How to Style Your Westchester County, NY, Retaining Walls with Plants and Flowers

Retaining walls have such an important and utilitarian purpose that it can be easy to forget how they contribute to the aesthetic of a landscape. Retaining walls can add real value to your Westchester County, NY, landscape design by acting as focal points in their own right and livening up the landscape with smart design elements. One of the ways to do this is with plant life. Here’s how Lehigh Lawns & Landscaping Inc. can help you add style your retaining walls with plants and flowers:

Trailing Plants

Trailing plants let you choose from a variety of plants and flowers that will trail and hang from your retaining walls. Consider deergrass, for example, which sprouts into a dense plant, and is a pretty shade of green that complements the coloring of natural stone and concrete wall units equally. Creeping Jenny, meanwhile, drapes over retaining walls in a way that catches the eye. This semi-evergreen perennial blooms yellow flowers and is a pretty addition whether in bloom or not. Creeping Jenny is best suited to raised retaining wall plant beds where it can be contained.

Related: Integrating a Waterfall or Fountain in Your Fishkill, NY, Retaining Wall

Vines

Vines that can be trained along the vertical surface of your retaining wall can add a spectacular element to your landscape. This can help to merge the softscape with the hardscape and give your retaining walls a more natural appearance. A sturdy retaining wall may be required for certain fast-growing vines, as the wall will need to support the weight of the plant. For this reason, vines are not recommended for training up walls that incorporate stone veneer, unless additional support, such as a trellis, is used.

Potted Plants

Using potted plants as decorations for your retaining walls is a method that comes with a variety of options. As pots are portable, the plants can be changed from season to season.

Succulents, daisies, and similar plants and flowers can really brighten up your Westchester County, NY, retaining walls. Ask our landscape design experts at Lehigh Lawns & Landscaping Inc., about your options when it comes to choosing the right potted plants for your type of retaining wall, and which deciding on plant that will provide the most color throughout the year. For privacy, shrubs and even small trees can be added along the top of a retaining wall to act as a living screen. Potted plants are also excellent for dressing up the columns and pillars of low or seating walls.

Double Hedges

Ever considered a double hedge? To achieve this, two kinds of hedge plants are used, one in front of the other, with one that’s shorter than the other so that it appears as a step. With a retaining wall as a backdrop, a series of steps can be created. This is great for creating layers of depth and adding more vertical interest to the area.

Raised Flower Beds

Incorporating raised plant beds into a retaining wall design is a classic method of adding layers of color and depth to a landscape. Lehigh Lawns & Landscaping Inc. can combine various blooms to highlight the vertical features of your landscape and add value to your yard.

Related: Choosing Retaining Wall Materials for Your Modern Fishkill, NY, Home

Image courtesy of Unilock.