Intense summer heat, long dry periods, occasional flash floods, and even the odd winter freeze create challenging conditions for homeowners in Austin, especially with a grass lawn to maintain.
That’s partly why many homeowners in this part of Texas are looking at alternatives to grass with their landscaping designs.
Fortunately, there are many excellent low-maintenance ideas to choose from—from artificial grass to mulch and organic to inorganic options.
Let’s look at the main challenges and the best seven landscaping ideas for Austin to combat these difficulties…
Landscaping Challenges for Austin Homes
The traditional backyard grass lawn with concrete pathway set up in Austin yards has been increasingly rethought in recent years.
The challenges of using these traditional materials can be considerable in our climate:
- Real grass is difficult and expensive to maintain and to keep looking healthy.
- With increasing droughts and water shortages, maintaining a grass lawn is even more challenging.
- Real grass also uses resources such as fossil fuels to power lawn care machinery and requires chemicals for fertilizers, weedkillers, and pesticides/herbicides.
- Though it’s very low maintenance, concrete has very limited aesthetic appeal.
- Flash floods are a common occurrence in Austin and unless you choose the right, permeable ground surface that drains well, excess water can damage your property.
With this in mind, alternative landscaping ideas are attracting the attention of homeowners in Austin. Let’s look at the main ideas to consider…
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The 7 Best Landscaping Ideas for Austin, Texas
The following Austin landscaping ideas all work in the local climate and conditions…
1. Artificial grass
Landscaping with artificial grass can brighten any yard—front, back or side. The area stays green and immaculate without the work, resources or expense that go into maintaining real grass.
With artificial grass, you don’t need to worry about water, sunlight, chemicals or expensive lawn care. When professionally installed, it drains well and can handle flash flood water.
Compared with real grass, artificial grass incurs higher initial costs but a much lower cost of ownership over the years following. It can easily last 15-20 years with just a little loving care.
The best artificial grass closely resembles the real thing with a realistic soft, lush, and verdant appeal. Different types of artificial turf serve different purposes besides backyard lawns, including children’s play areas, dog runs, turf strips around swimming pools, and backyard putting greens.
Synthetic grass gets hotter than the real thing but the best products now use cooling technology to help combat this.
2. Mulch
Mulch is a popular and diverse backyard material that can be used widely for landscaping ideas in Austin. Because it consists of organic, biodegradable materials, mulch brings a natural aesthetic, with eco-friendliness as well as being a very low-maintenance alternative to grass.
Most mulch consists of tree bark, wood chips, and pine straw. The material can be spread thickly around shrubs, native plants, and flower beds or combined with other materials, like artificial grass, gravel or pavers.
Mulch is suitable for the hot, dry climate in Austin because, unlike grass, it requires no water or mowing. Mulch regulates ground temperatures well and retains moisture, making it ideal for use with native plants.
The most you will need to do for maintenance is to tidy up dislodged pieces of mulch from time to time—or top it up.
3. Pea gravel
Pea gravel is another excellent low-maintenance landscaping idea for Austin backyards.
This type of gravel is typically found in riverbeds or gravel pits near water sources and is characterized by its small pebble size and rounded edges. The natural weathering of the gravel makes it suitable for lawn replacement or combining with grass, synthetic grass or other landscaping materials in the back or front yard.
The variety of colors with pea gravel provides several different design alternatives—cream, brown, tan, light gray, dark gray, and so on. When used correctly, it can add beauty and elegance to your outdoor spaces while also being very practical.
Drainage is rarely a problem with pea gravel and, like with mulch, it requires next-to-no maintenance other than the occasional top-up and tidying of the area to even out the gravel. The surface remains comfortable to walk on—though it will heat up in hot sunshine so barefoot kids on it in the midday sun might not be advisable.
4. Drought-tolerant native plants
With increasing focus in Austin on water shortages and more instances of extreme drought in the surrounding areas seemingly appearing every year, many homeowners are switching to more drought-tolerant solutions than natural grass in the backyard.
Flash floods, which can strike any time in Austin, shouldn’t fool us into thinking water is plentiful. The reservoirs are very low and, with water restrictions in force for much of the year in Austin, a good option is to revert to native solutions, such as growing native plants.
Native plants are already adjusted to the local climate and do not place any extra strain on resources when managed properly. They are naturally tolerant of drought.
Good examples include Yaupon holly, live oak tree, purple baptisia, crepe myrtle, black dalea, and bottle brush. These plants can add life and color to landscaping ideas for the front or back yard in Austin.
5. Pavers
Pavers are another versatile, low-maintenance landscaping idea for Austin homeowners. They can add rustic beauty or contemporary elegance to backyards without the upkeep or resources associated with natural grass lawns.
Your main choices with pavers are materials like stone, concrete, red brick or composites that look like wood (also often used in backyard decking these days).
Pavers are long-lasting, drain well if professionally installed, and need little more than occasional sweeping or hosing down.
Hardscaping materials like this can cover small backyards entirely, just patio spaces within larger backyards, or be used more sparingly to accent other landscaping materials, such as artificial grass, mulch, gravel, etc.
6. A lawn of native plants
Another increasingly popular landscaping idea in Austin is to switch from high-maintenance, resource-guzzling, natural grass lawns to lawns covered by low-maintenance native varieties.
Most of these plants don’t have the verdant vibrancy of real grass but offer their own beauty and charm—and, importantly, are so much easier (and cheaper) to look after because they naturally stand up to the lack of rainfall and high summer temperatures here.
Silver ponyfoot is one option to consider. This native Texan plant has a silvery tinge to its green, rotund leaves. However, it is not suitable for heavy foot traffic as it flattens easily and starts to look untidy—but for pure aesthetics it may be an option.
It’s best to avoid clover and phlox as grass lawn replacements but other native options for Austin lawns are Texas frogfruit, yellow oxalis, and horseherb. These can be mixed and used in combination, performing well all year round in sun and shade with little water or maintenance.
These native plants flourish at different times of the year, making a mix a good option for Austin homeowners.
7. Crushed rock or a rock garden
Rocks can play an important part when hardscaping an Austin backyard too.
Crushed rock is an alternative to pea gravel, sharing many properties, such as low maintenance and good drainage. However, crushed rock is usually coarser than pea gravel as the limestone hasn’t been rounded by weathering. Crushed rock does work well in combination with other materials, though, such as synthetic turf, mulch, etc.
Another rock landscaping idea in Austin backyards is to build a rock garden. It’s best to build a rock garden on a natural slope or, if not, a slope created from garden soil. You can use native plants interspersed with the rocks for dashes of color—just leave spaces between the rocks for the plant roots.
This is a low-maintenance, low-cost idea that is relatively simple for most homeowners to manage and perfect for the Austin climate.
FAQs
Considering Switching to Artificial Grass?
If you’re considering landscaping ideas for your Austin backyard, you’ll need to plan for hot summers, flash floods, and the occasional freeze.
Discuss your options with an artificial grass professional.
