The Backyard Decides How the Pool Feels. Landscape Design Settles That First in Portsmouth, RI
Walk into a backyard built around a pool, and the impression forms before anyone reaches the water.
It comes from the route there. The planting that frames the first view. The way the grade falls toward the deck. Whether the neighbor's second story is visible from the lounge chairs. The pool is the destination. But the experience of arriving at it belongs to landscape design.
This is the part that gets underestimated. A pool is a defined object with fixed dimensions and a clear cost. The yard around it is open-ended, and open-ended work is easy to postpone until the pool is in and the budget is thin.
The trouble is that nearly everything determining how the finished space feels lives in that postponed layer. By the time it gets attention, the pool has already dictated the terms.
Related: The Pool Is Only Part of It. Landscape Design Makes the Backyard Feel Finished in Portsmouth, RI
Read the Whole Yard Before Locating the Pool
The instinct is to place the pool first and design around it. A stronger sequence runs the other way. Landscape design starts by reading the entire property:
where the sun tracks across the day
where wind moves through
where the grade wants water to go
which sightlines need screening, and which deserve to be opened up
The pool's position then answers to those findings rather than fighting them. Consider the difference. A pool dropped into the flattest available spot can end up baking in afternoon sun with no shade and a clear view straight to the property line.
The same pool, sited after the grade and the prevailing exposure are understood, can sit where afternoon shade already falls and where existing topography does the screening for free. Siting is a landscape design decision long before it is an excavation one.
The Elements Resolve as a Single Negotiation
Once the pool has a home, the surrounding pieces get worked out together, because each one constrains the others.
Deck and circulation — the material and its path back to the house set the framework everything else fits into.
Perimeter screening — low-litter, salt-tolerant species suited to the New England seasons, placed to clear the deck's sun exposure rather than shade it by accident.
Grade transitions — retaining walls, seating walls, and step runs in wall stone that absorb the elevation between the pool and the wider yard while shaping where water travels.
Drainage — routing landscape runoff away from the pool and keeping deck water off the foundation and out of the bed edges.
Lighting — last in the sequence but reaching everywhere: submerged fixtures, low accents in the beds, path light between zones, and soft overhead light on any structure, all pulling the usable hours past sunset.
None of these is settled in isolation. Move the screening and the deck's light changes. Adjust the grade and the drainage plan shifts with it.
Resolved as one negotiation, the yard reads as though it could not have been arranged any other way. Resolved piecemeal, it reads as a stack of separate decisions that happen to share a fence line.
Related: Tired of a Basic Backyard? How Custom Paver Patios Are Redefining Landscape Design in Bow, NH
Paper Is Cheaper Than Poured Concrete
The regrets homeowners report after a pool project rarely concern the pool. They concern the surroundings:
a deck that came up short
screening that left a sightline open
an approach from the house that never resolved
planting beds wedged into the space left over once the hardscape was set
Each of those is a landscape design question. And each is far easier to solve on a plan than after the concrete has cured and the options have narrowed to whatever the pool will now permit.
It is recommended that the full design be settled before excavation begins, while the layout is still open and the pool can be placed to serve the yard rather than the other way around.
The Most Personal Ground on the Property
Homeowners in Portsmouth, Newport, Barrington, East Greenwich, Narragansett, Little Compton, and Jamestown, along with communities across Rhode Island, southeastern Massachusetts, and the wider New England region, tend to describe the backyard as the most personal ground they own. Landscape design is what earns it that standing.
If a pool is on the horizon, the conversation is worth starting with the whole backyard rather than the pool alone. The water tends to come out better for it, and so does everything arranged around it.
Related: Creating Cohesive Outdoor Spaces With Professional Landscape Design in Newton and Wellesley, MA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A passion for the outdoors and the experience of working with his hands at a young age fostered the realization of Gairad DeCastro’s dream to start a top-rated design/build company on Aquidneck Island in 2007. His company has since grown from humble beginnings to a sought-after local pool contractor. Now, Premier Gunite Pools is recognized as a leader in providing creative, quality, and reliable inground pools. Gairad’s philosophy and mission statement remain simple: “If it’s worth doing, it's worth doing right.” His goal is to exceed every customer’s expectations for the amount of fun and relaxation they can have with a luxurious pool in their backyard.
