How Landscaping can Complement a New Driveway
Picture this: luxurious landscaping offset by a dazzling driveway. It’s a match made in heaven. If you’re investing in a new driveway, it’s well worth considering revamping your landscaping too. Let’s take a look in detail below.
- New Driveway + Landscaping = Ultimate Curb Appeal
- Combining a Driveway Upgrade with Landscaping Makes Sense
- The Practicalities: What’s Involved in Landscaping?
New Driveway + Landscaping = Ultimate Curb Appeal
For anyone approaching your house from the street, two of the biggest features they’ll likely register are your landscaping (or lack thereof!) and your driveway. So when you invest in a new driveway, it’s worthwhile considering complementary landscaping at the same time to best boost your curb appeal.
Consider: if you landscape your front yard to perfection but leave a cracked, rutted, oil-splodged driveway to accompany it, the overall effect will be confusing and dissonant. It’s a similar outcome if you invest in a sparkling new stamped concrete driveway then leave your yard a rambling ruin!
There is an economic incentive too for upgrading both components: landscaping, when done well, can add tens of thousands of dollars to your property’s value.
Combining a Driveway Upgrade with Landscaping Makes Sense
Investing in landscaping and driveway installation at the same time makes sense for so many reasons:
Aesthetics
Undertaking both elements at once gives you the best opportunity to consider the style of driveway you want in the context of the type of landscaping you envisage. This should result in the most complementary pairing.
For example are you envisaging a formal, ornamental garden with an element of luxury, perhaps a stone fountain and/or foliage bordered by garden edging? If so, stamped and coloured concrete could work perfectly as a driveway material. It has a sophisticated look and can mimic the appearance of more expensive materials like stone. On the other hand, an asphalt driveway, when paired with light-coloured driveway edging can look very striking when offset by a luscious green lawn or a border of yellow or orange flowers. These two colours pair incredibly well with black.
Save topsoil
You can recycle the topsoil extracted from your driveway installation for use in your landscaping project. At Asphalt Concepts we’re more than happy to relocate the topsoil from your driveway to another point on your property. Alternatively, if you don’t want the topsoil we’ll simply cart it away. While topsoil in the Caboolture and Brisbane areas is not known for its high fertility, it can still provide a handy filler for another part of your property.
Coordinate edging
Driveway edging is an attractive option which adds extra style to your street frontage. When you undertake landscaping works at the same time, you can coordinate the driveway edging material type and colouring with the garden edging. Brisbane residents tend to make use of popular and attractive driveway edging materials like poured concrete, brick, paving stones and tiles. These materials work perfectly for garden edging as well.
The Practicalities: What’s Involved in Landscaping?
Plant selection
It sounds obvious, but when selecting and digging in plants, many people forget to allow adequate space for the plants to grow to maturity. It’s worthwhile planning out your garden first to make sure your plants have adequate space. Of course, avoid planting anything with invasive root systems near your new driveway! Consider investing in hardy native plants which are adapted to the local climate and provide food for birds, butterflies and bees. You can find plenty of location-specific native flora planting guides online or you can contact your council directly.
Garden Layout and Features
In order to really make the most of your new driveway, we recommend incorporating a bordering feature – whether that be evenly spaced ornamental/citrus trees, long flower beds or an ornamental hedge which hugs the driveway edge. Again we cannot stress enough that anything you plant next to the driveway needs to have a non-invasive root system.
For your garden landscape as a whole, depending on your budget, you may want to add features like a fountain, an arch, courtyard pavers or a vegetable garden. All of these features can enhance the curb appeal of your property while perfectly off-setting your new driveway.
Want to Boost Your Curb Appeal?
