Resort Landscape Design Inspirations for Your Commercial Property

What’s the difference between your property’s landscape and a getaway resort landscape? Not as much as you think. The right design at the right scale is often all it takes to give your residents and guests a similar feeling to what they get while visiting a resort.

Nearly every property, no matter the region of the country, can offer the tropical vibes of palm trees, tranquil water features, meandering paths, and gathering spaces beneath open skies. 

And there are proven strategies that make it possible on any budget. In this article, we’ll cover:

• What Defines Resort-Style Landscape Design?
• Resort-Inspired Amenities for Everyday Spaces
• Resort-Level Outdoor Furniture
• Regional Plant Palettes for a Resort Feel
• Design Flexibility Customized for Your Budget
• Working With a Landscape Design Expert
• Interview Snippets from a Yellowstone Landscape Designer and a Recent Design

What Defines Resort Landscaping Design? 

Three key things define landscaping often seen at high-end resorts. Let’s look at each, starting with “rooms.”

1. Outdoor Rooms

Outdoor rooms should be made to feel intentional. Intentional in form and function. It’s similar to the way we experience rooms inside a home. Each area should have a main purpose in mind. 

For example, a seating area beneath a pergola surrounded by palms is meant for relaxation. This space should be isolated from noisier areas with clearly defined “walls” created by hedges, trees, living walls, and other privacy screens.

A bubbling water feature is a nice addition to this kind of space.

2. Sensory Experiences

The second key to making luxury landscaping ideas a reality is sensory experiences. Lots of options exist, but sound, scent, and lighting are proven ways to help people feel like they’re at their favorite resort (even if they're sitting outside their office building!).

Fountains, large or small, provide peaceful sounds along with mental health benefits of blue spaces. Then, you have fragrant plant species like jasmine to heighten the enjoyment of residents. Various scents have different upsides, but nearly all pleasant scents are mental cues for fond memories of other outdoor venues like vacation resorts. 

Of course, the right lighting sets the mood for outdoor dining or active evening events such as small concerts. In addition to the safety aspect, subtle path lighting is a budget friendly option for sensory experiences while strolling around a property. 

“Uplighted” trees, especially specimen trees, make a bolder statement.

3. Transitions Between Spaces

It’s amazing how flowing curves in resort-style landscaping appeal to people. Smooth contours are easy on the eyes, blending with the curves of many natural elements, like a flower’s petals. 

Designers of resort landscapes use their experience to make every transition feel like a chance to discover something fresh. That might look like stepping stones surrounded by zoysia grass leading to a rose garden. Or perhaps a winding path of river rock that reveals a koi pond teeming with life.

We asked one of our Yellowstone Landscape Designers: Can you share an example of a project where you helped “create outdoor rooms”?

For the project shown below, the clients requested a tropical oasis. I selected plants that can tolerate the temperature extremes in central Texas. The main features are the Windmill palms. They’re native to China, but also tolerate Texas weather well. I used Sago palms and Dwarf palmettos to help create separation between the spaces—outdoor rooms. 

For aroma, I chose Autumn sage and Upright rosemary. To pull the tropical feel into the landscape, I used plants you see in places like Miami. Canna lily, dianella, and oleander. I added Bicolor iris as an infill to add movement, primarily around the hammocks.

When designing this, I pictured myself in the landscape. If I were to relax on one of the hammocks, what would I want to see and hear? The palms and Bicolor iris add visual appeal plus peaceful rustling sounds from the wind. 

Resort Inspired Amenities for Everyday Spaces

Some of the great things about resort landscapes that stand out in vacationers’ minds are the amenities. And the good thing about the list of epic amenities below is that they’re able to be brought home in everyday residential spaces like HOA communities, multifamily properties, and townhouse developments.

A few of our favorite resort-style amenities for everyday spaces:

• Water features like fountains, shallow reflecting pools, or waterfalls
• Outdoor fire features, like fire tables and fire bowls
• Pergolas & cabanas create upscale shade 
• Private seating nooks with lush planting
• Outdoor kitchens and gathering areas 
• Walking paths with botanical interest

Let’s look at each of those amenities.

Seating

Private seating nooks can be tucked in behind natural wood screens, blooming shrubs, or low-maintenance evergreen trees. These spaces are ideal for a couple’s morning coffee talk or an individual reading space. 

