Beat the Heat by Adding a Swimming Pool

It gets pretty hot in Nashville and the surrounding areas, and tends to stay hot longer than many places. While there are many ways to stay cool during the summer months, only one provides a degree of physical activity that won’t make you want to die afterwards, and that is swimming. Of course, for many this means heading to a lake, which isn’t always practical, or a visit to the local public swimming area, which brings with it all sorts of health and privacy concerns. The obvious answer to these concerns is to add a pool to your existing landscape. It sounds like a lot of work, but the sheer amount of fun and enjoyment it will provide is worth it, to say nothing of the value it adds to your home if you decide to sell later on.

The Benefits of Getting a Pool

Fun in the Sun

The first thing you need to decide is where you want the pool to be, and then figure out what kind of physical setbacks you will have to overcome. This is where we step in. We at the Parke Company are great at coming up with a nice landscape design that incorporates all of your wants and desires, including pools. One thing to keep in mind is that a pool needs to be on a flat surface, so if your backyard is particularly slanted, a great deal of digging and flattening will need to happen. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, because once you are engaged in that level of construction it tends to open up a lot of design options. If the pool ends up on a higher level than the house, a stepped terrace might be a good idea, for example, or if there is a retaining wall involved, add bushes or a climbing vine.

Adding the Green

The fun part is the way you can integrate landscape elements into the design of the pool. For example, everyone who owns a pool wants privacy, but fences can come across as cold and inhumane. Instead, why not add small trees or bushes to block any unwanted eyes? Inside the pool area itself is the perfect place for something more tropical or a little more ostentatious than the rest of your landscape. Grab some pots and planters and go to town with it. You can always take it a step further, too, by making the deck of the pool area entirely grass. No one ever said it had to be wood or concrete or what have you, and a grass deck will definitely make things look a lot more natural.  

Pools are a lot of work, both to install and to maintain, but it is definitely worth it in the long run. It is something we here at the Parke Company believe in very strongly, because of the landscape design options it gives our workers. Plus there’s just something magical about being able to walk into your own backyard and get into the water whenever you want. If that feeling is something you would like to experience yourself, give us a call and let’s get started!