Maximizing Your Curb Appeal with Commercial Landscape Design
Your organization’s approach to commercial landscape design can say just as much about your branding and community as your logo or advertisements. Learn how your curb appeal can make a difference for your customers, visitors, and your entire organization.
Commercial Landscape Design Principles
In general, commercial building landscape design follows a slightly different set of principles because it usually involves planting at scale. Landscaping for commercial properties is meant to attract more people toward the business and make them feel welcomed and comforted in their presence.
When you’re working with an expert in commercial landscape design near you, they will generally follow most of these principles in their design work.
Guide Visitors to the Entrances
The biggest goal of any commercial business or public space is to attract customers and visitors through their doors and entryways—the organization’s landscaping plays a key role in that as well. There are several ways to do this.
For example, one of the top ways organizations of all types bring people through their doors is with fountains and other water features. Water and brightly colored plants draw people into a given space, along with features like LED or festoon lighting.
If an entrance to a business is pleasing to the eye, a customer is more likely to move towards it. The old saying ‘people buy with their eyes’ has a place in landscaping, because if it is aesthetically pleasing, people gravitate towards it.
Create Shade for Outdoor Sitting
Suppose you’re waiting in line to get into a business that’s having a particularly busy day. Adding in shade features—especially natural sources like shade trees—can improve your visitor experience overall and make you feel more comfortable than potentially waiting in the sun for hours.
Shade trees, freestanding awnings, and deck umbrellas can also be helpful for courtyards and other interior outdoor spaces. They offer a retreat and make the entire area more pleasant during the periods of the day with the most intense sunshine. Most of all though, they can protect your windowed areas from the sun—making air conditioning less expensive on sunny days.
Reinforce Your Brand Image
Your organization’s outdoor landscaping can be a great way to promote your brand or messaging in subtle ways.
One of the most notable examples of this is with Walt Disney World—it’s common to see not only sculptures and hardscape features that look like the company’s characters, but also flower beds shaped like their famous logo and best-known characters to provide a complete brand experience.
While you don’t necessarily need to spring for topiaries shaped like your brand’s logo or mascot, finding subtle ways to marry your branding and landscaping can improve your organization’s brand recall.
Integrate with Hardscaping & Water Features
Splashpads and misting stations have become major fixtures in commercial landscaping, especially in parks and festival grounds. These hydration stations give people of all ages a place to cool off during the hottest months of the year and allow children a safe place to play in the water.
Similarly, some commercial and public spaces also emphasize seasonality in some of their hardscaping. In addition to having benches and retaining walls where people can sit or rest all year long, some commercial areas also have fire pits and other interactive elements that encourage people to use their spaces even during the colder months.
Current Trends in Landscape Design for Commercial Buildings
In addition to the basic principles of good landscape design for commercial spaces, certain trends have begun to grow and enjoy popularity within the last several years. These are some of the most popular commercial landscaping design trends that are slowly becoming mainstays.
Accessibility Features
Many commercial landscape designers are making the push to create universally accessible outdoor spaces for their clients. The goal is to allow everyone visiting the space to enjoy the same experience across the board, especially with both physical and psychological accessibility.
At F&V for example, our commercial landscape designers are seeing more requests for plants that help with sensory reception, or different soft and hard textures on pavement in areas like healing gardens. This allows more people of all ages and ability levels to enjoy the outdoor spaces, in turn creating better experiences with the brand for everyone.
With every project we complete, F&V strives to promote universal accessibility. Giving an equal experience to each user goes a long way and creates inclusion for every group of people.
Locally Sourced Plants
This has been a trend that has enjoyed overarching growth over the last several decades. Locally sourced and native plants from your region in Michigan or Indiana make it easier for your landscaping to stay healthy. It also helps protect the local environment by strengthening native species instead of introducing unfamiliar and invasive varieties.
Rooftop Landscaping
This is an especially popular trend in urban areas like Grand Rapids and Indianapolis. Green roofs and outdoor spaces on rooftops have become a common sight in larger cities because they allow people to visit a retreat away from the concrete jungle and experience a sense of calm and creativity.
Businesses like hotels and hospitals can incorporate rooftop gardens and green roofs into their structure to provide extra space for guests to relax. The addition of local plants and other greenery promotes a sense of harmony—all while being more energy-efficient and better at draining water away from the rooftop.
Water Conservation
Splashpads aren’t going away anytime soon, and misting zones are quickly emerging as a new trend. However, that water doesn’t just come in and go out of the splashpad on a continuous loop.
As these water features become more popular, more commercial landscape designers near you are looking for creative ways to conserve water, including more eco-conscious designs for fountains and water features in parks and courtyards that are both beautiful and practical.
F&V has designed splashpads that distribute water to a holding tank for irrigation—instead of the sanitary sewer—for a more economical and eco-friendly solution.
Color Arrangements
Having a range of different colors and shades in your commercial landscape not only improves curb appeal, but also attracts more people into your garden spaces. This includes planting native flowers in a bright array of colors ranging from green to pink, as well as including unusual natural stone colors for rock structures, benches, and retaining walls.
These setups are particularly popular with hospital healing gardens and other spaces designed to provide a peaceful stimulus for the mind and soul.
F&V’s Commercial Landscape Design Services
At Fleis & VandenBrink, we’re a full-service commercial landscape design company near you. We specialize in providing unique, functional, and beautiful landscape designs that suit your organization’s needs, whether your community needs a new splashpad or your hospital is trying to install a healing garden. With the right budget and enough imagination, we can make any of your landscaping ideas come to life.
Tell Us About Your Project
Want to turn your outdoor commercial space into a haven? Connect with us today and let our landscaping specialists get to work.