Landscape Design Tips for Commercial Sites
Landscape Design for commercial landscaping is important for the creation of quality open green and accessible places for the community. We take a look at how Melbourne's best Landscape designers are doing it.
What is Commercial Landscaping?
Commercial landscaping is a multi-dimensional landscape service that involves planning, designing, installing, and maintaining attractive outdoor business spaces. A beautiful working environment is known to increase workers' output, attract more clients to the business, and create a fresh atmosphere for employee health and efficiency. There are many benefits to investing in your commercial landscape because an unattractive or poorly maintained landscape will negatively impact you. On the other hand, a beautiful and well-maintained landscape will positively impact potential clients and increase the value of your property.
Commercial landscaping is a little different from residential landscaping. The whole focus is on professional properties such as office buildings, commercial projects, restaurants, strip malls, and indoor malls in commercial landscaping. Commercial landscaping is very complicated depending on the layout, indoor and outdoor lighting, availability of sunlight, access to parking lots, etc. And these factors are different in different conditions.
What is landscape design?
Landscape design is the arranging and modifying of features in a landscape, urban area, or garden. It involves the planning, designing, and managing of open spaces to create urban and rural environments. Landscape design is often characterized by aesthetic composition and artisanship, horticultural skills and experience, and a concentration on detailed site connection from creative level to final construction.
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition practised by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garden design. It is done to create a natural scene by planting lawns, trees, and shrubs. Landscape design is both an art and a science of establishing a ground in such a way that it gives the effect of a natural landscape.
Landscape design is also important for practical, aesthetic, horticultural, and environmental sustainability. It is always divided into hardscape designs (Non-living elements, such as pavers) and softscape designs (The living elements, such as flowers). Professional landscape designer provides a wide variety of design and planning skills that are personalised to the specific needs of their clients.
Landscape design ideas for commercial buildings
The outdoor space of your commercial building is the first thing people see, so it is important to make a good first impression. Commercial buildings have to look perfect with a well maintained outdoor landscape. A well maintained and excellent garden invites most customers and increases your company's reputation. Studies showed that in 2005, the property's perceived value increased by 11% when an insufficient investment occurred in landscaping. Retail products and services were deemed up to 25% more valuable when paired with elements of nature. Your business will benefit when you embrace the following commercial landscaping ideas.
Focus on the beautiful and welcoming entrance.
Welcoming entry space is vital for a commercial building because it invites the clients. Highlighting the doorway and providing special access to your business property creates a welcome entrance. Place bright flowers by the entrance to attract the attention of clients. Use decorative features such as exposed aggregate paths from the parking lot to your entrance. Include symmetrical planters on both sides of the entrance.
Include bushes, shrubs, trees, and flowers.
The bright green and bright colour of the plants and flowers evoke positive responses, such as relaxation and prosperity. You have to grow shrubs, bushes, trees, and flowers if you want to exist, and new customers will feel pleasant emotions when they enter your building. You have a flower garden that displays your company name and logo. You can represent your brand's colour by using flowers. Your flower garden should be separate from your lawn. If you don't have a lawn, use raised beds for flowers for pleasant aesthetic value. Use shrubs to line the pathways and walkways. Set up a line of shrubs and small trees within the perimeter of your building. This looks beautiful and will reduce the energy bill.
Add benches, shade, and trees.
Fresh air is the first choice of everyone. An outdoor seating area in your landscape garden will be an attractive point. Elevate your commercial landscape by adding benches and deck chairs. Also, add shade for additional comfort. Tall trees and large shrubs are a beautiful choice for shade.
Add water feature
By including a water element in your landscape design, you may enhance it. A simple pond or fountain may quickly become the central point of your business landscape, adding low-lying plants and statement rocks around the water feature. This is an easy and efficient way to enhance your commercial landscape design.
Use plants to create hedges.
If you have fences in your garden, use plants instead of them. The addition of lush and beautiful plant hedges will immediately boost your commercial building and create a more inviting and pleasant space for clients.
Add outdoor lighting.
