Summers are long, hot, and humid, but people don’t seem to mind - outdoor living is on full display throughout the city, including at the famed River Walk.

Outside of summer, the weather is milder, save for the occasional winter cold snap. Writ large, San Antonio is a delightful place to spend time outside, particularly if you’re a heat lover. 

Landscape design can make the most of what San Antonio has to offer. Be it providing shade from summer sun, creating flexible spaces for indoor-outdoor living, or fostering a sense of connection with the native landscape, Yardzen has done it all for our San Antonio clients. 

Whatever your landscape vision may be, Yardzen is ready to make it a reality, working with you to craft a landscape design that achieves the look, feel, and function you are dreaming of, then connecting you with a vetted contractor from Yardzen’s Pro Network to get your design built.

Landscape designs in San Antonio shine when they embrace the regional landscape character, using native plants and earthy materials like limestone to add local flavor to designs, regardless of their style.

Planting designs tend toward a traditional suburban look, with shrub-heavy foundational planting and stately specimen trees. Lawns remain fairly popular, though as commitment to drought-tolerant planting increases, many yards are opting to replace lawns with mixed plantings of climate-adapted and native species, complemented by decorative boulders and rock mulches.

San Antonio landscape designs frequently feature amenities for outdoor living, from outdoor kitchens and dining areas, to lounge spaces for entertaining friends, to outdoor theaters for family movie nights.

Shade is a top priority in San Antonio landscapes. For many, existing trees do the trick. For others, pergolas, shade sails, or new shade trees are go-to strategies to keep outdoor spaces cool and comfortable. Swimming pools big and small, along with simpler decorative features, offer a cooling encounter, whether or not you actually get wet.

Landscape lighting is another popular strategy for beating the heat. By creating a pleasant environment after the sun has gone down, lighting helps residents make the most of cool summer evenings (just remember to turn the lights off when you head back inside).

Many species thrive in a place like San Antonio, but you’ll set yourself up for success if you begin by browsing native plant species.

Native plants evolved to thrive in the local climate, and are apt to perform better while requiring fewer inputs of water and maintenance than species introduced from other parts of the world. Not only do natives promise good performance, they also offer unbeatable habitat value for local wildlife. Honey mesquite, Mexican plum, yaupon holly, Turk’s cap, American beautyberry, Indiangrass, and Texas lantana are a handful of the many native species available for San Antonio landscape designs.

Our advice? Absolutely include natives in your design, though it’s just fine to also include a healthy dose of climate-adapted species, which should fare equally well in the San Antonio climate.

Heat management is a chief concern when designing a landscape in San Antonio. Outdoor spaces should be shaded and exposed to cooling breezes to keep them cool and comfortable.

Plants should also be selected to tolerate the climate. Choosing natives is a great way to minimize your water and maintenance requirements.

Water conservation is another key factor. Choosing low water native and climate-adapted ornamentals for your yard is an excellent way to keep water demands down. Removing or reducing lawns is often the most impactful choice a homeowner can make when trying to reduce their irrigation use. Talk to your designer about the many excellent alternatives to lawns that can be incorporated into landscape designs!

Now! Any time of year is great to begin work on a landscape project.

When possible, we suggest utilizing the winter to work through the design phase - this sets you up to get on contractors’ books early in the build season, so you can have your design installed and ready to enjoy in time for summer.

If winter has passed, don’t worry, it’s never too late in the year to begin work on a landscape design project.