Gardening in Hemel Hempstead | The Main Differences Between Hard and Soft Landscaping

When thinking about a garden design, most experts will talk about two main things; hard landscaping and soft landscaping. What do these terms mean to you? To Summertime Landscapes, both encompass the world of what we do. We are a relatively new landscape gardening company. From a hometown location of Watford, we offer services to domestic customers in the nearby Hemel Hempstead area as well as across the whole of Hertfordshire.

Gardening maintenance work is always high on our agenda, but we can also install hard surfaces, like driveways and patios, and we even erect fencing and decking. If you need a garden turfing, we can assist with this too.

Here, we look at the key attributes of our hard and soft landscaping services.

Hard and Soft Landscaping Explained

Hard landscaping involves work on the solid (or hard) parts of a garden. Man-made and natural materials can form a hardscape for your home in Hemel Hempstead. Examples include brick walls, flags and natural stones for patios, block paving and concrete for driveways, timber for garden fencing, and even composites for garden decking. Hardscaping features tend to be more permanent in design, unlike natural elements such as lawns and borders.

This type of landscape gardening creates boundaries and surfaces to walk on, and it also helps with things like water drainage and erosion prevention. Think of hard landscaping as building the foundation for a garden.

You can even add elements like statues and water features.

On the other hand, soft landscaping is about taking care of the living parts of a garden. This includes trees, hedges, plants, bushes, lawns, flower beds and climbers. Lawns are often the focus of a softscape. We can maintain grass with periodic cutting or, if you want a new lawn, we specialise in turfing.

Soft landscaping can really bring a garden in Hemel Hempstead to life.

When you look at a garden, you will mostly notice the lawn, plants, trees and hedges. These landscape gardening elements actively help the environment because different plants attract birds, bees, insects and other animals. Soft landscaping elements give them a home and create healthy ecosystems.

Being around plants is good for people too. Spending time in nature reduces stress, makes you feel more relaxed and is great for your mental health.

Creating Hardscapes and Softscapes

While soft landscaping clearly benefits nature, hard landscaping benefits our valued customers in the Hemel Hempstead area by enhancing functionality. Driveways give you somewhere safe to park the car at night, while garden patios and decking afford you somewhere to relax or to socialise during the hotter summer months. Fencing makes your home more private and secure, contains children and pets, and even helps in marking out clear boundaries.

Importantly, these installations will also increase the resale value of your home should you ever decide to put it on the market in the future.

With the hardscape in place, much of the hard work involved in landscape gardening is already done. The softscape requires more frequent work. A tired lawn might need reseeding or fertilising but, if we feel that it isn’t an economically viable choice to do this, we will recommend turfing for your Hemel Hempstead property instead. Initially, once laid, turf requires ongoing maintenance until such time as the roots have established into the ground.

Beds, borders, planters and hedges will also need regular attention.

If you need the services of a landscaping company in Hemel Hempstead or anywhere else in the Hertfordshire area, please contact us. We can offer a complete range of hard and soft landscape gardening services. Our fun and friendly team brings an impressive 60 years of experience to your project,

Our landscaping services include:

All quotations are provided free of charge and without obligation.