Energy Efficient Landscaping in Your Backyard

All of us like to save money. With easy energy efficient landscaping you can save up to 30% or more on your energy bills. Just a few simple adjustments to your existing landscape or by careful planning of your new landscape you can create an energy saving home.

So how does one accomplish energy efficient landscaping? There are various things that can be considered in both existing and soon-to-be-developed landscapes.

What About the Sun?

Where and how you can include energy efficient landscaping would greatly depend on the part of the country in which you live. Your home may be hit on three sides by the sun each day making the cooling system work extra hard during the hotest part of the season. Others may have a home that is situated on their property so that it faces morth-east with lots of shady trees on the south-west side making it very cold in the cooler months.

You can protect your home from the sun’s hot rays by a shade landscaping design, planting large shade trees on the south and west side of your home. Of course on the flip side, if you want your home to be warmer in the long winter months you would want to do just the opposite, creating large open areas so that the sun can naturally warm the home.

You will also want the warm rays of the sun to heat the hardscape surrounding your home this will also increase the heat levels inside the home.

Create A Wind Break

Wind chill can also cause your home to be cooler. A cold winter wind blowing through your home can quickly drop the inside temperature by as much as 10%.

Ask your local nursery expert about using trees as wind breaks and which trees would be the best as well as fast growing. Some of the more sturdy walls or fences can also be excellent wind breaks.

Keep the Heat or Cool In

One way you can help save energy by making sure the warm or cool air does not escape from your home by adding insulation in the ceilings, gaskets around the doors, vents and windows, and having double pain windows.

The best way to achieve this is by planting shrubbery around the home’s foundations. This creates a dead air barrier, keeping the heat and cool inside the home where it matters. Experts have suggested widening the distance between the shrubbery and the house’s walls in order to increase this area for dead air.

A properly maintained and landscaped home cannot only be attractive but practical. You will saving hundreds of dollars each year by making energy efficient landscaping a priority.

If you would like more landscaping ideas go to Landscape Patio Design also visit Nursery Plants

Share This