Outdoor lights are a lovely and simple way to increase the beauty of any business space. With the addition of outdoor lighting in the commercial landscape, the benefits will be increased. Use string lights to create a romantic ambience, a spotlight to draw attention to your service sign, and lamps to create a professional outdoor atmosphere.
Use native plants to reduce maintenance.
Suppose you are finding methods of reducing the cost of your commercial landscape. Then one method used for this is to grow native plants. Native plants are a great choice for landscaping because they fit into the natural landscape. They are well-suited to the climate, and they need less maintenance.
Use beautiful and decorative walkways and other hardscapes.
If you want your guests not to hurt themselves and your garden to look attractive, then install attractive walkways such as exposed aggregate paths, which are very beautiful. Create stone retaining walls to convert a slope into a usable flat yard. Use concrete patios, which are low maintenance and versatile patio options.
Top tips for designing a commercial landscape garden
A successful business does not always need large financial backing, an efficient working environment, or other business processes. Sometimes, small factors have the biggest impact on your business, such as a commercial landscape garden. An excellent and well-maintained garden provides a vibrant and colourful environment, invites most customers, and enhances your company's reputation. Overall, the landscaping garden aims to make your business as presentable, professional, and welcoming as possible. Here are the top tips with the help of which you can make your beautiful commercial landscape garden.
Make wide and clear walkways
The most noticeable parts of the commercial garden will be the walkways because they direct people towards specific parts of the building. Ensure that your paths are broad enough to allow easy travel because nobody likes to travel through cramped spaces. Major garden routes should be at least 5 feet wide, through which two people can move side by side easily. The width of the secondary walkways (where people travel in a single file) must be at least 1 metre. In addition, these walkways should be clean and clear.
Make a plan for plants
Give your plants room to grow. If you must have a dense, full landscape right away, plant with the intent to relocate or remove some plants as they mature. You can also plant quick-growing, short-lived plants to temporarily bulk up your planting. Design your commercial landscape with extra bulkiness, short edges, plants that require less maintenance, or anything else that allows it to keep the same look over time.
Create a comfort zone through plants
Plants can do more than look good in the garden. Choosing the correct plants and properly arranging them may make your garden much more enjoyable and useful. Evergreen trees with broad leaves help protect your landscape from strong winds. Perennial and decorative grasses may be used to create an immediate privacy screen. Plant a tree or tall shrub border around your garden to cool down on a hot summer day. There is plenty of room in your garden for trees. So many small-footprint decorative trees are now available, which can be used in any garden.
Add colour to your garden through flowers and other plants
Colour is generally the first thing people notice when they see a flower garden. Therefore, choosing plants in pleasing colour combinations is important in designing a new garden. Colour choices are a matter of personal taste. The colour theory can help you to combine different colours of blooms, foliage and other elements in a way that you find pleasing, except for flowers' extensive colour choices with foliage too. Add the plants with many shades of green, yellow, red, blue-grey, and earth tones. Bark, buds, and other plant parts contribute to your palette as well.
Outdoor furniture
Installing outdoor furniture is very important in the commercial landscape garden. So place modern and traditional furniture outdoors for the employees and customers visiting your place to feel comfortable. Plain wooden benches can create a sense of relaxation.
https://youtu.be/-86RYHDsjr4
Use drought tolerant plants
The ideal landscape garden incorporates all elements to enable harmony and facilitate maintenance. A drought-tolerant plant can survive in your garden with less than the normal amount of water. There are many benefits of drought-resistant plants, such as they require minimum water, so you can use your water for other purposes. Your water bill will be lower as well. These plants are low-maintenance.
Proper irrigation system
A properly installed irrigation system has several advantages for your garden. Installing a proper and professional irrigation system helps create and maintain a great looking garden and saves money, time, and energy. Manual irrigation has many disadvantages, such as excess water supply, loss of water, and heavy electricity bills.
Add Decorative features
Decoration of the landscape is very important. Use decorative features like fountains, statues, and other hardscapes. Choose sculptures that are appealing but also complement your buildings. Pathways such as exposed aggregate paths with colourful plants offer a pleasant experience for the clients who walk into your office.
