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Water Features

Water is often an overlooked feature for residential gardens, but the sound of trickling or cascading water can be very relaxing.

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Features & Details

What makes a good landscape great? Our quick tips highlight favorite features, unusual materials, and tiny tweaks that can make a big difference for your outdoor space.

Bob Hursthouse discusses how natural and sterile water features can be used in landscapes so you can decide which is right for you.

Orange Tree Studio: Natural vs Sterile Water Features

Watch Bill Chorvat as he explains how he plans and builds a winter container.

Whimsical Winter Arrangement

Bill Chorvat puts together a seasonal fall container inspired by a native landscaping.

Fall Prairie Container Arrangement

Jeff True discusses a dry-laid retaining wall.

Retaining Walls

Visit this peaceful destination garden.

Peaceful Destination Garden | Patty’s Vintage White Garden

See how boxwood hedges help keep a natural loose and linear appearance.

Boxwood Hedges | Patty’s Vintage White Garden

Sit back and relax by our firepit defined by beautiful granite boulders and decomposed granite gravel.

S’more Time to Relax by the Firepit

View this gorgeous entryway filled with lots of natural elements.

Entry Way with Lots of Natural Elements

Utilize your landscape to encourage beneficial insects, like the beautiful monarch butterfly.

A Prairie Home for Monarch Butterflies

Turn a difficult ditch into a beautiful and functional prairie area with seating.

Bob’s House: Solving the Ditch Problem

Cinderblock is a common choice for retaining wall construction – but the adhesives used to hold a wall together will break down over time.

How to Make Your Retaining Wall Last

Natural stone comes in a wide variety of colors – and sizes. It’s up to you and your landscape architect to decide which will fit best with your landscape design.

Making Limestone Work for Your Landscape Project

Natural stone comes in a wide variety of colors and sizes. It’s up to you and your landscape architect to decide which will best fit your landscape design.

Choosing the Best Natural Stone for Your Patio or Walkway

Bluestone is a popular choice because it compliments many other landscape colors – from the greens of your plant beds to the reds or browns of patio pavers and bricks.

How Bluestone Can Bring Cool Tones To Your Landscape

At Hursthouse, we can finish the stone in your landscape for a smooth and rounded look – or opt for a more rough and natural appearance.

How Landscapers Finish Stone Edges

Learn about the pros and cons of cedar decking, wood fiber decking, and Epee decking.

The Best Wood for an Outdoor Deck

A clay paver like the one at left is more durable than concrete pavers and maintains a consistent color over time – at a material cost of only 10% more.

The Better Value: Clay vs. Concrete Pavers

Reclaimed clay pavers give your landscape a wonderful old-world look – and they’ve been proven to last for hundreds of years.

Many Sizes Available for Clay Pavers

Reclaimed clay pavers give your landscape a wonderful old-world look – and they’ve been proven to last for hundreds of years.

A Sustainable Option: Reclaimed Clay Pavers

Charcoal-colored pavers like this one make wonderful visual contrast next to a concrete driveway or a paver of a different color. Just don’t plan to walk barefoot on them in the summer sun!

Where to Use Charcoal-Colored Pavers

Not all pavers are created equal! While we often think of concrete as more durable, some clay pavers – like the one shown at left – have triple the compression strength of a typical concrete paver. That makes for more durability and better wear over the long run on your patio or driveway.

Concrete vs. Clay Paver Durability

Will my patio paver match my home?

How to Make Sure a Paver Matches Your Home

Wire-cut clay pavers have a more textured surface that can be helpful for high-traffic areas like your driveway or sidewalk. Pressed clay pavers might be more suitable for your patio. Learn the difference in this video with Jeff True.

Choosing a Paver: Wire-Cut or Pressed Clay

Pavers with a smooth surface work well on a patio or walkway, where chipping is unlikely. “Tumbled” or “cobbled” pavers have a rough surface, so that if chipping does occur if won’t stand out like a sore thumb. They’re an excellent choice for your driveway, where an errant snow plow could cause the occasional chip. Learn more in this video with Jeff True.

Choosing a Paver: Flat or Smooth Surface

Pavers with lugs – raised areas like the ones on the paver above – are best used in driveway construction. The lugs allow for slight shifting during freeze-thaw cycles, so your pavers won’t grind and chip when you drive on them.

Pavers with Lugs

Different concrete pavers weather differently over time. This one changes color noticeably over time, as you can see by comparing a new paver to the same paver after some time outside. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is for you and your landscape architect to decide.

Concrete Pavers Changing Color Over Time

Many gardens remind us of their counterparts indoors—a living room, dining room or kitchen. The garden typically has a floor, walls and a ceiling made with plants and hardscape elements.

Up and Away: Vertical Elements for the Garden

Fire features have become one of our most popular landscape touches! They’ll let friends and family gather to enjoy your yard year-round – as long as you design them right. Here are four different ways to do that.

Four Fire Pits for Chicago Landscapes

Hursthouse can create beautiful containers for your entry way for all 4 seasons of the year!

Order Your Winter Container

Some gardens are more fascinating than others. They’re intriguing and inviting. The secret is often a well-designed path.

Paths to Beauty

If there was a beauty contest for flowering shrubs, surely the hydrangea would come in first place.

Snowballs in Summer: Meet the Hydrangeas

Garden ornaments are the elements that complete a setting and reflect the owner’s style.

Garden Ornaments

Water is often an overlooked feature for residential gardens, but the sound of trickling or cascading water can be very relaxing.

Water Features

Of all the creatures that visit gardens, butterflies are perhaps the most exotic and magical. On warm summer days they sail from one flower to another in search of nectar.

Butterfly Gardening: Here’s How to Attract Winged-Wonders to Your Landscape

Plants have the power to bring smiles and a sense of well-being to those who interact with them.

4 Ways Gardening Helps Kids (And Grownups, Too)

Robbi Hursthouse discusses some of the great ways you can garden with children.

Gardening with Children

A carefully designed landscape features lighting that keeps a garden alive in winter, so it can be enjoyed from indoors as well as from the street.

Lights, Camera, Action: Landscaping Lighting

Ruby-throated hummingbirds cause us to stop in our tracks. Fascinating to watch. Even more fun when they belly up to the feeders.

Hummingbirds Are Here!

After the Final Design, it's time to select and price the exact landscaping materials we’ll use to build. That process is often different at Hursthouse than it is at other landscaping companies.

Landscaping Materials: Where Do They Come From?

There's more than one way to build a retaining wall - and more than one material to do it with. Here are 3 popular choices.

3 Materials for Your Retaining Wall

You’ve got a lot of different choices when it comes to paver materials. Here’s how to cut through the clutter and understand what you need.

How to Choose a Patio Paver

Outdoor decks come in all shapes and sizes. And options for materials are just as varied. Here are 3 popular choices.

3 Woods for Your Deck

Pergola, arbor, or gazebo? Here's how to tell the difference.

4 Structures for Your Home Landscape Design

What's the best shape and size for a fire pit? Here's our ideal approach.

The Perfect Fire Pit

We’d love to work with you on your dream landscape!

Contact us to schedule a meeting to discuss your project details

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