Landscaping Shade Plants
Landscaping shade plants are very important. They are very diverse in number and type, so you have many options to choose from. There are over 130 native East Texas plants alone that can be added to your Houston landscaping plan that will create different kinds of shade, and different degrees of shade, in your yard.
Exterior Worlds also has botanical expertise and many years of design experience that will help you find the very best landscaping shade plants for your outdoor living experience.
There are two very real needs that shade meets in any Houston landscaping plan. One is practical, and one is ornamental.
If you have lived in this city for more than a week you already know that the practical need is to create shelter from this blazing heat. We can do nothing about the humidity of this part of the world. It is what it is. Even in a drought like we have had, the air is still humid. However, when you get under some shade here in Texas and even the slightest breeze blows on you, the humidity can actually work to cool you off.
Shade also has a design element that is very important to your curb appeal. Neither total light nor total darkness look attractive to the eye. What the mind really wants to see is a blend of light and shadow that create realms of dimension and a bit of mystique. This is easy to create at nighttime with outdoor lights. However, you can also create pockets of romance and mystery during the daytime simply by installing the right landscaping shade plants in certain points in your yard.
The decorative aspects of shade are truly multidimensional when we create relationships between areas of full shade and areas of partial shade. Very large plants with thick foliage can create pockets of near darkness in certain places. Other plants with thinner foliage cast a dappled mixture of shade and sunlight on the ground. Transitioning from dappled shade to a secluded area of total shade not only looks like a comfortable place to hide from the world, but it also can make your yard look larger and more complex than it would otherwise appear.
Because there are so many landscaping shade plants that include species of trees, shrubs, hedges, and even some native tall grasses, it is possible to find some kind of vegetation that will cast just the right type and level of shade over any outdoor kitchen, courtyard patio, walkway, or outdoor seating area. The enormous diversity of species also makes it possible to use plants that correspond to specific types of landscaping design.
It does not matter if you have a modern landscape, an Italian landscape, a French landscape design, or a tropical design. There are plants that offer specific colors, geometry, and vertical impact essential to each of these landscaping styles.
The evolution of plant life on our world appears to have followed some kind of recognizable geometry that man has always intuitively perceived in nature. It is logical to conclude, then, that landscaping shade plants carry within themselves the latent potential to be matched to the unique and often complex geometries used in professional Houston landscaping.
Both by the forms they grow into, and the forms of shadow the create, they enhance and beautify any home and yard with something that looks good, and feels good, to the body and the mind.