Smart Landscaping Slices Energy Bills

Effective landscaping produces environmental benefits across all LEED green building categories: water efficiency, indoor air quality, materials, atmosphere, sustainability, and energy. For simple, beautiful strategies that save energy and money, read on.

Huettl Landscape Architecture: Plant conifers as wind screens. They block cold winter gusts, provide green buffer zones, and prevent winds from wicking away indoor heat.

Lee Ann Marienthal Gardens: Evergreens with dense foliage provide stronger buffers, but these highly structured conifers have architectural appeal.

Cary Bernstein Architect: For a clean look or where foliage won't thrive, a wall provides similar wind protection.

Straight Line Landscape: Colder climates add warmth by placing fire features and outdoor kitchens close to the home, where heat permeates or buffers colder temperatures. Home structure, fireplace, and roof can make outdoor space usable in colder months.

Weisz Selection Lawn & Landscape Services, Inc.: In warmer climates, place fire features and outdoor kitchens at a distance preventing heat from enveloping structures during hot periods.

Design your perfect outdoor kitchen.

Beautiful Bones and Purple Stones: Deciduous trees are fantastic energy savers — shade in summer, light and heat in winter.

Hufft Projects: Trees are ultimate air conditioners — providing shade and reducing temperatures underneath by up to 20 degrees.

McClellan Architects: This home's floor-to-ceiling windows provide lovely daylight, cutting artificial light. Wall of trees filters sun, reducing glare and heat.

Johnsen Landscapes & Pools: Trees provide the same shady benefit to outdoor garden spaces.

Ron Herman Landscape Architect: In winter, leafless deciduous trees let sunshine through to warm outdoor and indoor spaces, reducing heating costs.

Strategic placement differs: conifers vs. deciduous trees. Deciduous trees work best south and west of homes — areas receiving direct sunlight.

Kathleen Shaeffer Design, Exterior Spaces: Hardscapes like concrete drives and patios increase the "heat island" effect — sunlight reflects off hard surfaces, reverberates, heating areas. Green foliage, even at ground height, keeps spaces cool.

A meadow alternative to traditional lawn produces dramatic improvements in indoor and outdoor air quality. Reducing energy and water needs saves up to $2,500 per 1,000 square feet annually.

The Garden Route Company: If hardscaping is necessary, light materials attract less heat.

Shades Of Green Landscape Architecture: Natural materials like decomposed granite absorb light and heat. Many appropriate for driveways and patios.

Woolly Pocket: Green walls prevent structures receiving excessive sunshine from transmitting heat indoors. This LA SmoggShoppe wall is energy efficiency and living vertical art.

If you desire that heat, this isn't your approach.

Blasen Landscape Architecture: Thick foliage in external containers is a simple strategy requiring less expertise and commitment than a green wall. Move containers to sheltered or indoor spaces when temperatures cool.

We'd love to see your energy-saving landscape photos. Tell us about them below.