Tips For Using Microclimates For More Creative Landscaping

- Image by wallyg via Flickr
Regardless of where you live and your local weather patterns, your gardens and landscape will have their own specific micro-climate which is created due to several different factors and influences working together. The factors include the orientation of your site, its protection from wind, whether it slopes or not, and the amount of sun and shade it receives each day. So besides your local growing conditions, your micro-climate is a very important consideration for a successful landscape and garden.
Any type of structure or building on your property can cause different effects on the micro-climate. All your landscaping and garden ideas could easily be effected by just one placement. A house, for example, can cause a windbreak that changes the airflow around it. There will be a warm area and a colder one created on either side of the building; and shade at certain times of the day. Walls and fences both have an effect on a property just the same as natural elements like trees and hedges.
Locally, the temperature changes according to the composition of the ground surface. Some surfaces, for example, bitumen, get so hot that you cannot walk on them in summer and this heat is felt in the air above. Comparatively, concrete surfaces will keep cool. All landscaping plans will be effected differently by different elements. Grass is always cool, although the temperature of the soil beneath is influenced by the length of the grass above it. You can use temperature changes like this to help you grow warmth loving plants like semi-tropical varieties. Surfaces that heat up during the day will release the heat slowly throughout the night. This effect can sometimes prevent frost damage in areas that are susceptible.
In gardens and landscapes that are exposed to strong winds, a barrier of some sort is usually needed. It’s been shown that solid wind blocks like wood fences make areas of turbulence on each side. This is common knowledge to most landscape design contractors. The best sort of barriers are the ones that allow some air flow. A partial barrier like that will work more like a filter rather than a solid barricade. You can use trees or shrubs with light foliage, an open spaced board fence or even a brick fence with spaces between the bricks to create a good wind barrier.
Water can have many different effects on a micro-climate. Depending on the pond size, it helps stabilize the temperature of the air. Ponds reflect light so any plants that surround a pond usually get more water and light than those planted in other places. However, even though a pond has a cooling effect on its surroundings in the heat of Summer, it can also have a very chilly effect in Winter. Keep this in mind when you’re considering where to place a pond.
Both humans and vegetation do well when you give your micro-climates some thought and propper planning.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=84d39436-90b1-476c-a0c9-318c68cd2165)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0af55633-df42-432a-a611-603433d889be)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6d58afa7-62f6-4d99-b71c-542de9b4554e)






