Landscaping Tips for Clear Sightlines

Residential landscape design is an art, but it also requires great technical skill. Choosing the right mix of plants that will elevate a space while keeping important elements visible takes care.

The best landscaping for clear sightlines utilizes appropriately sized plants, thoughtful placement, consistent maintenance, and intentional design using both softscape and hardscape. Creating beautiful landscapes with open sightlines is the perfect job for trained landscape designers.

Choose Your View

When landscaping with sightlines in mind, decide where visibility matters. If you’re a homeowner, you might want to keep an open view from your kitchen or lay out your backyard so it opens towards a garden. For HOAs, important sightlines might be those around sidewalks, intersections, signs, and amenities.

Walk the property you’re looking to landscape several times at different hours of day. You can also note how the property looks from a bike or a car, if you want to take into consideration residents, visitors, pedestrians, and drivers.

Once you know which sightlines are important to you, you can plan around them.

Think Ahead

One of the reasons landscape designers are so valuable is they have experience with plants when those plants are at all stages of growth. 

Amateur landscapers sometimes design a layout around what a plant looks like now. Unfortunately, the shrub that currently looks perfect sitting under a sign or window might soon require frequent pruning or have to be uprooted entirely.

Landscaping for sightlines means designing with mature height and spread in mind. Knowing the expected height of plants can also help you design the best landscape lighting for ambiance and security.

Ground cover plants can add visual interest without height, and planning around seasonal color can do the same. With some expertise and forethought, you can also choose locations for taller plants that will continue to enrich the property for years to come.

Make Use of Hardscape

Hardscape can be an underutilized aspect of landscape design, and it can be a useful tool when working to preserve sightlines. Just like ground cover plants can provide beautiful design without obscuring views, stepping stones, retaining walls, and patios can guide movement while being aesthetic.

Talented landscape designers design hardscape and softscape designs together. By making sure these two elements work to uplift each other, HOA common areas can be made structured but lush, and personal gardens can be made colorful but restrained.

Plan for Maintenance

Another aspect of planning ahead is accounting for the maintenance certain plants will need. Different shrubs grow at different speeds, and it’s important to know how much attention each plant will need when.

Landscaping to preserve sightlines is important, but so is designing for beauty and cost. When you’re planning your design, make sure you understand how each plant will grow and what you’ll need to do to make sure it stays beautiful year after year. 

Intention and Beauty

Michaelangelo's Sustainable Landscape and Design Group provides custom designs for whatever your needs may be. We plan, build, and maintain landscapes for HOAs, commercial spaces, and residences, seeing each project through from the design to the sustainable landscape maintenance practices we offer.

If you’re not proud of how your property looks within six months, we’ll come back and fix it at no cost. Book a consultation today to see how we can help you on your next project.

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