No matter where you live and regardless of the weather in your area, your property and gardens will have their own specific microclimate which is created because of several different local factors. Some of these factors are the direction your property faces, how it’s protected from the wind, amount of slope, and how much sun or shade it gets. Planning your landscape with microclimates in mind could be an important element in how successful your landscaping or garden turns out to be.
A structure or building placed on your lot can cause a number of different effects on the microclimate. All your landscaping plans could easily be effected by just one placement. A house can create a windbreak that alters the flow of air around it. Different areas on either side of the house will be cooler or warmer than others. There will also be shady spots in different places around the building at different times of the day. Walls and fences similarly have an effect on a site, as do natural features like trees and hedges.
Local temperature changes depend a lot on the composition of the ground surface. Some surfaces get so hot that you cannot walk on them in warmer summer months and the heat is also felt in the air above. In comparison, a concrete surface keeps cooler. All landscaping plans will be effected differently by different elements. Lawn grass is always cool. However, the length of the grass does have an influence on the temperature of the soil underneath it. Temperature changes like this can help you grow warmth loving plants like semi tropical and some tropical varieties. Surfaces that get hot during the day will slowly release the heat throughout the night. This effect can sometimes prevent frost damage in areas that are susceptible.
To help reduce wind in any landscape or garden, a barrier or block of some type is usually necessary. It’s been noticed that solid wind barriers such as solid wood fencing makes areas of turbulence on both sides of the barrier. This is common knowledge to most landscape design contractors. The best type of barriers are those that are semi-permeable and allow some air flow. A partial barrier like that will work more like a filter rather than a solid baracade. To create an effective wind barrier, you can place light foliaged trees, an open boarded fence, or a brick fence with spaces left between the bricks.
Ponds, pools, and other areas of water will create different effects in microclimates. It stabilises air temperature more or less depending on the size of the pond. A pond reflects light from its surface, so plants surrounding a pond tend to get both more water and more light than those planted elsewhere. However, while a pond has a cooling effect on a hot summer’s day, it can have a positively chilling effect in winter, so you have to remember this when deciding where to place a pond in your garden.
Both people and vegetation get more out of it when you consider your site’s microclimate and plan accordingly.



