Regardless of your local weather patterns, your landscaping and gardens will have a specific microclimate which is created due to several different influences working together. Among many influences, these factors include the direction your property sits, it’s protection from wind, how sunny or shady the property is, and how much slope there is. Planning your landscape with microclimates in mind could be an important element in how successful your landscaping or garden turns out to be.
A structure or building placed on your lot can cause a number of different effects on the microclimate. All your landscaping and garden ideas could easily be effected by just one placement. A house can create a windbreak that alters the flow of air around it. There will be a warm area and a colder one created on either side of the building; and shade at certain times of the day. Walls and fences both have an effect on a property just the same as natural elements like trees and hedges.
Immediate area temperature changes depend a lot on the composition of the soil surface. Some surfaces like paving gets so hot in the warmer summer months that you can’t walk on it. The heat they produce is also felt in the air above. Concrete surfaces, on the other hand, keeps fairly cool. All landscaping ideas will be effected differently by different elements. Lawn grass is always cool. However, the length of the grass does have an influence on the temperature of the soil underneath it. You can use temperature changes like this to help you grow warmth loving plants like semi-tropical varieties. A surface that gets hot during the day will release the heat energy through the night. The release of this heat can help keep some susceptible areas from frost damage.
To help block the wind in a landscape or garden, It’s usually necessary to create some sort of barrier or break. It’s been shown that solid wind blocks like wood fences make areas of turbulence on each side. This is common knowledge to most landscaping contractors. The best type of barriers are those that are semi-permeable and allow some air flow. A barrier like this will act more as a filter. Lightly foliaged trees or a spaced board fence will often provide an effective wind barrier.
Areas of water like ponds or swimming pools can create different effects in a microclimate. It stabilises air temperature more or less depending on the size of the pond. A pond reflects light from its surface, so plants surrounding a pond tend to get both more water and more light than those planted elsewhere. However, even though a pond has a cooling effect on its surroundings in the heat of Summer, it can also have a very chilly effect in Winter. Keep this in mind when you’re considering where to place a pond.
Both people and plants benefit when you think carefully about your site’s microclimate and plan accordingly.
