5 Ways To Integrate Technology Into Your Backyard Design

You have several simultaneous goals when creating a suitable space in front of or behind your home. You want a space that looks great, a place where you and your guests can enjoy time outdoors, and a yard that only requires a little time and effort regularly. The increasingly complicated and stressful 21st century makes it more essential than ever to have a natural oasis to spend time in, but that’s also easier to accomplish when you integrate technology into your landscape. These are five ways to incorporate technology into your backyard design.

1. Robotic Grass Cutting

You’re probably already familiar with indoor robots that automatically sweep your home; some of them can vacuum and mop. Why not let a robot mow your yard? Early models of grass-cutting robots could have been more efficient, but they sometimes got lost and left portions of their yards uncut. However, robotic lawn mowers improved lately, and prices have become more affordable.

2. Motion-Activated Technology

Motion-activated technology only turns on when it detects something moving across your property. Lighting with this feature turns on to provide illumination for someone walking through your yard or to warn off intruders. You can install motion-activated sprinklers as a deterrent to trespassers, and motion-activated cameras start recording when someone walks into the frame.

3. Integrated Lighting

Solar-powered lighting has been around for some time. You can install these pieces of technology for backyard lighting without connecting them to a power source. However, for years, the available light was only yellow or white. LED lights offer a spectacular range of colors and applications to create specific moods in each zone of your landscaping.

4. Automatic Irrigation

If you don’t like watering your backyard but know it needs to be done, then this is one very alluring way of integrating technology into landscape design. You’ll save time, but you might also save money with a system that only delivers the water levels necessary for a specific plant’s growing schedule. Many automatic irrigation systems even track rainfall to reduce their output level when Mother Nature provides moisture.

5. Watching the Garden Grow

Plants grow too slowly for you to sit and watch them from your back porch. However, you can still track their growth rate with specialized cameras in the garden and periodically snap images of the things in front of them. This creates a track of visual time-lapse photography you can review later for a mini-movie of garden growth. Choose your settings for images taken every minute or just once a day. This might help you identify critters that occasionally interrupt your plants’ development.

Keep an Open Mind

The gardening and landscaping industries mostly stayed the same for several decades, but innovative technology is changing that. You can integrate many pieces of technology into your property to improve it, but some technological advances aren’t things you’ll ever plug into a socket. Specific examples include weatherproof fabrics and hardware and 3D printing used to make everything from lawn ornaments to bird fountains.