Highlight important points
Using distinctive plants, distinguishing structures, and garden decorations, you may draw attention to the most significant features of your commercial building. Contrasting forms, textures, sizes, and colours will assist in drawing attention to a particular location.
Who are landscapers?
The commercial landscape design includes more than just mowing and blowing. It needs qualified and skilled landscape experts who can understand the significance of landscaping for business and should know how to enhance the aesthetic value of your building. Such skilled and experienced people are called landscapers. Landscapers can help you plan and create a low-cost and beautiful workplace. They may perform regular or seasonal maintenance services such as mowing, pruning, trimming, weeding, and planting. They can identify what activities need to be performed to keep your building neat, clean, and fresh.
Large corporations must manage commercial grounds, colleges and universities must maintain campus grounds, cities and towns must maintain and enhance public parks, and zoos and theme parks need landscape design solutions. All of these people are prospective customers for a landscaper.
What does a landscape designer do?
Landscape designers design attractive public spaces such as parks, gardens, playgrounds, residential areas, commercial buildings, and college campuses and increase the aesthetic value of these places. They plan the locations of building roads, walkways, flowers, shrubs, and trees within these environments. Landscape designers design these areas so that they are easy to use and harmonious with the natural environment.
https://youtu.be/eqRPIeGS24U
A landscape designer will work with their client to meet their vision for their outdoor space. No matter how big or small the project is, a landscape designer can turn a bland land space into something attractive, beautiful, and special. The landscape designer aims to improve natural beauty and promote environmental advantages. They also create rooftop gardens that may be used to retain stormwater, absorb air pollutants and cool the buildings while also providing pleasant scenery.
https://youtu.be/gUx0nG8wKPI
It might be difficult to find a qualified and skilled landscaper for your property. It is preferable to use a landscaping company that interacts well with you. They should constantly contact you to inform you of what is required for your property and what must be done. Choose a landscaper whose charges are clear and honest and who will provide you with all of the details regarding where your money is going.
https://youtu.be/A3bagtZnrQg
The team at Reds Landscaping & Design are experienced and talented. The red landscaping has a lot of experience building commercial gardens and landscapes. They can create a beautiful, low-maintenance landscape for you on a budget. Their landscaping and garden projects will ensure that the building of your project is both low-cost and time-saving while also ensuring the highest quality result.
3 Best Concrete Path Construction Techniques
Concrete Path Construction Techniques
Concrete Path Construction makes use of one of the world's most versatile materials.
Concrete is world’s second most consumed product for a reason. Concrete and construction come hand in hand. It is used not only in buildings, irrigation projects, artificial reefs, energy production projects but in pathways too.
Concrete – due to its simplicity – is one of the most used construction product for residential pathways and patios. Concrete pathway can be made with different techniques. They can include large size stones with concrete used as a cementing material to give them a simple yet artistic look. Or, can be as easy as pouring mixed concrete and levelling them. A simple google search about concrete path would result in a plethora of images which we can use for concrete pathways design ideas. Similarly, if you are looking for commercial concreters in a certain place, ‘Commercial Concreters Melbourne’ or ‘Concrete Paths Melbourne’ are the keywords you’d probably want to type on search engines.
3 Best Concrete Paths and their Construction Techniques and Features
Although we are generally talking about concrete path construction for a small section, this can applied to laying concrete path around the house or even a concrete backyard patio. Concrete pathways for residential projects usually don’t experience high loads and therefore reinforcement wouldn’t be necessary. This is also a good application for the use of permeable concrete.
Following are the three best types of Concrete Paths based on their simplicity of construction and their aesthetics.
1. The poured Concrete Path
This type of construction is pretty simple and requires almost zero technicality and could be concrete path DIY project for you and family. A mix for concrete path can be obtained ready made from market or can be prepared at home.
Generally, a mix of 1:1.5:2.5 @ 0.5 water-to-cement ratio – this translates to 1 part of Cement, 1.5 parts of Sand and 2.5 parts of aggregate with water half the amount of cement – works fine and gives more or less a strength of 20 MPa ( M20 Grade/ 3000 psi). Concrete path thickness is usually from 75 mm to 100 mm (3 in to 4 in).
