the.com/hardscape
The part of your yard that never needs watering, only a mortgage.
means The built, non-living parts of a landscape — patios, walkways, retaining walls, and stonework — as opposed to the plants and lawn.
from A late-20th-century coinage in landscape architecture and design, built by bolting 'hard' (as in hard materials — stone, concrete, brick) onto 'landscape,' with 'softscape' invented right alongside it as the planty counterpart. No ancient roots here — just an industry inventing a tidy pair of jargon terms to split a job estimate into two line items.
- definition
- Non-living yard elements: stone, concrete, pavers, gravel
- versus
- Softscape is the living stuff, plants and soil
- roi myth
- Patios recoup less resale value than advertised
- durability
- Built to outlast the house it surrounds