Landscaping in Adams Township

Adams Township, together with Mars borough and Seven Fields, sits immediately east and north of Cranberry and shares a lot of its growth pattern — but the properties are bigger and the brief is usually different.

Houses here are newer and substantial, and they were typically handed over with a rear yard that is flat, seeded and completely empty. The land was graded to move water off it, which is not the same as grading it to be used.

So the work skews toward outdoor living rather than correction. Paver patios, fire pits, pergolas, built-in seating and the lighting that makes all of it usable after dinner. Where the ground falls away behind the house, a retaining wall comes first and the patio sits on top of it.

Planting plans here have to account for time. The trees are young, so a bed designed for the shade that exists today will be wrong in eight years. We plant for what the canopy becomes rather than what it is.