Landscape design & build for Washington, D.C.

Landscape designs around D.C. overwhelmingly evoke the English colonial design tradition: expansive lawns, foundation planting, hedges, and orderly rows of colorful flowers, along with the occasional stately tree as a focal point.

Materials skew toward a traditional feel as well, with red brick, natural stone, or cobble-esque pavers dominating hardscape design.

Front yards around D.C. tend to focus on scenic value, leaving backyards to accommodate residents’ functional needs.

Accordingly, backyards are often designed with outdoor living in mind. Outdoor kitchens, dining areas, and flexible lounge spaces for entertaining family and friends are all staples, as are pergolas, pools, and water features, each of which offer a cool and tranquil moment to keep you outside through the hot summer months.

Counterintuitively, handsome built-in fire pits are another popular heat-tolerance strategy. As with landscape lighting, fire pits create an enticing environment for enjoying cool evenings under the stars.

No matter where you live, native plants are an excellent choice for your landscape. As lovers of the local climate, native plants typically require fewer inputs of water, fertilizer, and maintenance than species introduced from elsewhere. With natives, you’ll get great plant performance with less expense and fuss.

At the same time, native plants offer unmatched habitat value for local wildlife, and help designed landscapes feel connected to the broader regional landscape.

Best of all, with the humid regional climate, D.C. is spoiled for options when it comes to native plants that are suitable for use in residential designs.

Looking for a few natives to get you started?

→ Serviceberry, flowering dogwood, and eastern redbud are all lovely small landscape trees that work equally well near gathering spaces or as distant focal points.

→ Red Maple is a larger tree with stunning fall foliage (and excellent habitat value).

→ Little bluestem is a reliable small ornamental grass, particularly good for those whose tastes skew modern or meadowy.

→ Coneflower, beebalm, and butterfly milkweed offer lovely flowers that will draw pollinators to your garden.

→ Blueberry bush and Virginia sweetspire are reliable shrubs favored by local birds.

→ Ilex opaca is a native holly that makes for a great structural shrub.

Climate tolerance is the primary concern when selecting plants for a D.C. landscape. Plants must be able to tolerate the peak of summer heat and the depth of winter cold – no small feat. Natives are a safe bet, having evolved to thrive in the local climate.

Don’t forget to consider winter interest. Look for plants that bloom late in the fall and early in the spring. Incorporate trees and shrubs with colorful or architectural branches. Be considerate with placement of evergreens such that they can command the scene when other plants are in winter dormancy.

Now! Any time of year is great to begin work on a landscape project.

When possible, we suggest utilizing the winter to work through the design phase – this sets you up to get on contractors’ books early in the build season, so you can have your design installed and ready to enjoy in time for summer.

If winter has passed, don’t worry, it’s never too late in the year to begin work on a landscape design project.