Revitalizing Retail Spaces: Landscaping Ideas to Attract More Customers

Landscaping might not be the first thing customers think of when they head to a retail destination, but it’s the first thing they see.

Great retail landscaping sets the mood, makes a first impression, and, if you’re doing it right, makes customers stick around for a while — which means they’re shopping more and dining more. 

Vibrant, innovative landscape enhancements make your retail site more beautiful, welcoming and comfortable.

And more shoppable.

How? Let’s take a look.

Multi-use Outdoor Spaces: Make Shopping an Event

It’s not enough these days to offer shopping. Customers are drawn to multi-use havens, bustling hot spots that are about way more than shopping. Landscaping design for retail has gone upscale.

Area retailers have had great success with open-air multi-use gathering spots that have become irresistible destinations. 

Sure, shoppers can buy a book, grab a latte or shop for school clothes, but they can also gather around a crackling fire pit beneath strings of twinkling lights, take an outdoor fitness class, bring the pooch for a romp at the dog park. There are corn hole boards, wine tastings, and movie nights. 

Fantastic retail landscaping encourages customers to linger, relax and stay a while. The longer they spend, the more they'll, well, spend.

Add to the festive atmosphere with an impressive fountain that adds splash and ambience, and huge planters brimming with beautiful blooms. 

The more people happily mill about, the easier it is to attract tenants. It makes a property more desirable — to everybody. 

Create an irresistible destination. Make it an experience.

Wow Them with Flowers

Seasonal rotations of bright, impressive flowers are a highlight of successful shopping center landscaping, surrounding shoppers and diners with beautiful blooms in beds, planters, and hanging baskets.

Your goal? Everywhere you look, something’s in bloom — New Guinea impatiens, dragon wing begonia, lantana, hibiscus, petunias.

It’s enough to make shoppers take happy selfies by the flowers to post on social media. 

Summer blooms are obvious, but don’t stop there. Consider all four seasons for your retail landscaping flowers. 

In the summer, large planters can brim with colorful angelonia, vinca and elegant ornamental grasses. Choose drought-tolerant varieties to save water. 

In the fall, those planters can impress with cold-hardy evergreens, pretty pansies and ruffly ornamental kale.

In March keep the flower show going with fresh pansies, dianthus and dusty miller to complement the bright tulips, cheerful daffodils and allium that sprout from bulbs planted in the fall.

In the winter, pack those mall landscaping pots with festive pine boughs, red twig dogwood and glossy green holly. Don’t forget to add sparkling lights.

Go beyond what everybody else plants. 

Create wow-worthy tropical-themed planters featuring exotic palms, colorful coleus, bright begonias, striking blue ageratum, salvia in fuschia and midnight blue. 

Large containers of palms and intriguing tropical plants like variegated ginger lend a vacation feel, even if you're just shopping for new running shoes.

Out With The Old

The shopping center landscaping that was installed decades ago to beautify your retail landscape can now actually detract from it. 

Builders used to use big yews and junipers on retail properties that needed constant shearing. That meant a lot of work, and they’re not even the most appealing landscaping.

Modern retail landscaping uses a much more captivating combination of flowering shrubs and trees, perennials and ornamental grasses that aren’t dependent on such frequent shearing. 

Trees planted years ago for your shopping center landscaping might be so big now they can actually obstruct the view of your retail space from the road. People might not even realize you’re there.

Years ago, Bradford pear and honey locust were popular for retail spots. Now they're in the way. And it turns out they don't even do well in the heat of parking lot asphalt.

Trees in urban shopping center landscaping settings have to weather some tough conditions. Heat. Salt. Drought. Compaction. In this environment, trees don’t last for more than 20 years.

Consider removing aging struggling trees and replacing them with fresh trees, shrubs and plants better suited to challenging conditions. Red maple, Zelkova ‘Green Vase,’ Crape Myrtle and Littleleaf Linden are all good bets for parking lot islands.

Create Pleasant Screening

If you have a restaurant on site with an outdoor eating area, make the most of it with natural privacy screening. The right plants or small trees will add privacy and add an outdoor room vibe so diners don’t feel they’re eating on a sidewalk. 

Big, artistic planters with intriguing plants, softly bubbling fountains and appealing, professional lighting add to the mood.

Maintenance and Upkeep: Details Matter

All the flowers, fountains and fire pits won’t matter if there are unsightly or unsafe issues in your shopping center landscaping. 

You need a commercial landscaping company dedicated to the details, with an emphasis on the proactivity needed to keep your property pristine. 
No tree limbs hanging down to snag pedestrians. No grasses flopping over onto walkways. No loose or missing pavers. 
Dead plant material? Mulch out of place? Weeds? Nope, nope, nope. 

It means regular eagle-eye inspections, with skilled crews keeping an eye out for weeds, faded flowers, dead tree branches or parking lot islands with overgrown grass. 

You shouldn’t have to ask about issues like this, or point them out. Proactivity means your landscaping partner is already on top of it.

Bring In The Shoppers With Level Green Landscaping

If you’re in charge of retail commercial landscaping in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, you already have a lot on your plate.

Partner with the experts at Level Green Landscaping for the proactive attention to detail and innovative enhancements that will make your retail landscaping the kind of destination that keeps visitors coming back.

We’d love to tell you more.

If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers. Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.

Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.

We’d love to hear from you.