Water Features

Next, water features have come a long way. In fact, a hot trend is shallow reflection pools. They are low-maintenance ways to offer sunset reflections found at tropical resorts. 

Fire 

The flip side of water features is fireplaces, chimineas, and fire bowls. While these often serve as leisure centers, plenty of activity is offered too, like with tasty s’mores roasting. And with sculptural fire tables, the aesthetics persist in daytime, even without a flame. 

Upscale Shade

Moving on to pergolas and cabanas. These are resort-level landscape features on a premium level. They offer a simple way to turn any patio into an outdoor living room. They’re perfect for pool areas that need a little more flair with an added bonus of sun protection. 

Pathways

And if you’re looking to tune up your spaces for outdoor exercise, community walking paths are being used more frequently. A walking path is more enjoyable (with added health benefits) when there’s ample botanical interest along the way. There’s visual appeal, but also sweet-scented blooms and intriguing plant textures to enjoy.

Outdoor Kitchens

Finally, outdoor kitchens are the perfect way to bring neighbors together in community spaces. Fully equipped grills, pizza ovens, and kitchen islands are a growing trend. And why not? With weather-resistant materials and easy-to-clean surfaces, these kitchens provide a way to make events more tempting to attend with freshly grilled food.

We asked another of our Yellowstone Landscape Designers: What resort-inspired amenities are easiest to implement in apartments or townhomes?

“Private seating alcoves and water features are top of the list. Compact fountains or bubbling urns bring instant calm and class, even to small courtyards. Adding defined lounge zones with movable planters or trellises lets you upgrade community vibes without big construction too.”

Follow Up Question: What’s the most creative amenity you’ve designed recently?

“We completed a pollinator garden in a courtyard. The idea came from a common resort entrance landscape design feature, which is the biodiversity and wildlife views. Pollinator gardens attract beautiful butterflies and hummingbirds for residents to enjoy watching. 

Resort Worthy Outdoor Furniture

Subtle differences in outdoor furniture choices impact the vibe given off by green spaces. See the comparisons below that turn a decent outdoor area into one that puts people into a deeper mode of relaxation.

Resort-style sectionals vs. standard outdoor sofas. Deep, sink-in cushions encourage conversation and a slower pace. Unlike basic patio sofas, these luxury pieces use weather-resistant, quick-dry foam and premium outdoor fabrics.

Resort-themed dining sets vs. generic bistro sets. Powder-coated aluminum and synthetic teak are durable and attractive compared to lower-quality sets. The cohesive style and smooth finishes are subtle, affordable upgrades.

Outdoor daybeds with retractable canopies vs. basic benches or loungers. Stylish and functional daybeds whisper ‘resort’ and invite guests to rest and recharge. They provide sun protection and privacy. The shade, along with oversized cushions and unique shapes (e.g., oval or pod-like), make this outdoor furniture an experiential centerpiece.

Regional Plant Palettes for a Resort Feel

Every region that Yellowstone Landscape serves has a variety of plants available to make a property feel like a luxury resort. To help you see the variety available, we’ll break down plant ideas for resort landscaping region-by-region. 

Southwest

Great palm tree opportunities in this region are the Mexican fan palm and Date palm. Color explodes with salvia and desert willow, while bird of paradise and agave provide unique foliage.

For the invigorating scent of resort air, Texas mountain laurel is ideal for the Southwest U.S. Three appealing grasses are blue grama, Mexican feather, and bear grass.

Midwest

It might be hard to believe the Midwest can have a tropical resort feel. Not when Canna lilies and hardy banana plants are used wisely. Splashes of color from hibiscus and coneflowers go great with container palms like the Majesty palm for seasonal accents. 

Mock orange and lilac produce fragrances that residents love as they arrive home, similar to driving up to a resort for the first time. 

Southeast

Three good Southeast palm species are the Windmill, Pindo, and Sabal palm. For tropical foliage, elephant ear plants and banana plants are popular choices. Crape myrtles and lantana offer exquisite color on par with world-class resort landscaping. 

What about those swaying grasses that resorts are known for? Commercial properties in the Southeast are suited for fountain grass, switchgrass, and sea oats. To add outdoor fragrance, go with jasmine and gardenias.

Northeast

Not to be left out, the Northeast gets in on resort landscape design by installing large-leaf hostas and cannas. Seasonal topicals or palms can be used in warm weather, then moved indoors for cold months.