In case one wants to get a readymade concrete path mix from market, it can be selected based on Concrete Grades/ Strengths that are usually mentioned on the bag along with the amount of water to be used.
Reference: https://nmreadymix.com/concrete-supplier-and-six-diy-concrete-home-projects/
Commercial Concreting is also a viable option which is easily available through commercial landscaping companies. In this case, one just has to mention the desired Concrete Grade/Strength and the usage of concrete – such as concrete for path construction – and leave the rest on the company. They have all the equipment and technology used for concrete.
Concrete Path Construction steps
- Scrape off the loose soil
- Compact the layer of soil using a Plate Compacter or using other means.
- Lay a layer of aggregate/ crushed stones – around 20 mm in size.
- Pour the Concrete
- Screed the Surface
- Provide the expansion joints*.
- Let it harden. Concrete hardens by chemical reaction known as curing and not simply by drying out.
*Concrete tends to expand during hot days. Allowing it to expand freely by providing joints at suitable intervals would allow it to avoid concrete cracks.
2. Concrete Mould Pathways
Concrete Mould pathways, although a little demanding as compared to concrete poured pathways, are aesthetically the most pleasing ones. Concrete Blocks are easily available from different companies online. Or, concrete path mould can also be purchased after which it is as easy as pouring concrete and levelling the surface.
Concrete path cost does increase by a little amount in case you’d want to spend extra for the molds, but the results justify the extra cost. A similar effect can be created by concrete stencilling, which will create a much more durable path.
Reference: https://www.lowes.com/n/how-to/building-walks-and-patios-with-walk-maker
DIY Construction of the concrete path
- Scrape off the loose soil
- Compact the layer of soil using a Plate Compacter or using other means.
- Lay a layer of aggregate/ crushed stones – around 20 mm in size.
- Place the mold
- Pour the Concrete
- Screed the Surface
- Remove the mold and place it nearby for the neighboring patch
- Let it harden
3. Exposed Aggregate Concrete Path
Exposed Aggregate Concrete Path or simply called Aggregate Concrete Path is very similar to the Poured Concrete Path only with the difference of mix ratio and aggregate used. The mix ratio is designed in a manner that the aggregate is exposed to the surface. The texture is an important consideration here. The exposed aggregate renders a rough finish which increases the friction and is much easier to walk on. This makes it an ideal surface for commercial concreting or for landscaping around swimming pools.
This friction reduces the chances of people slipping while walking or moving things with wheels specially when the surface is wet This is a very practical consideration in Melbourne commercial concreting. Since the aggregate is exposed here, it is not recommended to use crushed stones. Natural Stones of different colours with decorative uses are preferred in this type of construction which can increase the cost.
Another method of making exposed aggregate is simply mixing the conventional concrete, pouring it then seeding the decorative natural stones on top of the surface. This reduces the cost of the pathway and is much simpler and therefore easier for DIY path construction.
(Reference: https://www.customconcrete.biz/2014/08/26/broom-finished-concrete-vs-exposed-aggregate-concrete/)
DIY Exposed Aggregate Concrete Path Construction
- Scrape off the loose soil
- Compact the layer of soil using a Plate Compacter or using other means.
- Lay a layer of aggregate/crushed stones – around 20 mm in size.
- Pour the Concrete
- Screed the Surface
- Seed the decorative stones
- Provide the joints
- Let it harden
Commercial Landscaping of Public Spaces
In Commercial concreting steel reinforcement and high quality concrete is always used. The steel reinforcement minimises the risk of micro-cracks appearing and increases the path's strength. To achieve this the steel reinforcement must be in the top 1/3 of the concrete. The reinforcement is held in position be plastic saddles during the concrete pour.
If there is any possibility of vehicular traffic on your path, then it needs to be designed and built to the standards of a driveway. If you have any doubts, consider using a commercial concreting contractor for the important parts of the concrete path construction.
Related Landscaping Ideas from Red's Landscaping and Civil Pty Ltd
7 Reasons to Choose Concrete Pavement
3 Best Types of Concrete Retaining Wall
7 Great Reasons to choose Permeable Concrete
Concrete – 9 things you need to know for better concreting.
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