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Your Swimming Pool Landscape: Charting Your Course For Fun In The Sun

by Jasmine LeClair

A well-conceived swimming pool landscape design can mean the difference between an area for fun, exercise and relaxation, and one good-looking enough to add some real value to your home. It's often comes as a shock to poolscape design professionals how little thought would-be owners of inground luxury pools spare for the design of a feature that could make their home and recreational area both more stylistically attractive and coherent. A plethora of factors will decide if your swimming pool landscape design promotes convenience, privacy and safety.

First thing's first, you're going to need to hire a seasoned construction company, and it had best be one that your friends or family have had a good experience with. It's the only one good option for busy individuals to ensure that attention is paid to the minutiae of their poolscape design's construction. Irresponsible or weakly run companies are notorious for dragging out construction work for longer than necessary, making them a very risky financial proposition indeed. With a little luck, you might be able to find a poolscape design company that'll quote you a flat rate, instead of a by the day or by the hour rate. The latter system encourages slow, inefficient work on their part and long-term debt on yours.

Among the best landscaping ideas for privacy, a poolscape design look that will look great and guard your pool area from prying eyes, is to surround it with foliage, creating a thick screen of protective greenery. These trees do, however, need to be chosen wisely. Big trees with extensive root systems can often cause damage to the foundation of your home or of your swimming pool. Large fruit or needle-bearing trees like pines are often not worth the bugs they're likely to attract and manpower you'll need to keep the water free of detritus.

Rather go for evergreen trees - the minimal amount of mess they'll create and their consistently beautiful, lush appearance means you won't suddenly find your private space laid bare in winter. One way to get the lush look you want without cluttering up your swimming pool landscape is to grow vines up trellises. Espalier trees ( trees the branches of which have been pruned and groomed to grow horizontally to either side rather than every which way) are another attractive option, as they create a flat barrier of branches.

The alternative landscaping idea for privacy is to build a fence or wall, which will lack the natural look of greenery but will of course give you the security you might consider more important if you have children. If this is your bigger concern, then you should think of any other things you could do to ensure that your pool will be inaccessible to a wandering toddler. Think about installing safety hooks (the kind that don't stick out) for a pool net, and find a net that will be strong enough to support even an adult's weight should they fall on it, as weak pool nets are a significant cause of home drownings.

It's also a good idea to surround your pool with patio tiling, ensuring you of a safe, non-slip surface when you get out of the pool. Lazing outside is one of the most luxurious parts of having a pool, so think about the social space you're constructing and how many people you'd like to be able to entertain.

It's the first sign of a narrow view of architectural arrangement and poolscape design when your pool is renovated without concern for the old-school stylings of the house, or vice versa. The best custom-designed swimming pool landscapes are constructed to complement the style of the house. Try to work out a design that will blend in, rather than call attention to itself, and that is consistent with the flow and look of your home.

Click these links on www.BestSwimmingPoolShop.com to read more about Swimming Pool Landscape Design .

Published May 10th, 2009

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