5 Reasons Why Landscaping and Bringing Plants Into Your Home Is So Valuable
We may spend the majority of our time inside, but the appeal of the outdoors is always there—and it’s full of surprising benefits you may not even know about.
Whether it's the rolling hills of a grand estate, the lush flowers of a tropical garden, or a small collection of succulents in an urban apartment, adding greenery to the inside or outside of your home has a bevy of benefits. In fact, landscaping and implementing greenery can act as a natural coolant, reduce noise pollution, protect a home against wind, clean the air, and reduce water overflow and flooding.
South: Mark Word Design
The garden Mark Word Design created for an Austin, Texas, home sited adjacent to a nature reserve puts water conservation first. "It’s about usage levels, but it’s also about the way we treat storm water and runoff, since it all goes back into our supply at the end of the cycle," designer Sarah Carr says. Word and his team kept the ratio of paved to unpaved surfaces low and chose plants that help reduce erosion, require little irrigation, and allow storm water to percolate.
Mark Word Design
Benefit #1: Reducing Temperatures and Providing Shade
You probably already knew that the shady area under a tree is cooler than being in the direct sunlight, but you may not have noticed the extended benefits of landscaping beyond the shade of a tree. In general, greenery is excellent at reducing temperatures, not just because of the shade it provides, but also because of how it addresses the heat from the sun.
Aaron and Yuka Ruell transformed a Portland ranch house into a retro-inspired family home with plenty of spaces—like the trellised porch—for their four children to roam.
Photo: Grant Harder
The Cooling Powers of Grass
Grass, for example, is significantly cooler than concrete or asphalt, because it has a low albedo, or reflectivity of the sun’s light. As a result, it absorbs most of the sunlight that hits it. Grass also is a high conductor of heat, which, in concert with the low albedo, produces a mild, stable microclimate that can easily be 20 degrees less than the temperature of concrete pavement.
Snelli Park, one of a necklace of lawns beside the old battlements, offers year-round recreation, whether ice-skating on the moat or picnicking on the grass.
Photo: Jens Passoth
Benefit #2: Reducing Noise
Another important benefit of landscaping is its ability to reduce noise. Believe it or not, two or three rows of trees alongside a busy road can reduce noise by seven decibels, depending on the type of tree and distance from the noise source.
Drought-tolerant plants, including agave, Australian shrubs, spurges, and native grasses, are installed throughout the property.
Photo: Matthew Williams
The Best Plants For Noise Reduction
Even grass, compared to concrete, can reduce noise by about 20 to 30 percent because the soft blades of grass deflect and absorb sound as opposed to reflecting it, like how concrete and other hard surfaces do. Generally speaking, the best types of plants to reduce noise are dense trees or hedges, especially ones with broad leaves. Plants that have leaves year-round, like evergreens, are particularly effective at blocking out noise, especially holly or juniper trees. However, it's also important to use trees and shrubs that are native and appropriate to the local climate and region so that caring for them requires minimal effort. Otherwise, you may find yourself constantly watering and tending to them.
The landscaping appears to be based on the mullet principle: business in the front, as seen here (manicured grid lawn, with native vegetation sprouting in careful symmetry), party in the back (sunflowers and wild mountain grass growing in harmonious chaos).
Photo: Zubin Shroff
The Cora House’s configuration maximizes views, while its siting limits environmental impact. Bonnifait + Giesen Atelierworkshop, the firm that designed the structure, retained the mature trees on the property.
Photo: Russell Kleyn
Benefit #3: Blocking the Wind
Plants can effectively block not only noise, but also the negative effects of wind during the cooler months. Again, depending on the region, evergreen trees can be beneficial because they don’t lose their leaves in the winter, so they can continue to block winter winds. After determining the direction of the prevailing wind in the winter, make sure to plant your trees or shrubs in areas where they can provide an ideal balance between blocking the wind, allowing winter sunlight to warm an area, and providing shade in the summer.
On the sunset side of the Sunrise house, the home's west terrace is shaded by mango trees.
Photo: John Linden
Benefit #4: Improving Your Health
When used throughout both the interior and exterior of a home, plants can be valuable not just for the environment, but also for your heath. Of course, plants produce oxygen and can help reduce carbon dioxide levels, but some research also suggests that indoor plants can help reduce other toxins found in indoor environments.
Although ferns need regular watering, they don't require much light; Source: Sidney Bensimon/The Sill
Sidney Bensimon/ The Sill
The Best Plants For Your Health
Scientists look to plants like peace lilies, ferns, certain types of orchids, and a specific type of palm tree called parlor palms to improve air quality indoors.
The architects designed a picturesque texture for the hillside that provides a stimulating visual landscape. The recinto stone—seen left—is rhythmically divided by small ridges that also mark the passage of time with their shadows.
Photo: Onnis Luque
Benefit #5: Reducing Stormwater Runoff and Flooding
Finally, an important role that plants can play in helping the environment is through their ability to reduce stormwater runoff and flooding. After a heavy storm, rainwater that can’t be absorbed into the ground (usually because of the presence of non-absorbent materials like asphalt and concrete) runs off into local sewer systems or bodies of water, usually collecting pollutants and sediment along the way. Large volumes of water can overwhelm these drainage systems, leading to flooding, which is not good news for most homeowners.
On two of the Eight House's sloping roofs are more than 2,000 square feet of green roofs. The goal was to reduce the urban heat island effect and increase the efficiency of the building as well as reference the farmlands and protected space to the south.
Ty Stange Vesterbrogade
How to Bring Out This Benefit
To prevent this, the use of planting can be used at a range of scales, from entire green roofs to minimal landscaping changes, such as selecting native plants that won't need much care or watering in-between rainfalls. Even just replacing poured concrete with pervious pavers on an outdoor path can have a serious impact.
The bedroom pavilion is mostly hidden, thanks to a massive native California oak—part of a grove. "That’s the good thing about oaks—they keep their leaves in the winter, so you don’t have one view in the summer and another in the winter," Suzanne says.
Photo: Joe Fletcher
Have any other ways you've successfully incorporated landscaping into your life? We’d love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments.
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