Modern Landscape Design: Concrete and The Beauty of Hardscaping

“Hardscaping” is the term that landscape designers in Pacific Palisades, Encino, and the surrounding areas use to describe the art of using concrete to create permanent structures both decorative and functional in an outside space. Some also use it to describe the installation and repair of basic flat concrete surfaces like driveways and sidewalks.

Hardscaping comes in two basic varieties: premade and on-site. Premade hardscaping elements are things like interlocking paving slats that can be literally hauled to the site and connected together to produce a fully-functional driveway, patio, or sidewalk in a matter of hours. There are even premade snap-together retaining walls!

For the truly hardcore hardscaper, however, there’s nothing premade that’s good enough. After all, why would you want the same boring L-shaped snap-together hardscape outdoor kitchen counter that twenty-seven other people in your neighborhood purchased last Spring? On-side hardscaping requires a landscaping company that has the equipment to produce molds and pour concrete…well, on site!

Hardscapers can produce almost anything you might want in your backyard that isn’t alive, from fountains to pools to cobblestone paths to stairways to patios and even artistic statuary! If you’re building a new home, they can even come in and create beautiful buttresses of polished concrete — possibly speckled with something interesting like beads, glass, or even gold flecks — that will support your home and make an impression on all who see it.

If you want to:

• • Freshen up a dreary backyard
  • Resurface a broken driveway, walkway, or patio
  • Build yourself a new raised-bed garden or compost bed
  • Repair an outdoor staircase that is dangerous to traverse
  • Put an exotic waterfall, fountain, or even an island in your pool or backyard
  • Put in an outdoor kitchen
  • Build a wall around your backyard
  • Sell your home or business

…then hardscaping may be able to help.

There are plenty of landscape companies in Pacific Palisades and Encino who can help you get your residential or business area hardscaped; just ask around and you’re certain to find one that will be happy to work with you!