Inspired by Nature - The Surrounds Blog
Insights, Tips & Inspiration
Container display features pansies, red twig dogwood, heuchera citronelle & ornamental cabbage Annuals, Edibles & Perennials Bring Winter Landscapes to Life Once the leaves have fallen you may think that’s the end of color until March, but no. Our landscape designers and landscape maintenance specialists offer many options for keeping color...
Taking Care of the Koi Pond Koi fish need regular care to ensure their good health and longevity. Maintaining clean, clear pond water is the single most important part of your koi pond maintenance program. For a small koi pond with a small fish population, a homeowner could opt to do the maintenance themselves. For ponds in excess of 3,000 gallons,...
Attentive Landscape Maintenance Completes the Design Landscape design & planning is an essential step in the creation of an outdoor living environment, but it is just a first step. As plantings mature in the years following installation, attentive landscape maintenance and garden management are responsible for fulfilling the designer’s vision. It...
Small Yard Shows Off Big Personality The back yard is my gem. We love nighttime dinner parties under the pergola. It’s just gorgeous. And the water feature… You just gravitate toward the waterfall. We sit out there all the time. We feel so lucky. It is such a beautiful garden—all aspects of it. Ellen, Chevy Chase, Maryland You might think that maintaining...
Why Add Flowering Bulbs to Your Northern Virginia Garden Design Four reasons to add early spring-flowering bulbs to your garden design are: Low maintenance. Bulbs are self-sustaining and do not need irrigation. Deer proof. (except for tulips) Frost resistant. Some bulbs will push right up through the snow. Early season color. Brightens a bare landscape....
Seeing Beyond All Limitations Once these McLean Virginia homeowners had completed interior remodeling, their attention turned outdoors. They started to think of landscape design. Initially, they intended to focus their efforts on the rear yard because they wanted a patio for grilling and dining outdoors. The driveway and front approach to the home had...
The Role of Integrated Pest Management in a Well Rounded Landscape Maintenance Program Surrounds garden management teams apply many techniques and perform multiple tasks when caring for Great Falls Virginia landscapes and outdoor living environments. Our commitment to best practices and continuing education makes our approach to landscape maintenance...
I love looking at the pool. I love the waterfall and the sound it makes. I don’t always jump in the water, but I just love looking at it. Nancy Labus, Potomac Maryland This landscape design for a swimming pool and waterfalls involved many decisions, and an intensely collaborative partnership between the Potomac Maryland homeowners and landscape architect...
Common Flowers With Uncommon Culinary and Curative Properties These common plants and simple wildflowers can make a colorful addition to your garden design even if you don’t intend to take advantage of their medicinal or culinary characteristics. That’s why we selected the half dozen featured here. You don’t have to harvest them to enjoy...
Choose an Outdoor Audio System That Fits Your Landscape This speaker is buried in a planting bed A well-planned landscape design appeals to all the senses. There is always something pleasing to see, hear, touch smell and even taste outdoors. And, those sensations change from day to night and season to season. That’s why spending time outdoors is such...
PHOTO: Coastal Source Landscape Lighting The problem with even the best outdoor lighting systems, says McLean-based landscape architect Howard Cohen, is that they eventually succumb to moisture infiltration causing metal parts and electrical wiring to corrode. And there are other problems with standard systems: LED lamp housings overheat. Fixtures have...
When creating outdoor environments for our Potomac Maryland clients, landscape lighting design is always part of the discussion. In fact, it is a key component of the design plan. Why? People in the Maryland-Northern Virginia region tend to invest significantly in their outdoor living spaces because the climate here is so inviting. It makes sense for...
Different varieties of basil grow well side by side In early spring and late fall, you will see that many Northern Virginia homeowners brighten up their outdoor spaces with containers full of annuals. Annual flowering and decorative plants help fill in the blank spots when the growing season is about to start, or nears its frozen end. Easy to Grow &...
Porch by Andrea Houck. PHOTO: Lydia Cutter Photography Finishing your landscape design with furniture, art and lighting As landscape architects, our focus is on the big picture and bringing the various parts of a landscape design into alignment. We want our outdoor environments to make visual-compositional sense and intuitive sense as you walk through...
Surrounds Landscape Architect Howard Cohen says that boxwood is probably the most well-known garden ornamental plant, a “timeless classic.” Robert Saunders of Saunders Brothers Nursery goes even further, calling it “the aristocrat” of landscaping plants. As valuable as the boxwood is in garden design and landscape architecture, it is typically a supporting...
Are Roses Difficult to Maintain? Some are. It is true that some hybrid rose varieties bred during the 1940s and 50’s needed a lot of attention and were susceptible to fungal diseases. The old garden rose varieties (those bred prior to 1857) were hardier and disease resistant. However, the color palette was limited to white, pink and red. And, most of...
A Blank Slate You’ve heard of the “bridge to nowhere”? Well, before these Arlington homeowners consulted landscape architect Howard Cohen, they had the patio doors to nowhere. The builder of their new home had finished his job at the back door. There weren’t even steps to the yard. Viewed from inside the house those patio doors framed a view of a flat,...
A Resource for Landscape Architecture Clients All bluestone: A walkway of irregular cut slabs leads to a cobblestone driveway and low walls bordering the front entry of this Great Falls Virginia residence There is one stone that our landscape architects specify over and over again for their designs. It’s called Bluestone. It is a sedimentary rock, a...
The Lavender Hill residence sold by Theo Adamstein The ROI of Landscape Design in Northern Virginia & DC Can you get a return on investment for improvements to your landscape? It depends on how you define the term “return on investment” (aka ROI). Some homeowners in our area, will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate interiors and...
Photo: courtesy Ruppert Nurseries Because Three Wasn’t Enough This is part two of a conversation with certified horticulturalist Ronda Roemmelt talking about her favorite big trees. Her part one list of favorites includes classic shade trees native to Northern Virginia, plus an import or two. Roemmelt, a graduate of Penn State, has worked for 20 years...
The artistic success of any front entry design or front walkway is built on sound functional design principles. Problems occur frequently in developer built homes because builders understandably focus on maximizing the beauty and spaciousness of the house. The fine details of front yard landscaping including front walkways, entry doors, and driveways...
Backyard water features, whether large or small, complex or straightforward, infuse your outdoor environment with a kind of music. The sound of water trickling over rocks or splashing into a pond is charming and inviting. While water features such as waterfalls, garden fountains, and backyard ponds bring an additional layer of sensory pleasure to your...
As we mentioned in a previous blog post, when front yard landscaping falls short of expectations, dysfunctional driveway design and blah front walkways are often the culprits. That is because the experience of getting from point A to point B is an essential part of the “arrival experience” that welcomes you home. If the approach to the house is awkward...
Garden waterfalls, like other water features, are a contrivance of landscape design that come in many styles. When done well, they become works of art on their own. If you’ve ever vacationed at a beachfront cottage, you know how it feels to wake up in the morning to the sound of gentle surf lapping the shore. The sound of moving water is pleasing and...
What made us choose Surrounds ?
Definitely Howard’s design and vision. We interviewed several companies, none of which could compare.