It’s absolutely possible to extend the warm season by rethinking your backyard design. Current outdoor living trends focus on bringing indoor comfort outside—an approach where relaxation, enjoyment, and aesthetics blend seamlessly.
Beyond the pool, adding play areas or an outdoor kitchen can turn your days into true staycations. As evening sets in, create a cozy lounge area with comfortable furniture, a fire pit, soft blankets, and ambient lighting to make the most of every moment.
And to enjoy your pool even when temperatures drop, simply add a pool cover and heat pump. This way, you’ll get the most out of your pool while creating an inviting space that lasts well into the fall—instead of just admiring it from indoors.
1. Opt for a Low-Maintenance Outdoor Design
It’s no coincidence that it’s better to limit greenery around the pool. Consider the upkeep: trimming a cedar hedge right next to the pool, watering flower beds, or mowing nearby. Your next inevitable chore will be cleaning grass clippings and branches off the concrete slabs and directly out of the water.
After all, the goal is to make the most of summer, so it’s better to minimize maintenance time and maximize play and relaxation moments.
What is the best way to integrate landscaping around the pool?
- Use hanging flower boxes on your gazebo or pool house (small shed or pool house) where you store your equipment and accessories.
- Focus on potted plants. The variety of designs, textures, and colors is endless and can add a very sophisticated design touch to your backyard.
- Keep a distance of at least 1 meter before adding a flower bed or small shrubs. Otherwise, you likely won’t have enough space to work safely.
- Define your style by using outdoor tropical plants for a vacation-like feel, perennial flowering plants if you like to see them every year, or annual flowers and plants to vary your garden over the years.
2. How to design around a pool? Add a waterfall feature
Whether to follow nature-inspired trends or simply because you enjoy the sound of flowing water, adding waterfall features complements any fiberglass inground pool. These custom installations also help minimize maintenance around your swimming area.
Ask your landscaper or contractor to plan the integration of a waterfall using various concrete walls. You will need their expertise as well as an electrical connection to power the water circulation.
3. Your inground pool fence: an ornamental element to consider in your design
With the variety of fencing options available today, you have plenty of freedom to make it a stylish part of your project. If you want low maintenance, traditional wood fencing is not recommended, but otherwise, it offers the perfect cozy privacy.
Opt for a beautiful fence with tempered glass panels to create a complete visual harmony with the rest of your yard. Alternatively, hybrid solutions—glass with aluminum rails—or fences made entirely of aluminum or frosted glass represent solid, low-maintenance options.
Ask a Rinox distributor, expert in masonry and outdoor landscaping, to recommend the best options for adding retaining walls or columns that will complement your fence installation.
At the same time, you can choose to coordinate the coping and paving stones around your inground pool.