Black-eyed Susans are amazing for plant palettes, as are hydrangeas. Lilac and Sweetbay magnolia offer calming scents while fountain grass and Japanese forest grass add movement and tangibility to a resort-style landscape. 

Resort Landscape Design Flexibility For Your Budget

One of the things we spend a lot of time talking with our clients about is reassuring them that a landscape can be breathtaking without busting your budget. Resort-styled landscapes are as possible on a community greenbelt as they are at an all-inclusive resort. There is an “if,” though.

Premium landscapes are possible on any budget if specific strategies are utilized. The first strategy is modular planning.

Modular Planning 

Modular planning helps your landscape firm provide you with:

• Cost-effectiveness through less material waste
• Quality components
• Efficient installation
• Sustainability

This type of planning means you don’t have to go all in on a giant landscape redesign. Instead, you can break down a resort-level vision into smaller projects. 

For example, your provider might suggest installing a pergola and a living wall in a shady section of your lawn versus tearing out the entire lawn to install five different outdoor rooms.

Container gardens are often used in modular planning, too. They’re incredibly flexible. 

They are ideal for adding instant color. Plus, container plants can be used for special events. You can even rotate some of them indoors and outdoors as the season dictates. This strategy is great if you’re considering enhancing your interiorscaping, too.  

The next strategy that puts any landscape on par with resort landscaping is phased installation.

Phased Installation 

Phases of installation can cover several years or the next twelve months. Short-term phased installation might look like adding annual color rotations two to four times a year. How about long-term? 

In year one, your landscape provider would likely suggest sprucing up the property’s most visible areas. Resort entrance landscape design, signage areas, and road frontage are opportunities. Perhaps in year two, palm species could be added to the most popular gathering spaces (as long as it’s the right plant in the right place).

Year three could involve adding vibrant flowers to the pool area, using an ideal bloom cycle to keep residents feeling a fresh, colorful ambiance with each season. 

The final strategy that makes landscaping budgets go further is smart plant layering. 

Plant Layering

The next time you arrive at a nice resort for vacation, take a moment to notice the layered designs. Often, you’ll see native, low-maintenance plants in layered combinations. 

These resort landscape designs offer visuals that showcase tall shrubbery beneath skybound palm trees. Then there are bursts of color from annuals alongside textured grasses that dance along the breeze. Reduced maintenance on layered plantings saves property owners on labor costs while smart plant groupings ensure irrigation efficiency. 

There are also potential savings with reduced need for mulch with plants filling out landscape beds and naturally suppressing unsightly weeds.

We asked a Yellowstone Landscape Designer: How do you approach budget-conscious design without sacrificing the ‘wow’ factor?

“We start by zooming in on sightlines and key gathering spaces. What will residents or visitors actually see and use? We layer color and interest where it matters most, use native plants, and pick hardscape materials that deliver maximum impact for the dollar.

Follow Up Question: Any creative budget workarounds for luxury landscaping design ideas worth highlighting?

“Container gardens are the go-to for budget flexibility. Group them for big impact, move them as needs change, and swap out plantings seasonally for fresh effect. Upgrade an older shrub bed with new mulch and pruning before you invest in replacements. And phase in amenities—a great firepit or garden lounge can transform a property. A full pool deck renovation can wait its turn when the time is right.”

Working With A Landscape Design Expert

At Yellowstone Landscape, we know that tailored landscape designs are the difference between a nice landscape and a truly remarkable one. That’s why we offer our certified landscape designer services to all our maintenance clients at no extra cost.

This gives our customers the chance to bring luxury landscaping ideas to life for their residents and guests. Additionally, professional design offers new ways to utilize their green spaces. Efficient design can save clients money by using sustainable methods that reduce maintenance and conserve natural resources. 

With years of experience designing top-tier landscapes, our teams have worked on popular resort properties, luxury HOA clubhouses, and attractive multifamily properties. That experience means we’re able to envision and create iconic landscaping throughout a property or inside a hidden garden nook. 

Tailored landscape design and maintenance programs make it possible for Yellowstone Landscape clients to have amazing landscapes on any budget that can rival even our own award-winning properties. 

If you’ve been wondering how to turn your property into more of a destination, contact Yellowstone Landscape. Our design team will work with you to create spaces your community can’t wait to come home to.