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Choosing the Right Plants for Pool-Side Landscaping

Residential pools can bring a sense of vacation-level relaxation and enjoyment right to your backyard. Why not take it a step further and literally grow a paradise around your pool? Plants around your pool are both functional and beautiful, as they can soften the harsh sights of swimming pool equipment and help your pool blend into your natural backyard environment. When choosing pool-side plantings for your Washington DC, Virginia, or Maryland home, keep these three Ps in mind: privacy, proportion, and practicality.

Privacy

Trees, hedges, plants, and flowers planted around your pool can create a beautiful, natural barrier that not only provides privacy, but also discourages any trespassers and animals from walking around your pool area. Many pool owners choose to plant privacy-inducing bamboo and grasses around their pool, but be sure to plant them in a space sheltered from the wind to prevent excess material from blowing into the pool.

Proportion

Poolside landscaping aims to achieve a harmonious balance between your pool area and your natural landscape. When selecting plants, keep that same ideal in mind. Choose plantings of appropriate size and shape, and keep in mind that within a few years, young plants can outgrow your planting site and your initial harmonious effect. If you choose to plant trees around your pool, keep those new plantings as far away from the pool as possible and be sure you know how far their root systems will spread. Removing tree roots from your water pipes is an expensive — yet avoidable — task.

Practicality

Enjoy your pool as much as possible with the least amount of unnecessary work! Choose low maintenance plants that won’t drop a large amount of leaves in your pool. Instead of evergreen or deciduous trees, opt for a holly tree. Avoid fruit trees, as they attract bees and their dropping fruit can stain your pool deck and make it slippery. Look for strong plants such as tropicals and bromeliads, which can withstand high humidity produced from your pool and any chlorine and chemicals that can be splashed onto the plant. Finally, look for plants that bloom during the summer months, when your Northern Virginia pool will get the most use.

When planning your landscape, think of one more P: proximity.

Lost Creek Landscapes is right in your backyard. Serving the Northern Virginia region since 1997 and fully licensed and insured in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, Lost Creek Landscapes is well equipped to offer landscape and masonry services from Potomac to Woodbridge and everywhere in between.

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