Cool Landscaping Ideas: 6 Ways to Use Landscaping to Cool Your Home in Summer
If you’re looking for more natural ways to keep your home cooler during a hot summer, look no further than your yard. Strategic landscaping can lower the temperature around your home, which can actually help keep the temperature cooler in your home as well. This makes your yard a more comfortable place to enjoy summer. Contact AllGreen Landscape Co. in Chantilly at (703) 992-8787 and we can make your yard cooler than you ever imagined with one of these 6 cool landscaping ideas.
1. Start on the East Side of Your Home
If possible, consider planning patios, decks, porches and gathering areas on the east side of your house. These areas will receive morning sunlight, but they’ll be in the shade later in the afternoon when you might have some entertaining planned over there. If you’re planning to build an outdoor kitchen or living space, this is the place to do that as well. If you enjoy spending morning hours out there, a pergola can filter sunlight and keep it bright and airy, but a little cooler, while also protecting the east side of your home from some of the sun’s morning rays.
2. Shade-Giving Structures on the West Side
The summer sun is strongest on these sides of the house, particularly in the afternoon when heat is the highest. Depending on the arrangement of your home, you could consider a vine-covered pergola or other open, yet covered area that allows plenty of air circulation on the west side that can provide a little extra shade to the house as the sun is working its way west.
3. Create a Breeze Avenue with Trees or Shrubs
Consider the prevailing wind directions on your property and consider planting two rows of shade trees, or a row of shade trees and a beautiful stone or shrubbery wall on the other side that can direct breezes towards the house, blowing heat away from it.
4. Strategic Southwesterly Tree Plantings
Plating tall, beautiful trees on the south and west of your property can also provide filtered shade and allow cooling breezes to rustle through the yard during these hot parts of the day. Smart tree and outdoor structure planting and planning can go so far as to cut your home’s air conditioning bill by nearly a quarter.
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5. A Water Feature Can Help
Water features are such a landscaping beauty. Water features can also reflect sunlight away from your yard and the gentle trickling sound of water can relax you on a sweltering summer day. Strategic use of water features and plants can also actually improve the lush, heat-reflecting greenery around your yard as well.
6. Select the Right Ground Cover
A healthy lawn can help keep your yard cooler by a few degrees, but for those areas without grass, selecting the right stone, chips or other ground cover can also go a long way toward reflecting heat away from your yard and home. As you can imagine, darker-colored stones or bark chips will absorb and hold on to heat longer, but light-colored concrete or stone pavers and bricks can bounce heat away from your yard.
AllGreen Landscaping Co. are Chantilly’s summer landscaping experts. We can survey your home and find ways to employ landscaping features that will provide more shade and maximize cooling breezes all summer long, so you can save electricity and enjoy more time outside. Contact us today at (703) 992-8787 to get started on these cool landscaping tips.
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