Swimming Pools

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Swimming Pool, Selection of plants

Landscaping your Swimming Pool

Whether you're landscaping a pool from scratch, remodeling what's already in place, or just contemplating the task for the future, designing a successful swimming pool landscape demands the same careful planning that went into building your swimming pool.

There's more to a swimming pool setting than just the pool, a lawn, and a few scattered plants. Instead, good swimming pool landscaping many diverse elements – plantings, fences, walls, pavements, structures, and lighting, as well as the swimming pool and its decking.

And don't forget to put yourself into the picture. You swimming pool environment should reflect your personal tastes and accommodate your needs.

Basic Landscape Principles

Landscape architects and designers rely on several fundamental principles, when they're designing a landscaping plan. You, too, can master these principles and then use them to develop your own effective swimming pool landscape.

Landscaping Goals

A successful landscape scheme has as its goals beauty, privacy, comfort, safety, convenience and flexibility, and may not be able to achieve them all, you'll come out ahead if you design with these goals in mind.

Beautify

You may consider a beautiful swimming pool setting almost as important as a good swim. Create this mood by blending the swimming pool and other landscape elements with the house to achieve an aesthetic balance throughout the whole area.

Swimming Pool Privacy

If privacy is your primary concern, include trees, fences, walls, screens, or hedges in your plan to block the view of the swimming pool area from the street or a neighbor's windows.

Swimming Pool Comfort

For swimming, sunning, or entertaining by the swimming pool, you'll be more comfortable in a setting that's been adjusted for particular climatic conditions. You'll need room for lounging around the swimming pool, as well as the right combination of design elements to modify sun or wind.

Swimming Pool Safety

Planning a safe pool area – not only for own family but for your neighbors as well – needs to have high priority. Self-closing gates and safety fencing around the swimming pool or yard will keep children, pets, and even adults out of the swimming pool when you are not around. Passageways near your pool need to be well defined lighted at night, and not slippery or obstructed.

Convenience and Flexibility

Try to incorporate into your plan areas for swimming-pool-related activities like cooking, eating, entertaining, showering, and changing. The more convenient to the swimming pool these facilities are, the more you'll enjoy your swimming pool without worrying about traffic in and out of your house.

Give landscape elements multiple jobs: design built-in benches that also store swimming pool furniture, sport gear, or garden equipment; install adjustable screens that provide shade and block the wind and undesirable views; build a covered fire-pit that doubles as a sunning desk or low table. Easy access to your swimming pool from more than one of your main living areas also gives flexibility.

Ease of Maintenance

With ever-rising maintenance costs, you'll want to choose materials very carefully. Consider using wood that doesn't need constant repainting or staining, masonry surfaces that need no painting, rustproof furniture, and trees and shrubs that drop a minimum of leaves and flowers.