You love your landscaping, mostly. There’s just this one problem area. 
Let us guess:

1. Steep slope?
2. Soggy area where water won’t drain?
3. A shady patch where nothing will grow?

Landscape design can answer problems in the landscape - even in the most difficult areas that never seem to clean up.

Jump to Section

• How to Address Soggy, Water-Logged Lawn Areas
• Landscaping for Shade: What to Plant?
• The Toughest Landscape Plants
• Cool Pool Plants That Don’t Make a Mess
• Got a Slope? There’s a Solution
• Oops! That Pool Deck Is Slippery
• Give a Boring Fence a Boost
• You Need Privacy — Fast
• Improve Difficult Landscape Areas With Ground Source

How do you landscape in difficult areas of a backyard? Try a drainage solution. Seek out the toughest landscape plants. Turn to retaining walls.

Keep reading to learn more about how to design for problem areas.

How to Address Soggy, Water-Logged Lawn Areas

It often rains like crazy here in Central Florida, and even though much of our soil is sandy and drains well, sometimes water just sits. And sits.

How to design for problem areas that hold onto water? A few solutions:

Amend Your Soil for Better Drainage

Your soil might be too dense and compacted to drain well.

Try amending the soil with a top dressing of materials like sand, loam, and compost that water can more easily pass through.

A Rain Garden Works Hard and Looks Great

A rain garden is a shallow depression that’s planted with deep-rooted native plants and grasses. It encourages excess water to soak slowly into the ground instead of pooling up and causing problems.

Meanwhile, it’s pretty. It’s called a garden, after all, and can be an integral part of your Orlando landscape design.

A Dry Creek Bed Handles Extra Water

A dry creek bed sounds like a landscape fail, but it’s actually a hero, soaking up that extra water.

When your yard isn’t soggy, a dry creek bed looks scenic, constructed from assorted sizes of decorative rocks.

But when you need it, that extra water heads to the creek bed, the logical place for extra water to go.

Sometimes, You Need Drainage Heavy Hitters

Still soggy? If landscape design tricks like a rain garden or dry creek bed don’t handle your extra water, you might need a more serious lawn drainage fix.

Collection boxes or French drain, which involve digging and drainage pipes, are sometimes necessary to handle inundating water.

Landscaping for Shade: What to Plant?

Shade is your best friend when it’s sweltering out and you need a place to plop with your icy lemonade.

But shade is challenging for plants and sod. Most love the sun.

While many of Florida's favorite plants thrive in our sunny climate, there are a few shade lovers, too.

Here are a few go-tos that Ground Source landscape designer Eric Frisch turns to for shady spots in his landscape design:

Schefflera ‘Trinette’

This showy shrub with standout variegated green and yellow leaves easily brightens up darker areas —it’s like it’s made for shade.

Asiatic Jasmine

This stunning ground cover comes in a variegated variety that will wow you, with new leaves that emerge pink then turn variegated white and emerald green. Bonus: very fragrant, creamy yellow flowers bloom prolifically in the Florida heat.

Foxtail Fern

Ok, so this shade lover isn’t technically a fern, but it’s cute and fluffy like a fox tail, so who cares?

It’s much tougher than it looks, and is a good reminder that anything with “fern” in its name — as long as it can handle Florida heat — is a safe bet for shady areas of your landscape design.

The Best Sod for Shade

Most varieties of sod love the sun.

If you struggle to grow grass in the shade, try St. Augustine 'Citra Blue.' It needs just two hours or so of sun a day, making it the most shade-tolerant turf out there.

It has a deep blue-green color and is slow-growing, so it needs minimal mowing and maintenance, too.

The Toughest Landscape Plants

Let’s face it, some areas of your landscaping take a beating. The kids trample it. Your neighbor walks over to show you the latest photos of her grandkids. The DoorDash guy thinks it’s the perfect shortcut.

What are the toughest plants for landscaping? What plants can handle some foot traffic and still stand tall?

Here are a few to consider:

Blue Flax Lily

Don’t let the delicate name fool you.

Flax lily is less lily and more tough, grass-like perennial. It’s tough - drought-tolerant, happy in sun or shade and fine with hot, humid weather like we have here in Central Florida.

African Iris

A tough, durable perennial that keeps coming back, even if it gets trampled, stunning African iris does great in full sun or part shade, standing water, or dry conditions. It’s a landscape design superstar.  

Liriope

Also called lilyturf, this is one of the toughest landscape plants out there, growing into a vigorous carpet of green that will thrive in most any growing conditions.

Or, Skip Plants If There’s a Stampede of Foot Traffic

Frisch steers away from plants altogether if they’d get walked on too much, opting instead for artificial turf for a play area, pavers if a walkway makes sense, or stepping stones to give plants a break.

4. Cool Pool Plants That Don’t Make a Mess

You have your dream pool, and some nice landscaping around it. Time to relax and float away the afternoon.

Wait, what’s all this stuff in the pool?

