hills and slopes, dealing with erosion usually means installing a retaining wall. But retaining walls aren’t always the most aesthetically pleasing solution to the problem. For some of our clients, installing a landscape feature area is a better long-term solution to control their erosion problem. By using a mix of ground covers, shrubs, and trees, then adding in other natural elements like boulders, we can turn an erosion control project into a property beautification project. The key is to select a mix of plants with shallow and deep roots, to help firm up the soil. We choose plants native to the area, and look for options that don’t require excessive amounts of water.
Landscape to Make Roads Safer. Cities and local governments are always looking for new ways to make roadways safer. To help prevent head on crashes medians have long been used to divide opposing lanes of traffic. Today, more cities choosing to fill their medians with landscape materials, rather than metal guardrails or concrete barriers. Single rows of trees, planted uniform distances apart, offer the same protection for motorists as a guard rail or concrete wall, but add a touch of natural beauty to the asphalt roads and highways. Similarly, adding shrubs and native grasses to medians keeps the headlights of oncoming traffic out of nighttime drivers’ eyes.
While the aesthetic value of your landscaping will probably always be your primarily concern, more of our clients are finding that their landscapes can serve some very important practical purposes, too. Landscaping can improve air quality. It can help control erosion. And it can be used to save lives, when it makes our roadways safer.
Looking for some innovative ideas to tackle your property’s biggest challenge? You might discover the answer in your landscape. Meet your local Yellowstone Landscape Professional and let’s put your landscape to work for you.