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Business Landscape

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Each year, businesses spend millions of dollars designing, building, and maintaining landscapes at their places of businesses. They've learned that acres of cement are less than appealing to customers and that their competitor's landscaped parking lot might cost them your business.

In many ways, the process of designing a landscape for a business is identical to designing a landscape for a home. You still need to take into account both artistic and logistical considerations. Like residential landscapes, business landscapes employ focal points, complimentary colors, and symmetry. Likewise, their designers have to consider their spatial, environmental, and budgetary restrictions.

In addition, however, businesses designing a landscape face additional challenges in the form of city ordinances, the need to attract customers, and the increased size of their landscapes.

• City Ordinances: Many cities require businesses to landscape in a certain manner. These ordinances may, for example, require a business to plant a certain number of trees or have a certain square footage of greenspace between the building and the road. Contact your local planning commission for details regarding business landscaping in your area.
• Attracting Customers: Most homeowners do not use their landscaping to attract visitors, but businesses do want to attract customers. With this in mind, you should at least use conservative landscaping that will not repel customers, but you can also be creative and use colorful displays (such as your company logo in flowers) to attract customers.
• Job Size: Businesses have more money and more space with which to work than do individuals. Thus, you have a bigger maintenance job, but you also have the freedom to purchase more items, both manmade and natural, to enhance your landscape. In many cases, businesses also have multiple small landscapes spread out over their property.

Next Page: After the Design Stage

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