Outdoor fireplaces and water features are always a good idea when designing around a pool. Water features bring movement and calming sounds, while an outdoor fireplace provides extra seating and some warmth for water-chilled bodies and additional activities, like smores and ghost stories, around the pool after the sun goes down. We also suggest incorporating a lighting plan into any pool landscaping. Lighting is an essential element for safety and is a fantastic way to add subtle sophistication and personality to any space.

Generally speaking, a mix of plants, shrubs, and trees, interesting hardscape elements, and good lighting are the best elements in any good pool landscape design.

Evergreens are a great option for both easy maintenance and privacy. If privacy landscaping around a pool is a top priority, we recommend planting shrubs and trees that are relatively heat tolerant with minimal leaf litter, pollen, berries, or budding debris. These natural elements can wreak havoc on your pool filter and create extra work for you. Ornamental grasses, like zebra grass, are great pool landscaping options. Leafy evergreen shrubs like English boxwoods or Japanese holly are compact shrubs that offer privacy and greenery all year round. They are both easy to cut back and trim in the spring or fall, and they shed minimal organic matter.

This may come as a surprise, but Big Rock Landscaping actually really loves using big rocks in our pool landscaping designs. Offering low maintenance and great visual interest, you can successfully use boulders–interspersed with slow-growing plants or shrubs–to create living borders and add variety in color and shape to your outdoor pool landscaping.

Concrete is the easiest landscape surface to maintain. If concrete seems too boring, you can have it tinted and also add texture to bring in some style. We recommend choosing lighter colors that will absorb and radiate less heat. There can be as big as a 10-degree difference between dark blue concrete or stone and lighter varieties. Using lighter colors will keep the pool decking cooler for bare feet, and your surrounding plants and trees will also thank you.

Limestone is the best kind of stone for your pool decking. In our Utah climate, where it’s typical for the temperature to fluctuate in the spring, new varieties of limestone are made to withstand Utah spring freezing and thawing conditions.

To be honest, this question is difficult to answer. Landscaping can usually fit any budget. How big the area is, what types of plants you use, how much dirt must be moved, and what types of hardscaping you use will all influence your cost. To get a handle on costs, we recommend working with a landscaping service that can give you a quote once they’ve had a chance to look at your landscaping plans and materials list.

There are many great low-cost pool landscaping ideas out there, but these are some of our favorites if you are operating with a smaller budget. Use string lights instead of hard-wired lighting, or use pavers instead of poured concrete walkways between the pool and the house. Use simple materials like cut logs for benches and a simple iron ring and basic gravel for a firepit, or use the beds around your pool to host a garden rather than flowers or shrubs.

If you feel like you’ve heard this before, it’s probably because you have. Lighting is one of the best ways to enhance an existing pool area. Besides lighting, adding a pergola or an outdoor firepit are two popular elements that come in close seconds when it comes to enhancing pool landscaping.

Installing a pool is just the tip of the iceberg nowadays. When it comes to outdoor living, most homeowners want to bring their spaces to the next level by adding any of the following pool design ideas: waterfall features, firepits, pergolas, covered pavilion, outdoor kitchen and seating, and well-planned landscaping that includes quality materials and a healthy variety of trees, shrubs, and plants.

Pools should always have adequate pool decking that creates a boundary between the pool and other organic landscaping elements like trees and shrubs. They should also have good lighting, and seating, and be surrounded or framed by trees, plants, and shrubs that add texture, variety, and shape to your pool area.

Steer clear from any tree, shrub, or plant that makes a mess during any season. Palm, nut, fruit, and flowering trees, will create headaches when it comes to keeping your pool water balanced and your pool filter running smoothly. They can also cause staining and attract rodents.
Trees like Willows and American Elm trees have invasive root systems which will seek water wherever they can find it, which might damage the ground around your swimming pool and wreak havoc on underground plumbing. Don’t plant evergreens that shed needles–these can plug up pool vacuuming systems and put extra stress on pool equipment.

Don’t plant any flowers or shrubs that have thorns. For obvious reasons, you’ll want to keep these thorny plants away from places where you might be exposing more skin than normal.