Landscape design & build for Ocean City

Ocean City landscape designs run the gamut from traditional estate gardens, to homespun flower beds, to stylized modern hardscapes.

The majority of Ocean City yards follow the archetypal 20th-century suburban-style: foundation planting, dense evergreen shrubs, and lawns. Residents have adapted this look, tucking it into small yards and spreading it across large ones, tidying it up with formal rows and letting it relax with graceful curves.

Among younger homeowners in particular, you’ll also see more contemporary landscape styles. Pollinator-friendly planting designs that nod to the wild landscapes of the Jersey shore region are gaining steam. So are modern, urban-flavored designs, with straight rows of concrete pavers, blocks of ornamental grasses, and rectilinear layouts.

Tired of maintenance, people are increasingly ditching their lawns for a variety of design alternatives. Increasingly, homeowners are also prioritizing habitat value, incorporating habitat-rich native plants into designs of all styles.

When it comes to landscape styles, Yardzen has done it all. Whatever your style may be, our designers are ready to help you achieve it.

No bones about it: people live in Ocean City to spend time outside. It makes sense, then, that landscape designs in Ocean City are at their best when they facilitate outdoor living.

Kitchens, dining areas, and flexible entertainment zones for spending time with family or friends are hugely popular in yards of all shapes and sizes. So are pergolas, shade sails, small water features, and other amenities designed to offer a cool moment in the midst of summer heat.

Landscape lighting and fire pits extend the good times past sunset and help people beat the heat by providing a pleasant environment to enjoy cool summer evenings.

When the weather turns chilly, pergolas (used to mount outdoor heaters) and fire pits work double duty, providing some extra warmth to keep you outside later in the year.

Planting designs aim to create a lush and inviting atmosphere year-round, with evergreens and cold-season bloomers helping to keep the yard looking good through the winter. Low maintenance planting tops the planting priority list, making sure residents can spend their time out having fun rather than stuck at home working on the yard.

No matter where you live, native plants are an excellent choice for your landscape. As lovers of the local climate, native plants typically require fewer inputs of water, fertilizer, and maintenance than species introduced from elsewhere. With natives, you’ll get great plant performance with less expense and fuss.

At the same time, native plants offer unmatched habitat value for local wildlife and help designed landscapes feel connected to the broader regional landscape.

Looking for a few natives to get you started? Here are a few of the many local favorites:

→ Butterfly Milkweed

→ Aster

→ Purple Coneflower

→ Black-Eyed Susan

→ Switchgrass

→ Common Ninebark

→ Red Cedar

→ Red Maple

→ Sassafras

Ocean City landscapes should account for the local climate. That means choosing plants that can take both the summer heat and the winter chill – natives are a great place to start, as they evolved to thrive in local conditions.

Being in a beach community, Ocean City landscapes should also account for bare feet. Avoid surfaces that get too hot in the sun, and make sure any groundcover materials are comfortable for walking without shoes.

Outdoor spaces should be tailored to remain comfortable for as much of the year as possible. That means making sure there are cool, shaded spaces for the summer and warm, sheltered spaces for the winter.

Seasonal interest is another climate factor to account for – landscapes ought to be dynamic, changing their appearance throughout the year. Careful plant selection can ensure an attractive display year-round by incorporating fall color, winter interest, and early spring blooms.

Now! Any time of year is great to begin work on a landscape project.

When possible, we suggest utilizing the winter to work through the design phase – this sets you up to get on contractors’ books early in the build season, so you can have your design installed and ready to enjoy in time for summer.

If winter has passed, don’t worry, it’s never too late in the year to begin work on a landscape design project.