Revisited: A Swimming Pool Landscape, Revisited

Here is another swimming pool landscape, revisited.  (This is a different swimming pool landscape that was revisited earlier in the summer.)  This design strives to maintain the general feel and layout of the old pool, and be complimentary to the style and era of the 1960s home.

This design scales back the square footage of the existing deck quite dramatically in removing the lower deck terrace in lieu of a boulder terrace with a flagstone patio surrounded by garden. It replaces the short, dry-stacked stone walls with new limestone walls that are accented by large seating boulders and a nice, clean coping stone.  The fence was pushed out to include a large oak tree as the centerpiece of the back yard, and adds a modest planting arrangement around the perimeter of the yard and around the pool to give it a formal, yet somewhat naturalistic look.  In this particular pool landscape, as in others that I have worked on in the past, I like to employ a selection of "tropical-esque" plants to evoke a tropical paradise in being around the pool.  

Note:  There once was a website devoted to the use of "tropical-looking" plants in northern landscapes in order to provide the aesthetic of a tropical paradise in a website that was called "tropical-esque".  However, I cannot seem to find that website any longer.  But there is a forum on GardenWeb.com devoted to this type of discussion. (http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tropesque/)

Here are the before views of the old and tired landscape, with the new design and new concept image that illustrates the new design.  The homeowner was not looking for a radical change to the pool or to the shape and size of the pool deck. Therefore, I made only modest changes to the overall layout and paid particular attention to the plant and materials selection in the use of natural stone.  The natural stone would be a light colored limestone/sandstone combination, with a random flagstone pattern pool deck.