Not every plant is perfect for around the pool
. Some love dropping debris, like those stunning Hawaiian Ti plants. Their leaves are like artwork — but they always end up in the pool.

What to plant poolside that won’t make a mess?

Here are three favorites that won’t have you skimming more than swimming:

Bromeliads look exotic, which is cool by the pool, but keep their leaves to themselves. They love humidity, making them a great pool partner for your landscape design.

Crotons are a Florida garden favorite, and it’s easy to appreciate why. They’re spectacular, with colorful, mottled leaves that look like artists painted them. They’re big, too, an impressive six feet tall, making them a showy poolside plant. And — no leaf drop.

Xanadu Philodendron is great for texture in shady pool areas but they don’t like full sun. It provides a great dark green background for colorful poolside plants like the showy croton.

5. Got a Slope? There’s a Landscape Design Solution

If your yard has a hill or slope, you might have uttered some swear words. Slopes are tricky to mow, challenging to plant and targets for damaging erosion.

Retaining walls are a typical solution for sloped areas. If you want to skip that expense, however, there are answers.

If you still want to plant your slope, choose plants with strong root systems to help hold the soil and prevent erosion.

Smart Central Florida landscape design choices include muhly grass, sea oats, switchgrass, creeping phlox, liriope and ‘Grow Low’ sumac.

These ground-hugging plants can help stabilize sloped areas and potentially eliminate the need for large, expensive retaining wall installations.

6. Oops! That Pool Deck Is Slippery

​​Poured concrete is a popular choice for pool decks and pool ​installers often use this basic material.​​

The problem is that plain concrete becomes slippery when it’s wet. So there you are, carrying a tray full of shrimp tacos to munch poolside, and you slide right into the pool, tacos and all.

​​A couple of smart landscape design solutions:​​

• Opt for a textured concrete surface to prevent slips.
• ​​Use pavers instead. They’re slip-resistant, versatile and easy to repair. And with a host of choices, you can make your pool decking unique by creating custom patterns and shapes.​

Pro tip: Stick to light colors so they reflect light and stay cooler.​

Not crazy about the mess and expense of tearing out that slippery concrete? Good news: you can have pavers installed on top of it, with a few precautions.

You can’t do this with concrete surfaces that get heavy vehicle traffic, like a driveway. But pool​ decks just get foot traffic, so this landscape design solution works, as long as you keep a few considerations in mind:​​

Your concrete pool decking has to be in good condition. If it’s badly cracked or crumbling you can’t just cover it with pavers and pretend you solved the problem.

Adding pavers over concrete will make your surface as much as three inches higher. So consider using remodeling pavers. These thinner pavers are half the thickness of standard pavers — 30 millimeters instead of 60.

That means they don’t raise the height as much, which reduces the risk of tripping. ​

7. Give a Boring Fence a Boost

Not every fence is custom-crafted by Italian artisans using wood forested from the mountains of Tibet.

Sometimes you end up with a plain old fence.

Now what? The right landscaping plants soften it, disguise it and help it blend nicely with the rest of your yard.

A few fence landscape design tips:

• Use a curving bed of plants to contrast with the straight lines of the fence.
• Don’t plant things right up against the fence, especially if you’ll need to wiggle back there to paint or stain it.
• Think intriguing layers, not just a straight boring line of plants. 

Short plants in the front, medium-sized in the middle, and the tallest ones in the back. Aim for a mix of colors, heights and textures.

8. You Need Privacy — Fast

Creating landscaping for privacy can be tricky. You don’t want your neighbors to think you hate them, but you don’t want to see your neighbor doing morning yoga with his robe falling open.

What do you use when you want plant-based privacy without waiting five years?

Try bamboo - but not just any bamboo.

Bamboo ‘Graceful’ is a great fast-growing tropical plant, creating a dense privacy screen in just one season.

But let’s pause first for a mini bamboo lesson.

There are two types of bamboo: invasive and non-invasive.

Invasive bamboo spreads like crazy. It’s really hard to contain and it’s best to avoid it.

But non-invasive bamboo, also called “clumping bamboo,” is more easily contained, growing in tightly formed clumps up to 5 feet in diameter. It’s a natural for privacy screens, and ‘Graceful’ is in this group.

What is the Best Way to Design Tricky Parts of a Yard? Trust Ground  Source

How do you landscape in difficult areas of a backyard?

Partner with a skilled landscape designer who knows their stuff — and experienced crews who can bring those inspired landscape designs to life in your challenging yard.

Ready to tackle the toughest parts of your landscape for good? The Ground Source team is an expert in landscape design and installation in Central Florida.

We know how to wrangle a steep slope, pretty up a fence, get extra water flowing where it needs to go and pick shade plants that will brighten up your gloomiest corner — and thrive.

We’re landscape design experts, and we’re with you every step of the way as you plan your perfect outdoor space.

Are you ready to experience the vibrant and impressive landscape you've always wanted? Request a quote today! We’ll help you review your options and then transform your property.