Many Landscapes Are Now Being Made With Less Grass and Many More Solid Products
Landscapes that use less grass are becoming more common today. People know that constantly keeping the grass watered will cause them to use substantially more water than they would in other cases.
The need for large sections of grass in landscapes is also being questioned. Landscapes have been full of grassy areas for a while now, and some people are just interested in making their backyards or front yards look entirely different.
All landscapes will have some unused space that looks relatively empty. Without that space, it’s easy to make a particular landscape look like it is cluttered and overly busy. However, there is no reason why people have to fill those areas with grass, especially when new alternatives are being made more widely available all the time.
People have sometimes decided to use rock gardens instead of grass. They can also replace mulch with the rocks, although mulch can be a relatively sustainable material. The rock garden areas can be paired with other similar features, which may or may not include plants. Vegetation is sometimes used more carefully in landscaping projects today.
In contemporary landscaping, more people are using concrete and similar types of solid materials to fill in the larger parts of their landscapes. That doesn’t mean that there will be large sheets of concrete in a yard instead of grass.
However, it’s possible to use the grass in landscapes much more selectively. Concrete squares can be used to create large pathways. The gaps could be filled with grass or healthy soil. However, the concrete material will be quite visible, and will have a strong effect on the landscape overall.
Making a pathway larger can already help people consume space in a landscape without actually creating lots of new features. They’ll just need to take a feature that already exists and start to add to it, or choose a larger version instead of a much smaller version.
The people who have this approach to landscaping will also potentially make it easier for other individuals to get across their landscapes. People are sometimes nervous about walking on uneven ground that does not have a path. When the pathway is even bigger and more solid, it can have a significant effect on how the full landscape will be perceived.
Pathways also can connect with other solid features in backyards and front yards that lots of people will like. If the land is not completely flat, adding outdoor staircases can help.
Outdoor areas can have stone or brick floors. Adding one of these to the center of a backyard can give it a polished and finished appearance, while giving people less of a need for grass material of any kind.
There could still be some plants surrounding the stone floor, including some small and balanced patches of grass. The plants that are added to these areas will also stand out more than they would in other landscapes, making them more valuable individually.