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Water Features

Water is often an overlooked feature for residential gardens, but the sound of trickling or cascading water can be very relaxing.

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Features & Details

What makes a good landscape great? Our quick tips highlight favorite features, unusual materials, and tiny tweaks that can make a big difference for your outdoor space.

Bob Hursthouse discusses how natural and sterile water features can be used in landscapes so you can decide which is right for you.

Orange Tree Studio: Natural vs Sterile Water Features

Watch Bill Chorvat as he explains how he plans and builds a winter container.

Whimsical Winter Arrangement

Bill Chorvat puts together a seasonal fall container inspired by a native landscaping.

Fall Prairie Container Arrangement

Jeff True discusses a dry-laid retaining wall.

Retaining Walls

Visit this peaceful destination garden.

Peaceful Destination Garden | Patty’s Vintage White Garden

See how boxwood hedges help keep a natural loose and linear appearance.

Boxwood Hedges | Patty’s Vintage White Garden

Sit back and relax by our firepit defined by beautiful granite boulders and decomposed granite gravel.

S’more Time to Relax by the Firepit

View this gorgeous entryway filled with lots of natural elements.

Entry Way with Lots of Natural Elements

Utilize your landscape to encourage beneficial insects, like the beautiful monarch butterfly.

A Prairie Home for Monarch Butterflies

Turn a difficult ditch into a beautiful and functional prairie area with seating.

Bob’s House: Solving the Ditch Problem

Many gardens remind us of their counterparts indoors—a living room, dining room or kitchen. The garden typically has a floor, walls and a ceiling made with plants and hardscape elements.

Up and Away: Vertical Elements for the Garden

Fire features have become one of our most popular landscape touches! They’ll let friends and family gather to enjoy your yard year-round – as long as you design them right. Here are four different ways to do that.

Four Fire Pits for Chicago Landscapes

Hursthouse can create beautiful containers for your entry way for all 4 seasons of the year!

Order Your Winter Container

Some gardens are more fascinating than others. They’re intriguing and inviting. The secret is often a well-designed path.

Paths to Beauty

If there was a beauty contest for flowering shrubs, surely the hydrangea would come in first place.

Snowballs in Summer: Meet the Hydrangeas

Garden ornaments are the elements that complete a setting and reflect the owner’s style.

Garden Ornaments

Water is often an overlooked feature for residential gardens, but the sound of trickling or cascading water can be very relaxing.

Water Features

Of all the creatures that visit gardens, butterflies are perhaps the most exotic and magical. On warm summer days they sail from one flower to another in search of nectar.

Butterfly Gardening: Here’s How to Attract Winged-Wonders to Your Landscape

Plants have the power to bring smiles and a sense of well-being to those who interact with them.

4 Ways Gardening Helps Kids (And Grownups, Too)

Robbi Hursthouse discusses some of the great ways you can garden with children.

Gardening with Children

A carefully designed landscape features lighting that keeps a garden alive in winter, so it can be enjoyed from indoors as well as from the street.

Lights, Camera, Action: Landscaping Lighting

Ruby-throated hummingbirds cause us to stop in our tracks. Fascinating to watch. Even more fun when they belly up to the feeders.

Hummingbirds Are Here!

After the Final Design, it's time to select and price the exact landscaping materials we’ll use to build. That process is often different at Hursthouse than it is at other landscaping companies.

Landscaping Materials: Where Do They Come From?

There's more than one way to build a retaining wall - and more than one material to do it with. Here are 3 popular choices.

3 Materials for Your Retaining Wall

You’ve got a lot of different choices when it comes to paver materials. Here’s how to cut through the clutter and understand what you need.

How to Choose a Patio Paver

Outdoor decks come in all shapes and sizes. And options for materials are just as varied. Here are 3 popular choices.

3 Woods for Your Deck

Pergola, arbor, or gazebo? Here's how to tell the difference.

4 Structures for Your Home Landscape Design

What's the best shape and size for a fire pit? Here's our ideal approach.

The Perfect Fire Pit

We’d love to work with you on your dream landscape!

Contact us to schedule a meeting to discuss your project details

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