Hardscape 101

Dos and Don'ts for a Successful Hardscape

By Rose Kennedy, special to HGTV.com

A great hardscaping project leads you through the landscape and provides a sense of timeless beauty. — image courtesy of Salsbury-Schweyer

Falling in love with hardscaping is the easy part, with so many appealing options — from a rustic stacked wall to a trickling fountain and meditation bench to a fully developed outdoor living room and kitchen. Or maybe you just need a couple of interesting elements in that patch where grass refuses to flourish.

Once you've decided to act on the attraction, though, you must plan carefully to meet your hardscaping goals.

Before beginning any hardscaping project, try to anticipate how it will fit into your long-range plans for the rest of your landscape. — image courtesy of Salsbury-Schweyer

"Research really pays off, especially when you consider that a fixed object in the landscape is not going to move easily — and you don't want to put in a lot of effort and then have your materials or design fail within a couple of years," says Samuel Salsbury, a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers and partner with Sabrena Schweyer, APLD, in Salsbury-Schweyer, an Akron, Ohio-based landscape design group.

By taking these steps and avoiding some common mistakes, you can create hardscaping you'll love for years to come:

Look at the whole landscape before you start. As much as you can, consider the entire area available to you for hardscaping before you design an element, even if you're just tackling one space for now.

"At the bare minimum you should plan a design for the whole area, or consult a professional to create a design for you," says Salsbury. "If you don't consider the site comprehensively, it's like building one room of a house, and then a year or so later, a second room. You may decide to plop down a patio, and then decide you want a barbecue, pond or walkway and the patio blocks your plan. I can't tell you how many times we've been hired by clients to tear out work they'd had done just two or three years earlier."

Delve into draining issues. Salsbury says he's seen more hardscapes messed up by people ignoring drainage requirements than by all the other errors combined.

"People, even professionals, think they have good drainage so they go ahead and add some hardscaping," he says, "But you must plan how the drainage will be affected when you place, say, a wall or a patio. If the new object is now blocking the previous path of drainage, you can't just say, 'But it was draining great before!'"

There's also an environmental consideration, says Weston, Wisc. landscaper Susan Murphy. "You should plan runoff so you can capture the water and use it on site, instead of letting it hit that concrete and go down the drainage pipe."

Where possible, allow a good balance of plants vs. hardscaping. — image courtesy of Salsbury-Schweyer

Develop a focal point and a path you want the eye to travel. "For a hardscape that will enhance and enfold your natural landscape, you should create a focal point or seating area within the design," says Murphy. "You want the eye to travel towards a destination, and one or two visual elements that make you pause, either visually or literally, like a weeping evergreen with an Oriental lantern."

Don't plop elements down and expect them to fit in. Murphy's pet peeve? "Boulders that are supposed to be helping to naturalize an area, but instead have been dropped right on top of the ground and are sitting there like dinosaur eggs," she says. "To successfully use boulders in hardscape, you need to make sure they're large enough to fit with the scale of the landscape, and bury them deep enough so they look like a naturally-occuring element."

Too-linear elements can create the same unnatural feel, says certified landscape designer Schweyer. "I see way too many people plop in a straight or L-shaped sidewalk, or stick a linear or rectangular patio or deck on the back of the house without giving further thought to the natural lines of the space," she says. "You should try to include curves and shapes in a way that the hardscape elements transition gracefully into the rest of the landscape."

Don't eliminate all your lawn. Sure, you see all-stone or concrete areas in the Southwest, says Murphy, but there the focus on hardscapes can be a matter of necessity, not a trend to follow. "Southwesterners sometimes have to have a hardscape without greenery due to the strong sun and too little water," she says. Everyone else, she says, should definitely include ample vegetation in relationship to hard surfaces.

Barbara Pleasant, author of Garden Stone: Creative Landscaping with Plants and Stone takes the idea even further. "You can have a beautiful backyard comprised of a hardscape framed by shrub and flowerbeds, but keeping a small swath of lawn is a good idea," she says. "Grass is a safer playing surface for children, and a patch of turf will help cool down the landscape on hot, sunny days."

Here, the retaining wall and steps complement the stonework on the house. — image courtesy of Susan Murphy
Get more information on using stone in the landscape.

Mix and match — but carefully. Select a few materials that complement your home's interior and exterior. Just as you wouldn't want to listen to someone sing in a monotone, you don't want to have to look at a hardscape with all one color or material, says Ohio-based hardscaping expert Samuel Salsbury.

"The idea is to find two or three materials that are visually creative and coordinate not just with each other but with the interior and exterior of the house," says Susan Murphy.

Textural variety is important, too, says Pleasant. "In most hardscapes, it's okay to have two textures going, for example flagstone underfoot and landscape blocks for low walls, but more than two textures tends to look messy. If a wood deck is part of the picture, try to stick with a single type of stone or brick for your hardscape," says Pleasant, who is based in Pisgah Forest, N.C. "The deck counts as a texture, too."

Don't take on two styles, particularly in a small space. "Hardscapes can be relaxed or formal, but the best ones show a well-defined style," says Pleasant. "Think of a two or three-word phrase that describes your vision and stick with it. An intimate courtyard, for example, has little in common with a Grecian garden when it comes to style."

Know when to phone a friendly expert. Hire a designer or landscape consultant who knows your style. If you do opt for a hired designer or contractor, get recommendations and check portfolios and references, says Salsbury. "Instead of looking for someone trendy, find someone who can click with the melding of the land and natural elements, the architecture of your space and your style. If you leave out one of those aspects, it's like constructing a two-legged stool."

Don't build a structural wall or massive project without an engineer. Salsbury-Schweyer was called in to right another landscaper's boulder wall that had literally pulled down an entire hill and was endangering the foundation of the nearby house. And while most hardscaping doesn't fail quite that spectacularly, Salsbury insists that anyone embarking on a project that involves a structural wall or a hill with stability issues first contact--or have their builder contact--a geotechnical engineer to discuss the implications.

"They can prevent really serious damage, or you get the best case scenario, which is they come out and say, 'I don't see an issue.'"

Buy enough materials at the outset. "Whether you're working with brick, stone or another material, buy a little more than you need for the project," says Garden Stone author Barbara Pleasant. "Later on, you can use the extra materials to accent pretty beds with temporary edgings, or to add steppingstones or landings, knowing these little features will match the dominant hardscape."

Don't evaluate materials and installation on price alone. "It's rarely a cost-effective strategy just to purchase the least expensive materials or services for a hardscape design — too often you get what you pay for," says Schweyer, who is one of only hundreds of certified landscape designers nationally. "There are a lot of considerations besides price, including how long a material will last and whether it will suit the architecture of your site. It makes more sense to economize by scaling back a project or the number of design elements, with the help of a cost-conscious professional, then to always buy the least expensive materials."

Don't skimp on stuff you can't see. "The most common mistake I see people make is putting in a hardscape element without preparing the site appropriately, which is a sure formula for future failure," says Susan Murphy. "If you don't put the correct amount of base material down, or compact it well enough, you risk having a wall sink or settle or a patio settle and heave in frost."

Not everyone needs the four-foot frost footing that's required to withstand Wisconsin winters, but you can determine the specifications in your area by talking to an inspector at your local building authority or contacting the American Landscape and Nursery Association (ALNA) or your state landscaping association.

Make sure to follow the standards. Says designer Salsbury, "People who aren't skilled tradespeople think, 'If I can't see it, it's not worth spending the money,' but a level surface to build on and the proper depth for the freeze line are everything in hardscaping. If you don't have them, five years out your project will be breaking up."

—Rose Kennedy is a home-and-garden writer based in Knoxville, Tenn.